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Calais sea festival/ Evictions and resistance

Chiara | 03.06.2014 19:55 | Anti-racism | Migration | Policing

The migrants evicted from the camps have occupied the place of food distribution; the police will not evict them until the end of the week.... we need to use the festival as an occasion to raise awareness/ spread information - since three migrant camps housing well over 600 refugees and migrants were evicted for the occasion!

Three squats opened by No Borders/ Salut a toit, housing over 100 migrants, are also under eviciton and could be evicted any moment.

The women's squat in Victor Hugo will not be evicted thanks to successful campaigning and will stay until the women and children are re- housed in a better place -however we are no more there, since the prefect Denis Robin ordered the association Solid'R to take it over, else it would close it!



The migrants evicted from the camps have occupied the place of food distribution; the police will not evict them until the end of the week.... we need to use the festival as an occasion to raise awareness/ spread information - since three migrant camps housing well over 600 refugees and migrants were evicted for the occasion!

Three squats opened by No Borders/ Salut a toit, housing over 100 migrants, are also under eviciton and could be evicted any moment.

The women's squat in Victor Hugo will not be evicted thanks to successful campaigning and will stay until the women and children are re- housed in a better place -however we are no more there, since the prefect Denis Robin ordered the association Solid'R to take it over, else it would close it!


The festival:

It is a very nice reunion of old ships, with sails: the oldest took part in the battle of Trafalgar!
From the place of food distribution, now occupied by well over 300 migrants of all nationalities, we see the ships pass.
There is also a section for fluvial boats that will pass the canal on Friday -near where the camp of the Africans was.
The main event day is Saturday. You can go on the ships. Fireworks.

Leaflet/ poster:

Stop in Calais
against displays of the event causing the destruction of the camps.
does anyone of you have opportunity to make color copies? A3 if possible, or otherwise A

 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1457039374540370&set=o.174026419459683&type=1&theater

.

Evictions and occupations:

Timeline (incomplete):

- Monday26/ Tuesday 27: The Africans who were in the camp by the Town Hall (on the way the river boats will pass), started moving in the place of food distibution and sleeping there.
-Tuesday evening: The treatement for scabies was distributed- only a couple dozen people took it. Nobody went to the showers but two young people: later they called their friends saying they were 150 km from Calais.
-Wednesday 28 May: morning: the two main camps were evicted and destroyed, and a smaller camp near the place of food distribution. The people from the so called Syrian camp, and the smaller camp, occupied the place of food distribution, joining the Africans. No Borders activists phisically stopped the police in riot gear to get to the migrants/ enter the place of food distribution. We are very proud of them. Small barricades were improvised by migrants using ready materials such as rubbish bins. Lots of media present. Great turn out of associations, local people and other anti racists. 5 nazis turned up briefly, sheltering behind the police (Kevin Reche of Sauvons Calais and a few mates).
Also on Wednesday, the same day of the destruction of the camps: police went three times to the Afghan jungle and pepper sprayed some tents. Police have been going there every day since, usually twice, to count people: so, when police say that they will leave migrant people alone if they move to smaller, less visible camps out of town, you can be sure they are lying through their teeth. Arrests and beatings are commonplace in the jungle, besides spraying tents.
-The migrants in the place of food distribution (poplularly called SALAM after the associaton that gives the food) begin to organize autonomously. They have general assemblies, meetings within their communities, and meetings of delegates from the communities - Afghanistan and Pakistan, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sudan, Arabs of different countries. They write a list of demands and refuse to leave the place of food distribution until they are offered solutions. It is an unanimous decision. No Borders, associations, Calais Ouverture Humanité and individuals continue to support. The migrants appreciate the support very much.
The demands:  http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/the-demands-of-the-exiles/
- An Afghan man climbs a pilon just outside the place of food distribution and threatenes to jump. He says he has enough of a life without hope. After 2 hours is rescued by an Afghan friend who goes up to take him with the fire brigade.
-Saturday 31 May
10 am: A representative of the Prefecture goes to meet the migrants in SALAM camp but he does not offer any solution. He says he will return on Tuesday. The sub-prefect Alain Gerrard also arrives.
from 2 pm: Some 350 migrrants and anti-racists gather in place d'Armes.
also from 2pm : emergency distribution of blankets and clothes from the vestiaire.
-All the Africans move from SALAM to the old municipal camping site with all their gear, following some vague promises from police. No Borders activists go with them. When they arrive they are stopped by police who tell them to go back. The Afghans, who were preparing to go to the same place, start upacking.
-It is now Tuesday: the representative of the Prefecture has not come back but has posponed his visit to date to be announced; it seems the migrants will be left undisturbed in the place of food distribution until after the week end.

PLEASE COME TO CALAIS AND SUPPORT.
Watch the ships, meet the people and prepare for the evictions!

Resistance now and always!

