Fighting the borderregime! Transnationalization now!

Between February and October 2008 a series of events, protests and actions will take place in various cities and countries all over Europe and beyond : against the border regime, against detentions and deportations, against the exploitation of migrant labour and for legalization of all migrants. This transnational chain of struggles builds on the three action days for freedom of movement and the right to stay, which happened in previous years. But with this chain of events we are aiming for something more. We strongly believe that the transnational expression of migrants’ struggles against the "monster” of migration controls must be something more than a one day event once a year. We believe that the transnational space must be understood as an unified space of migrants’ struggles, happening everyday and right now.

This transnational chain of struggles is our attempt to find out what is "common" among the manifold differences experienced by migrants in Europe and beyond. Ranging from temporary seasonal workers who are exploited in the fields of Andalusia in Spain; to "legal" migrants who live and work everyday in Eurospace; undocumented migrants working in irregular jobs in Italy or the UK, in factories or in the home, as many women do; "tolerated refugees" living in an isolated "junglecamp" in Northern-Germany; migrants detained in a camp in Greece or Poland, or even in front of the externalized EU-borders in Marocco or Ukraine. They all are crossing and forcing the boundaries living inside and struggling against the same "monster” which is the migration-regime!

Of course, we do not ignore the differences in realities and struggles in various regions, countries or continents. But all over the world capitalist exploitation is unimaginable without the global differences, constructed through filters and zones, the hierarchies and inequality, and through the external as well as the internal borders. Illegalisation and deportations on one hand, selective inclusion and recruitment of migrant workforce on the other hand, are two sides of the same coin: migration management for a global apartheid regime, whose most precarious conditions of exploitation are based on the production of hierarchies in terms of rights and on racist discrimination. Low wage countries in the south are used to undercut wages through relocation of production, low wage sectors in the north are targeting young migrant workers: trying to keep them obedient by blackmailing them, as their right of residence is linked to their jobs.

The increasing movements and daily fights of refugees and migrants challenge the external borders of Europe as well as the social and legal borders within Europe itself. The manifold struggles undermine, crisscross and attack the brutal and murderous system of migration control and racist exploitation. This transnational chain of actions is a step toward the linking of these struggles, an attempt to build communication and organization across the borders, knowing that the demands for freedom of movement and the right to stay aim directly at the "heart of the monster", which migrants everyday and everywhere are fighting against.

The stations:

* February 2nd in Amsterdam/Netherlands: Launching point for the chain with the conference "Migrant / Media / Metropolis - New labour struggles in the global city" which will be showcasing the current union organizing campaign "cleaners for a better future" in the Netherlands where migrants from Turkey, Morocco, Suriname, Ghana, Capo Verde and Latin America are fighting for a living wage, respect and full time jobs.
- Further information :: Major Victory for Dutch Cleaners (20. Feb 2008)

* February 23rd in Sevilla/Spain: Demonstration in the frame of an action day for immigrants rights, coordinated through the countrywide network REDI, just two weeks before the general elections in Spain. Demonstrations, actions and meetings will be celebrated in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Pamplona, Burgos...and the 3 demands of all events are: 1- Regularization of all immigrants, 2-Stop the police repression on immigrants, 3- Equal rights for all. In andalucia there will be a centralized demonstration in Sevilla with the central slogan: "Migration is not the problem, the problem is precarity", with the participation of buses from Malaga, Almeria, Cadiz and people from all andalusian cities.
- Call :: Action Day for Immigrants Rights in Spain
- Reports by estrecho.indymedia.org :: 23 de Febrero - Miles de Inmigrantes salen a la calle en varias ciudades españolas para reclamar derechos laborales y sociales para todos (en espanol)

* March 8th in Torino/Italy: mass mobilization for the legalization of all undocumented migrant workers and refugees.
- Call :: Turin - Toward a Migrants' 1st of May!

* March 15th and 16th in Bamako/Mali: Journées Ouvertes avec des travailleurs migrants expulsés et refoulés =Open Days with migrant workers who were deported or sent back The Malian Association of deported migrants (AME), member of the Euro-African network "manifeste euro-africain", will organize two days of meetings with migrant workers who were deported from Europe or sent back on their way. It will be an open space for migrants to tell their stories and for debates, where the local population and especially people who want to migrate are invited.
- Info and agenda :: Meeting with deported migrant workers in Bamako, Mali (english)
- Link :: Malian Association of the Deported (Association Malienne des Expulsés, AME)- expulsesmaliens.org

* March 29th in London/UK: Trade Union and Community Activist Conference Against Immigration Controls, coming together to build a campaign against the intensifying attacks on migrant workers and their communities in the UK. This gathering seeks to develop the capacity of migrants to resist the raids, detention and deportation of migrants, and to challenge workplace exploitation and migrants' exclusion from education, social services and health care.
- Link :: 2nd Trade Union and Community Conference - against Immigration Controls - 29thmarch.org.uk

* April 5th in Athens/Greece: Actions will be organised against border controls, police violence, detention, deportations, against Doublin convention and in solidarity to refugees who reach Europe. For their right to free movement, for their right to asylum and residence in every country they choose!
Actions will take place in nine different cities of Greece: Athens, Thessaloniki, Hania, Volos, Florina, Hios, Samos, Mytilene.
(Note: The date was changed from 29th of March to 5th of April)
- Background :: Theme borderregime Greece

* End of Mai/beginning of June in Warsaw/Poland: Protest and press-conference in front of the headquarter of Frontex against European borderregime and its externalisation to East and South, combined with a transnational online-demonstration against this European Border Agency at the same day...
- Background :: The African victims of FRONTEX in Warsaw (31. Dec 2007)

* August in Hamburg/Germany: Antiracist actioncamp with a focus on EU-charter-deportations to Africa from Hamburg Airport.
- Background :: Call Against Charter Deportations (pdf, Oct 2004)

* September 18th to 21st in Malmoe/Sweden: Presentation and evaluation of the chain of actions in the frame of the next European Social Forum, discussing further perspectives of transnationalization of migrationrelated struggles.

* October 7th near Ceuta in Marocco: Manifestation at the fence of Ceuta. This is the anniversary of Ceuta and Melilla killings and was decided as an international day of solidarity with migrants in Nairobi (World Social Forum).
- Background :: Theme borderegime marocco (scroll down for english articles)

Signatories

* Cleaners for a better Future/Holland; Justice for Janitors/Global Campaigns;
* Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores (SAT); Oficina de Derechos Sociales (Malaga y Sevilla), Red Precarixs en Movimiento, Coordinadora de Inmigrantes de Málaga (CIM), Asociacion Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucia (APDH), Centro Social La Casa Invisible (Málaga), Corriente Roja;
* Tavolo Migranti/Italy;
* Association Malienne des Expulsés (AME)/Bamako
* Network for Social Support to Immigrants and Refugees/Athens
* London Noborders, No One Is Illegal (UK) and the Conference Against Immigration Controls Organising Committee;
* Refugee Council Hamburg, No one is illegal Hanau, Caravan-Group Munich;
* Reseau Manifeste Euro-Africain
* Frassanito Network

more information / contact: frassainfo (at) kein.org