Tag: refugees

The April 28 Coalition focuses on Refugees and their situations on its 3rd online Forum-Protest

The April 28 Coalition [for Migrants’ and Refugees’ Rights and Welfare]* staged its 3^rd Online Forum – Protest focusing on Refugees and Refugees Situation on June 6. This protest is a continuation of the series of actions as the Coalitions continue to call for the granting of full citizenship rights for all migrants, refugees and displaced peoples among other things.

https://www.facebook.com/April28Coalition/videos/275921816929608

The program included series of speeches from an invited speaker and two reactors, interspersed with chanting of the Coalition’s calls and cultural presentations. Majed Abusalama, a member of the Palestine Speaks Coalition-Berlin was the Speaker. Being born in a refugee camp in Gaza open air prison, he later become and still is, a staunch human rights defender and an award winning journalist. As a refugee himself, he narrated his long and continuing journey of being with grassroots organisations of mainly POCs and Palestinians in advancing the fight for basic human rights, and their enduring call for a free Palestine. He reiterated the need for a radical change, to push the boundaries and mobilise for more grassroots movements to attain our basic rights.

Abusalama’s inspiring at the same time challenging speech was followed by a heartfelt poetry reading by Nora Rajab, also a member of the Palestine Speaks Coalition Berlin. The poems she read were written by Mahmoud Darwish, a famous Palestinian poet and intellectual. They captured the persistent longing of many displaced Palestinians to return to their homeland and lead a simple normal life, as well as their spirit and determination to fight for it.

Phil Butland from Die Linke Berlin Internationals, in his reaction, agreed that many Refugees in Germany are from Palestine. In fact, he says many are already displaced more than once. According to him, there have been a rise of anti-racism demonstrations in Berlin. He was in a huge Black Lives Matter demonstration in Berlin as he delivered his statement, and noted that it is highly multi-racial and the biggest he had seen so far. He is hopeful that people will continue to see where the world is really going and the need to get together to change this course.

The second reactor is George Porgetto from Free African Movement. Porgetto drew a lot from his own long experience of a decade long struggle be it in the parliament or in the streets. He criticized that the very institutions that legislate policies and laws fail to heed the rights and welfare of migrants and refugees. He likewise emphasized the importance of uniting together in order to win the struggle.

As a synthesis, Yasmin Ahmed of Revolutionaire Einheit echoed that most people who migrate are forced to do so or displaced not on their will. She furthered elaborated the sorry state of Refugees in different European Countries and the need to work together to change these.

The Forum Protest ended with a reverberating chanting of the demands of the Coalition: Full Citizenship Rights for ALL Migrants and Refugees, GRANT NOW! Bail Out Migrants, Not Corporate Giants, and Long live International Solidarity!

*The April 28 Coalition [for Migrants’ and Refugees’ Rights and Welfare] is a broad Europe-wide formation composed of mainly grassroots organizations with a migration background, together with religious and non-governmental organizations, civil society formations, institutions, political parties, influencers, academics and concerned individuals.

It is united by the common objective to advance the rights and welfare of migrants (regular and irregular), immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced peoples, and that all people have the right for equal protection in the continent. It was launched online on April 28 itself, and to date it has grown into 72 Organizations and 18 Individuals. The official Facebook page is : https://www.facebook.com/April28Coalition/

8 June 2020
Grant Full Citizenship Rights & Regularization for all Migrants & Refugees in Europe NOW! Sign our Petition!

The International Migrants Alliance – Europe (IMA-Europe) – a grassroots-led regional formation of organizations of and migrants, immigrants, refugees and displaced peoples – joins the world in its fight to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic exposed not only the flawed global health care systems of even the highly industrialized countries and their satellite states, but also laid bare the bankruptcy of capitalist neoliberalism and the need for system change. The inevitable collapse of financial markets and loss of jobs, personal incomes and life savings are causing untold anguish and panic around the world. A deep global depression is imminent.

file foto of Jon Bustamante

We salute all the health workers and other frontliners, substantial numbers of whom coming from migrant and immigrant communities, who daily expose themselves to the risk of infection to serve those in need. We express our highest respect for those who have already fallen in the course of their service, and we mourn for the tens of thousands who have succumbed to the sickness.

Among the victims of this pandemic are destination countries with a dense population of migrants, refugees and displaced people. Grassroots organizations and their service providers from these communities are calling for access to social and health services and protection for these vulnerable groups most often overlooked by government policies responding to the COVID-19 crisis.

Many migrants, refugees and displaced peoples are also left to their own devices to procure personal protective equipment that can protect and safeguard their health, if they even have the means to get it. With the ‘users pay’ in place even on health services, they shoulder the expenses for individual protection given their meager salary and the increasing support they have to send to their families back home who are also facing similar difficulties due to the pandemic and government policies or lack of it.

