Stop Olympic Cleansing in Calais

The lead up to the Olympics has seen a rapid increase of police brutality against migrant communities in Calais and their supporters. People have been pre-emptively arrested, and beaten, during official Olympic visits and there has been a big sweep of all people's living spaces, evicting and demolishing many of the buildings where migrants sleep and driving people out of the city.

Calais is an 'Olympic village' during the Games. In preparation the authorities have begun cleaning up the streets of 'undesirables' and launching a dual operation, running an artificial 'Welcome the World' campaign to boost tourism from passing athletes and spectators whilst at the same time cracking down on migrants, driving out 'foreigners' who do not have cash to spend.

Over 100 million euros have been pumped into the area for the Olympics in order to build gymnasiums and boost tourism. Nord Pas-de-Calais hosted over 47 foreign delegations last year, including for example from Pakistan and Senegal, visiting to use these facilities.

It is darkly hypocritical that the council is working with tour operators, even releasing a guide of 'how to cater to tourists', organising cultural events, dances and shows every evening throughout the Games to keep holidaymakers happy whilst at the same time the police and the right-wing townhall are making life impossible for other 'foreigners', kicking them out of their homes on to the streets.

Many people from different countries like Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq are stuck in this city as it is a bottleneck for migrants and refugees who are trying to reach the UK. Migrants face constant harassment and abuse by the police patrolling around the city and port. For the last several years there has been a big push to make Calais 'migrant free'. These last months have seen a marked increase in attacks on people's sleeping places making life increasingly difficult for people to exist here.

The Olympics is a huge commercializing enterprise and globally televised feeding-frenzy for sponsoring corporations such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, BP, Dow Chemicals and Group 4 Security – some of the worst offending companies with a whole host of abuses against people and the environment the world over.

London will be on military lock-down during the Olympics as the government showcases its arsenal of draconian technology and stifling security measures justified, once again, by the threat of 'terrorism'. The cities will be militarized with police and private security occupying the streets, flyer drones for aerial surveillance alongside snipers on rooftops and ground to air missiles on stand-by, all to keep the
Olympic industry secure.

The Olympics is a clear reflection and reinforcement of privilege, exposing the divide between people – those who benefit from the Games and those that are bulldozed out of the way.

The history of the Games is marred with galvanizing the oppression of the day, from the Olympic games in Berlin 1936 where a huge effort to 'clean up' the streets meant all 'undesirables' – mainly Gypsies and political enemies – were pre-emptively arrested and put in detention. Hitler also used the event to install an early form of CCTV surveillance, which is nothing to rival the Big Brother surveillance over London today. To the Tlatelolco massacre, where the Mexican government open fired on an anti-Olympics rally, killing hundreds of people, in the lead up to the Games in 1968. The last Games in China 2008 saw a pre-Olympics systematic 'round up' of political activists, imprisoning, beating and torturing dissenters in the lead up to the Games. And now, today, pre-emptive arrests and evictions across London and Calais is part of the latest 'clean up' of cities to pave way for the Olympic elite.

Throughout history people have moved. Border surveillance and controls is making it increasingly difficult for people to migrate or seek refuge in other countries.

Border and immigration regimes have become complicated systems of segregation, building walls and barriers between people and persecuting people primarily based on their nationality and income.

FREEDOM TO MOVE, FREEDOM TO STAY, FREEDOM TO LIVE... FOR ALL PEOPLE!
BOYCOTT THE OLYMPICS!

Calais Migrant Solidarity
Gathering evidence of police violence in Calais since 2009, see 'This Border Kills':  http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/this-border-kills-our-dossier-of-violence