Chiara

For more information:

 http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/
 https://passeursdhospitalites.wordpress.com/

Chiara

Comments

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View from America - Europe's crime rate rises; US rate declines

19.06.2014 14:08

While most Americans are witnessing dramatic decreases in violent and property crime, our friends and allies across the pond in Britain are experiencing alarming increases. In a recent British news article, the writer lamented the loss of British citizens who have fled the United Kingdom and moved to Australia or the United States. They estimate that over a quarter-million Britons leave the British Isles each year.

Last year alone over 324,000 Brits left for greener pastures in the US and Australia. However, Britain's population continues to grow with massive immigration and their higher birthrate. Brit flight — coupled with a lower birth rate among Britons — will almost certainly accelerate a change in demographics.

The newspaper, The Independent, quoted one businessman who complained that crime and immigration — mostly from the Middle East and North Africa — are out of control. With this increase in immigrants — legal and illegal — came an increase in crime, violence and civil unrest. The businessman moved to Australia.

An example of this disenchantment with life in the British Isles is the recent release from prison of thousands of violent criminals and sex offenders who are putting Britons at severe risk, according to a damning report. A high-profile study to be published later this month is expected to reveal that dangerous ex-convicts are not being screened properly before they're released, and they are not being adequately supervised in the community.

According to London-based journalist Sophie Goodwin, there are about 30,000 released prisoners convicted of violent and sexual offenses currently living in the community, thousands of whom are infrequently supervised. The potential threat becomes more profound by a soon-to-be released report after an extensive investigation into the murder of a London banker. The final investigative report is likely to blame his killing on the failures in the British criminal justices system to monitor dangerous ex-cons, many of whom are immigrants.

The International Crime Victims Survey, based on 34,000 telephone interviews across 17 countries, found that 26 percent of people — more than one in four — in England and Wales had been victims of crime. The figure for Scotland was 23 percent and in Northern Ireland 15 percent. The United States had a 21 percent crime victimization rate.

After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 percent), Sweden (25 percent) and Canada (24 per cent), all higher than the United States.

In fact, if one discounts crimes committed by illegal aliens — almost 30 percent of American crime — the US would show even more dramatic decreases in violence and crime.

And what has been the British government's reaction? There are suspicions that crime reports are being manipulated to cover-up the increased dangers to public safety.

A headline in the London Daily Telegraph said it all: "Crime Figures a Sham, Say Police." The story noted that "pressure to convince the public that police were winning the fight against crime had resulted in a long list of ruses to 'massage' statistics," and "the recorded crime level bore no resemblance to the actual amount of crime being committed."

For example, where a series of homes were burgled, they were regularly recorded as one crime. If a burglar hit 15 or 20 flats, only one crime was added to the statistics.

A 2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary charges Britain's 43 police departments with systemic under-classification of crime — for example, by recording burglary as "vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on the police's desire to avoid the extra paperwork associated with more serious crimes. Others say the officers are told to reclassify serious crimes to less-than-serious.

Not surprising is the fact that Britons suffer through more burglaries than Americans. The US burglary rate is less than half the English rate. And, while 53 percent of British burglaries occur when someone is at home, only 13 percent do in America. Some believe this may be attributed to the fact that there is a greater likelihood of homeowners being armed in America, therefore America's burglars prefer committing their crimes when occupants are out. Not so in Britain.

Recently, Britain's senior police officers claimed mass immigration has created a whole new range of crimes threatening to overwhelm towns and cities across the country.

Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), claims that the mass movement of people around the world had brought new levels of organized crime, with drug dealing, gun offenses, prostitution and kidnapping.

Claiming the numbers of asylum seekers coming to Britain had reached "tidal wave" proportions, Fox said, "Mass migration has brought with it a whole new range and a whole new type of crime, from the Nigerian fraudster, to the eastern European who deals in drugs and prostitution to the Jamaican concentration on drug dealing."

Add to that the home grown criminals and we have a whole different family of people who are competing to be in the organized crime world, he said in an interview with The Observer ahead of ACPO's annual conference. Fox said that he did not blame genuine asylum seekers, but some towns and cities were struggling to cope with the influx.

"The mass movement of people has made it worse. It is accepted that [if] people do move for security, safety and to avoid terror, among them there will be people who aren't moving for those purposes. Similarly, gangs see a chance to earn money by moving people and getting people into countries without going through all the checks. This mass movement brings with it the opportunity for criminals to move and to make money," Fox told The Observer.

While overall crime in Europe is rising, the liberal-left in American continues to deceptively use the myth of low crime in Britain, France and other countries in order to disarm US gunowners, embarrass US law enforcement, and claim socialist programs will reduce crime in the United States.

They will argue we should seek to duplicate Europe's strategies for combating poverty, drug addiction, crime and violence. Well, we should just tell our friends on the left, "No thanks, we're doing fine without your help."

Jim Kouri


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