In these difficult times, especially worrisome are the conditions of undocumented migrants who were already vulnerable even before the outbreak. Members of the IMA-Europe have reported that undocumented migrants in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium and in other European countries where there is a highly militarized response to the crisis, fear being accosted and/or arrested on the streets for not having the proper identification, stay and work permits if they need to go to work or buy their provisions. This compounds their fear and anxiety of losing substantial ‘no-work no-pay’ income and the threat of losing their jobs.

file foto of Jon Bustamante

But because of the pandemic, there is now an even more urgent crisis in the shortage of health workers and a dire need for them in many European countries including Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. Deals are being brokered between many sending countries and EU member states to bring in nurses and health workers, farm and other frontline workers in order to respond to the shortage. And yet when they are brought in to do the same kind of job as local workers, they are paid less. They are also required to go through stringent requirements before they are given resident and citizenship rights. At the same time, discrimination, xenophobia and hate crimes are being fanned by rightist groups especially against Asian migrant and refugee communities who are unfairly profiled as virus carriers.

In the UK, Ireland and Spain, undocumented migrant workers and asylum-seekers, including those with professional medical training are already being recruited to work in care homes and hospitals in response to the medical emergency. In recognition of the vulnerable situation of these workers, Portugal*1 granted full citizenship rights to all migrants and refugees to allow them access to health care and financial aid during the pandemic. A similar call for temporary regularization of undocumented migrants is being made by French parliamentarians.

As we face the pandemic, we need to strengthen the solidarity among migrants, refugees and displaced people with workers and the local population in receiving countries and in the sending countries. We need to continue the fight not only against the virus but also against forced migration, capitalist exploitation, and imperialist plunder and aggression.

file foto of Jun Bustamante

We need to call on policy-makers to ensure that during this pandemic, vulnerable communities of migrants, refugees and displaced people are protected and afforded social and welfare assistance in recognition of their sacrifices and contribution towards alleviating the current global health crisis.
The International Migrants Alliance (IMA)-Europe calls on all solidarity allies and friends of migrants, refugees and displaced peoples to demand –

– Regularization and full citizenship rights for all migrant workers, refugees and displaced peoples in the pandemic frontlines of Europe, ensuring their access to equal workers’ rights and social and welfare benefits, NOW!

– Equal access to health care, social and welfare assistance to communities of migrant, refugee and displaced peoples during the pandemic!

– The right to family reunification of migrants, refugees and displaced people!

– Universal right to health and public health for all and not for private profit!

– Bailout WORKERS, not multinational corporations!

– Sign and ratify ILO ( International Labor Organization) Domestic Workers Convention 189!

LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

International Migrants Alliance (IMA) – Europe
Zaria Galliano Chairperson

*1 Schengen Visa Info, 2020. Portugal Grants Migrants and Asylum Seekers Full Citizenship Rights During COVID-19 Outbreak, www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/portugal-grants-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-full-citizenship-rights-during-covid-19/ Accessed, 13 April 2020.

Since we are not able to see your contact details (E-mail add) upon signing our petition, please contact us through:
Our IMA Facebook page: International Migrants Alliance – IMA Europe
Our E-mail address: [email protected]

Here is the link to the petition …

https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/grant-full-citizenship-rights-regularization-for-all-migrants-refugees-in-europe-now-sign-our-petition.html?fbclid=IwAR3OiLGEQ2LpEVO-n-qTi17IUCn8yFG7-2D7pshqGsb0J5F0pBFpciqPIuY

18 May 2020
Refugees in Amsterdam have nowhere to go

(Dr. Efleda K. Bautista, chairperson of People Surge, an alliance of victims of supertyphoon Haiyan shows her solidarity with refugees in Amsterdam who are threatened to be thrown out of the streets after being denied recognition as political refugees. The refugees have been forced to leave the regular centers for asylum seekers and are now occupying abandoned buildings in the city. The refugees come mainly from Africa and the Middle East. Representatives of the International Migrants’ Alliance-Europe section, Linangan, Filipino Refugees in the Netherlands, Migrante Europe and the International League of Peoples Struggle-Netherlands, visited the refugees last April 18 and brought them soup and bread).

Message to Wij Zijn Hier (Amsterdam)
16 April 2015, Amsterdam

We send you today our warmest militant greetings of solidarity!

We are fighting a common struggle, and that is to assert our rights, defend them and secure for ourselves and for all oppressed peoples a humane society.

We fight in the midst of news of the continuing tragedy of refugees drowning as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea to continental Europe to escape the wars and political instability in the Middle East and Africa. We know that these wars and conflicts are instigated by corporate totalitarians and their political representatives who control governments and political institutions in the so-called civilized west.

Today we also take up not only the issue of refugees, but also the victims of climate change – in the Philippines, and in other parts of the globe.

We know that the problems of climate change and the creation of a huge number of refugees are caused by the same greed for profit and power by a few ruling elite. The victims of climate change also become migrants and refugees seeking safe havens, in the same way that the victims of wars and conflicts become refugees to escape death and destruction.

Thus, we fight the same enemies, and our vision is one. We need to end this system of greed in the name of corporate profits – this system pollutes our physical and social environment, necessitates wars and conflicts, and creates victims, migrants and refugees.

Only by understanding this reality would all of us in this struggle be able to give meaningful direction to our initiatives and local battles. Only by linking each other’s struggles and seeing the connection in our particular situations would we be able to gain strength, genuine empowerment and victory!

