no-racism.net logo
 
 

[ 05. Oct 2013 ]

Appeal for the opening of a humanitarian corridor for the European right of asylum

Against the background of the tragedy, which happened on 3rd of October 2013 in front of the iland of Lampedusa, we publish following Appeal for opening a humanitarian corridor for asylum in Europe.

 

In short time this appeals was signed by many groups, organisations and individuals in Italy. You can add your signature to the appeal at :: meltingpot.org/Appello.


Appeal for the opening of a humanitarian corridor for the European right of asylum


Almost every day newspapers report the tragedy that repeatedly takes place in the middle of the blue border: the Mediterranean Sea.
While we are writing, we hear of hundreds of corpses collected form the sea, boys and girls, children and women reversed into the water after the fire burst on board of a boat that was heading to Europe.
These people are asylum seekers, women and men fleeing wars and persecutions, swallowed by the sea in these last decades, just like all the others: about 20.000 persons.

The South-border show made us accustomed to watch the constant repetition of tragedies like this one with the eyes of someone who, powerless, can only keep on hoping that every shipwreck will finally be the last. As if the only way to look at those who escape from war, would be to do it with the eyes of who wait the boat at the port, sometimes to rescue it, sometimes to send it back and some other times to collect its wreckage.

Because Europe - capable of projecting its own sovereignty into the core of the African continent in order to externalize its own borders, to finance detention centres, to patrol and push back – must react to this endless request for help, by guaranteeing to those who escape from death in order to reach Europe a safe arrival, without running into death during their path.

We should talk instead of “externalization” of rights. We should open, at the European level, an humanitarian corridor, so that those who flee war may apply for asylum directly to European institutions in Libya, Egypt, Syria or wherever is needed (at the consulates or others offices), without being forced to take on board and thus to increase human smuggling and the chronicle of shipwrecks.
European governments are not allowed anymore to subcontract rights nor to discharge responsibilities, rather Europe must now adopt the mission of avoiding all these deaths. To achieve this goal, Europe must strengthen its presence, rather than being a third actor, in order to be able to collect the asylum requests since the internal African borders, and then to welcome the asylum seekers and to proceed their applications on the European territory.

We ask to the Italian institutions, the Presidents of Parlamento and Senato and the Ministers of the Republic, to immediately take charge of this request.
We ask to the European institutions to immediately start working in order to activate a humanitarian corridor towards Europe.


Progetto Melting Pot Europa

Source :: meltingpot.org.