Kompass-newsletter No. 96 - 07+08/2021

 

Hunger Strike of Sans Papiers in Brussels +++ Deportation Alarm +++ 13-15 August: We`ll Come United Summer Meeting in Brandenburg +++ Zapatistas on European Tour +++ 4 September in Berlin: Indivisible Demonstration +++ Initiative 19. February Hanau - current newsletter +++ Deportations Afghanistan +++ Sea Watch documents attacks on refugee boat +++ Balkanbrücke - July 2021 newsletter +++ Abolish Frontex +++ Central Mediterranean: Push Back Collaboration by a Cargo Ship +++ Transnational Strike Platform: The Clash on Mobility in Transnational Europe +++ Review: From Sea to Cities Conference in Palermo +++ Outlook: 15-19 September: Palermo and Dakar Convergence

Dear friends!

The terror of deportations appears both merciless and boundless. In June 2021, a total of 20 (!) charter flights were counted from Germany alone in order to get people out of the country by force and violence. The Deportation Alert (https://noborderassembly.blackblogs.org/de/abschiebe-alarm/) comprehensively documents these border crimes and also repeatedly calls for protests, such as the occupation of the entrances to the Lufthansa headquarters in Berlin on 19 July.

Frontex is significantly involved in the coordination and financing of these charters of shame. The abolition of this agency, which is constantly involved in human rights violations at the internal and external borders of the EU, remains a central demand of anti-racist struggles. Abolish Frontex (https://abolishfrontex.org) is the title of a current campaign that was also recently presented in Palermo.

Palermo had already focused on the right to freedom of movement with its charter from 2015. With a remarkable mayor who already invited to transnational meetings in 2018 and called for corridors of solidarity in a statement. And who continuously - especially in Salvini's time - advocates for open ports and gives honorary citizenship to captains of rescue ships. The Palermo Charter Platform Process started here three years ago, with follow-up meetings in Naples, Barcelona and Bologna. With two working groups that created their own dynamics and structures in 2020/21. 

On the one hand, the Civil MRCC (https://civilmrcc.eu), a civilian rescue coordination in the central Mediterranean, has been developed in operational cooperation at sea. Active members of the Alarm Phone hotline as well as rescue ships and surveillance aircraft leave no stone unturned to support the people on the boats in reaching a safe port in Europe. Every day, around the clock, against the push backs, against the non- assistance and against being left to die at sea by coast guards, militias, border police and, again and again, Frontex. 

Secondly, the "From Sea to City Consortium" was founded to promote exchange and new cooperation between civil society actors and mayors and city councils on a transnational level. At the end of June 2021, "From the Sea to the City" (https://fromseatocity.eu) in Palermo succeeded in launching the "International Alliance of Safe Havens" in a hybrid conference with 33 mayors from different countries - with the central demand of implementing an independent, municipal refugee reception of the cities and municipalities willing to do so.

Finally, a larger meeting is being prepared for September 2021 in the Sicilian capital, the Palermo Convergence (https://trans-border.net/index.php/palermo-convergence-2021/). With planned parallel meetings (probably) in Tunis and (certainly) in Dakar, physical, collective spaces for discussion and reflection should finally be created again, in order to inspire each other both practically and visionarily: for the current and coming struggles against the violence of borders and for the right to freedom of movement!

In this spirit: with solidarity greetings,

the Kompass Crew