Long live international solidarity!

International Migrants’ Alliance-Europe section
MIGRANTE Europe (Amsterdam)
People Surge (Philippines)

Postbus 15687
1001 ND Amsterdam
Email: [email protected]

18 April 2015
Message of Solidarity to the Voice Refugee Forum of Germany on its 20th anniversary

1 October 2014

The International Migrants’ Alliance (IMA) – Europe, sends its most militant greetings and solidarity with our comrades in struggle in the Voice Refugee Forum of Germany, as they celebrate their 20 years of tirelessly fighting for the rights of refugees in Germany and against racism, discrimination, human rights violations, fascism and corporate totalitarianism.

The events and activities around the anniversary theme “Unite against Deportation and against Social Exclusion in Germany” are a continuing testimony to the organization’s steel determination, humanitarian vision, deep respect for human dignity and appreciation for the political empowerment of the exploited and oppressed.

It has been an absolute privilege for the IMA-Europe to have worked with and cooperated with the Voice Refugee Forum of Germany. That solidarity has provided the IMA-Europe with a deeper grasp and appreciation of the bigger social, economic and political realities engulfing the lives of the so-called uprooted people – the basic reality not only of struggling for migrant rights in countries of the diaspora, but also and more importantly, the struggle for genuine freedom, democracy, social justice, development and peace in the migrants’ home countries.

The Voice Refugee Forum of Germany provided the IMA-Europe the opportunity to touch base with the human beings forced out of their homes and countries because of political reasons, which under present conditions are driven by aggression instigated by advanced capitalist and racist coutries of the west in their selfish lust to exploit and plunder the people and resources of the planet.

The plight of the refugees, has clearly delineated and spelled out to those in the thick of the struggle for migrant rights, the parallelisms in the global migration and the very same endresults that both refugees and migrants find themselves in – violations of their human rights, the same poverty and misery, exploitation and oppression in places where they have been forced to seek refuge and to migrate. And yet, bourgeois-defined international laws do not reflect reality on the ground by making cruel distinctions between refugees and migrants, and treat them according to those definitions.

Indeed, the unity that binds together the refugees represented by the Voice Refugee Forum of Germany and the migrants represented by the International Migrants Alliance, is the struggle for comprehensive social change, an end to racism and discrimination, and building a world without exploitation and oppression.

That solidarity will be further fleshed out as we persevere and stand firmly determined in our resistance struggles and in forging ahead in strengthening the international progressive movement of migrants and refugees. As part of the progressive movement of migrants and refugees, it is both a challenge and a task for all of us to forge a higher unity and solidarity as we confront political persecution, economic exploitation, social exclusion, and opppression.

Together, we shall be able to strengthen our solidarity, forge ahead, gain greater victories in our struggles, and achieve a world we all dream of – a world abounding with genuine equality, social justice, economic bounty, and lasting peace!

Long live the Voice Refugee Forum of Germany on its 20 years of struggle and resistance!
Long live international solidarity!
Long live the progressive movement of Migrants and Refugees!

Luz Miriam Jaramillo
Comitato-Italy
Chair, International Migrants Alliance-Europe chapter
IMA-International Coordinating Body member

Grace Punongbayan
Migrante Europe
Secretary-General, IMA-Europe chapter
IMA-International Coordinating Body member

dlm/30092014

1 October 2014
500 Migrants Feared Dead After Boat Sinks In Mediterranean

Ideastream.org, September 15, 2014

The International Organization for Migration says the incident took place last week when people smugglers rammed a vessel carrying hundreds of refugees hoping to reach European waters.

Some 500 migrants trying to make their way from Egypt to Malta by boat are believed to have drowned last week after people smugglers reportedly rammed and sank their vessel, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The IOM report is based on reports from the few survivors of the tragedy who say the group of Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Sudanese had hoped to eventually reach Europe.

In a separate incident, some 70 Libyans were feared drowned in a similar tragedy involving the sinking of a migrant boat.

The Telegraph says of the first tragedy that “if confirmed [it] would rank as the worst disaster in the Mediterranean for years.”

The newspaper says the story “was recounted by two Palestinians who spent more than a day floating in the water before being picked up by a Panama-flagged merchant vessel about 300 miles off Malta.

“They were brought to the port of Pozzallo in Sicily at the weekend, where they told their story to IoM officials.

“Nine other survivors were rescued by Greek and Maltese rescue vessels.”

The survivors said there had been a confrontation as smugglers tried to move migrants to a smaller boat. Christiane Berthiaume, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, told The Associated Press that traffickers “used one boat to knock the other,” apparently causing the sinking.

By way of background, the AP says: “Refugee numbers have swelled as thousands of people flee conflicts in Syria, Iraq and across the Middle East and Africa, boarding unsafe smugglers’ boats in Libya. Nearly 110,000 people have been rescued since January, but at least 1,889 others have died making the perilous crossing, according to the U.N. refugee agency.”

We have reported on a number of such incidents in the past, going back as far as 2011.

Last month, NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reported on Italy’s efforts to tackle the problem, saying: “Reports of migrant boats in distress have become a near-daily news headline over the past year.”

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

15 September 2014