#europe on refugees

[metamatar]

With a budget nearing $1 billion, Frontex is the EU’s best-funded government agency. [...] including by helping Libya’s EU-funded coast guard send hundreds of thousands of migrants back to be detained in Libya under conditions that amounted to torture and sexual slavery. In 2022, the agency’s director, Fabrice Leggeri, was forced out over a mountain of scandals, including covering up similar ​“pushback” deportations, which force migrants back across the border before they can apply for asylum.

[...] EU hopes to extend Frontex’s reach far beyond its territory, into sovereign African nations Europe once colonized, with no oversight mechanisms to safeguard against abuse. Initially, the EU even proposed granting immunity from prosecution to Frontex staff in West Africa. [...] 26 African countries have received taxpayer euros aimed at curbing migration through more than 400 discrete projects. Between 2015 and 2021, the EU invested $5.5 billion in such projects, with more than 80% of the funds coming from developmental and humanitarian aid coffers.

[...] Besides the surveillance tech the DNLT branches receive, migration data analysis systems have also been installed at each post, along with biometric fingerprinting and facial recognition systems. The stated aim is to create what eurocrats call an African IBM system: Integrated Border Management. [...] no European countries maintain databases with this level of biometric information.

[...] In Niger, for instance, the EU helped draft a law that criminalized virtually all movement in the north of the country, effectively making regional mobility illegal.

[mapsontheweb]

Syrian refugees in Europe

[probablyasocialecologist]

Impermanent mobility rather than stale stability is the towering metaphor of who and what we are and where we think we live. Fictive frontiers, moving signposts, barbed wires, tall apartheid walls, military checkpoints, militarized airports, train and bus stations, stormy seas, leaking refugee boats, drowning parents and dead children’s bodies.… Our metaphysics must start there, for it has long moved there. The metaphysics of our being in the world start with the weakest and most vulnerable, not with the strongest sporting a U.S. or EU passport. There is no self or any other on that leaking sinking boat. There is no self or other, and therefore there is no dis-othering on that boat. In dis-othering we are carrying the delusion of a safe destiny from behind secured walls to stormy seas and leaking boats, there to ignore the fact of a perilous journey as the single most defining metaphysical uncertainty of our existence today.

Hamid Dabashi, Europe and Its Shadows: Coloniality After Empire

[antifainternational]

20-25 August, Utrecht - No Border Camp

With a solidarity demo for the refugees at Kamp Zeist today, August 21, and a final demonstration on Saturday the 24th. The other days have various workshops and events.

[kingricardus]

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Ukrainian refugees work as shoemakers in a displacement camp in Germany after World War II.

Millions of Ukrainians were taken by the Nazis as slaves during the war, and hundreds of thousands were left stateless as their land was absorbed into the Soviet Union.

[spinosacha]

To members of the EU: remember that there is election for the european parliament the 6-9th of June depending on your country.

The european parliament is the sector of EU that is elected by and represents the people of the EU. They vote on legislation and have huge power.

I know the EU system can be very confusing but you don’t have to know everything to know which party or MEP you agree with. If you care about Palestine, climate change, the biodiversity collaps, refugees, lgbtq rights, Ukraine, womens rights or any issue really, then this is election is important to you.

Also remember to check out the deadline for letter voting, it’s usually a little earlier.

[drsonnet]

"The Last Farewell"

11 year-old Palestinian boy named Abdulrahaman Abu Jalambo lost his life after an Israeli army's attack at the Bureij Refugee Camp, as his body is brought to the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Balah, Gaza. (Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

[zatdummesmadchen]

Please take a minute to read our story in Gaza, after I lost my home for the third time, we lost our work, and we are in a tragic situation.

This sums up my daughter's situation with her four siblings. She cannot continue living without your help. Donate, share the story and send it to your friends. Any small amount helps save my children's lives, share now on your account.

https://www.tumblr.com/monashamali/755533032132395008/donate-to-help-the-munna-tashmali-family-rebuild?source=share

🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉

HELLO EVERYONE PLEASE DO PAY ATTENTION !

PLEASE TRY TO DONATE AND HELP THIS FAMILY GET SAFETY !

🔻🔻🔻

🕊🕊🕊

AT THE VERY LEAST CONSIDER REBLOGGING SO IT REACHES MORE PEOPLE !

REMEMBER EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS AND ADDS UP MORE !

🫒🫒🫒🫒🫒🫒🫒🫒

[loveisinthebat]

Quality Fluffball

[mapsontheweb]

Map of the German occupation zones, new Polish borders and the displaced persons/refugees after WW2

[feckcops]

The migrant shipwreck near Greece is a horrible tragedy – but it wasn’t an accident

“The Greek coast guard’s conflicting account states that the vessel was first spotted by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, at midday on Tuesday, June 13. It claims that once it achieved contact, those on board repeatedly stated that ‘the boat was not in danger, they wanted no help other than food and water, and that they wished to continue on to Italy.’ The coast guard states that at 1:40 a.m., the boat ceased moving, and at 2:04 a.m., a coast guard floating vessel reported that the trawler had capsized.

“International legal experts have noted that even if those on board the trawler said they did not want to be rescued, the coast guard had the obligation to independently evaluate if it was seaworthy and intervene if it was not. Photos of the trawler show that it was clearly overpacked, those on board did not appear to be wearing life vests, and the vessel was not flying any flag …

“These tragedies are no accident, but a product of political choices. Over the past decade, the EU has reduced access to asylum and made arriving on the continent ever more difficult — increasing policing and surveillance along its borders, erecting and expanding walls, and illegally pushing back thousands of people …

“There are years of evidence that Greece and Frontex regularly engage in and cooperate on illegal pushbacks — pushing migrants back over the border despite their right to seek asylum. In recent years, these pushbacks have been stepped up, both on the country’s northern land border and at sea. Those caught on the northern border are usually beaten, robbed of their phones and all their valuables, often stripped naked, and put in boats on the river Évros. People who arrive on Greek islands are usually gathered up, put on rubber boats, and abandoned at sea. Boats intercepted in the Aegean Sea are often damaged or have their engines removed, or else the Hellenic Coast Guard will simply tow them back to Turkish waters.”

[leroibobo]

the paradesi synagogue in kochi, kerala, india. the first synagogue on the site, built by the city's longstanding malabari jewish community, was destroyed by portugese who'd colonized the area in their persecution of locals. it was rebuilt in 1568 by spanish and portugese jews who fled persecution and later expulsion, hence the name "paradesi" ("foreign" in malayalam).

these sephardic jews and a community of jews of mixed african and european descent who were formerly enslaved ("meshuchrarim", "freedmen" in hebrew) joined the malabari jewish community of kochi and somewhat integrated. they were later joined by some iraqi, persian, yemenite, afghan, and dutch sephardic jews. the middle eastern and european jews were considered "white jews" and permitted malabari jews and meshuchrarim to worship in the synagogue. however, in what seems like a combination of local caste dynamics and racism, malabari jews were not allowed full membership. meshuchrarim weren't allowed in at all, but were instead made to sit outside during services and not allowed their own place of worship or other communal rights.

as the "white jews" tended to be rather wealthy from trade, this synagogue contains multiple antiquities. they include belgian glass chandeliers on its walls, hand-painted porcelain tiles from china on its floors, and an oriental rug that was gifted by ethiopian emperor haile selassie.

[kingricardus]

[ageofgeek]

i really don’t care that much about the oceangate incident, but if y’all could stop just using the tragic loss of hundreds of refugees in Greece as whataboutism, that would be great

it’s gross and you clearly don’t give a shit about them outside of the excuse that it gives you to make fun of billionaires