Calais: Now or never!

By: fawda - May 26th, 2014  Filed under: Communique, News
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*Everyone come to Calais May 27th or in the night of the 26th!!!!*

The authorities have decided to destroy the three main camps, which shelter around 700 people. The only prospect for the inhabitants: a pill against scabies and life in the street! There can be no question of repeating the events of 2009, when the eviction of the Afghan jungle resulted in the arrest of hundreds of migrants, their detainment all over France and attempts to deport them to Afghanistan. There can be no question, after five years of persecution, of starting all over again from zero, while the machine of repression gears up once more. Never again! [Read More]

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Calais: Emergency situation, all squats and camps will be evicted in the next few days!

By: fawda - May 22nd, 2014  Filed under: Communique, News
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On May 27th, the three main camps of Calais will be destroyed by the police. More than 600 people live in these camps, which were won through constant migrant struggle after a long series of evictions. No solution has been proposed for the evicted migrants. Moreover, a social center and two further squats are up for eviction starting on May 30th. All told, more than 800 people will be put on to the street.

In this stopping point on the way to England, squatting is the only housing solution that exists. It is also a tool of resistance for migrants to protect themselves from violence and police harassment in the camps and in the city. Today, the mayor of Calais’s fight against squatting has reached a new low. This time she has proposed a law which would change the 48 hour period in which squats must be evicted (which is not officially set down in French law). We know very little about the content of this law, only that it will attack the right to housing for all. The entire future of squatting in France is endangered by this law. [Read More]

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Update on Situation in Calais

By: fawda - May 17th, 2014  Filed under: News
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The mayor of Calais, Natach Bouchart has decided on the evictions of the two main camps, known as the Syria Camp and Eritrea Camp. Despite these names, these camps are home to members of many different communities. There are over 300 people in the Syrian Camp in front of Salam, and the Eritrean camp has also undergone a massive influx recently, potentially doubling the number of inhabitants in the last weeks. Migrants of all the communities know about the eviction threat.

The three No Borders squats, opened at the end of February, are also facing eviction at the end of May. These three squats are also providing homes for many people, especially since the eviction of the Sudanese Jungle in mid April. The loss of these buildings will only add to the number of people sleeping in the already overcrowded camps. [Read More]

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Amsterdam: Refugees demonstrating at Liberation Day, May 5ht

By: fawda - May 7th, 2014  Filed under: News
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Refugees of action group WE ARE HERE protesting in Amsterdam to fight for freedom. Many people without papers are detained in detention centers or living in the streets. They don’t know how it is to be free and liberated. For us it is no Liberation Day. We are struggling to survive the repressive policy by politicians of the Dutch government like Teeven and the mayor of Amsterdam Van der Laan who don’t even acknowledge our basic human rights. We are locked up behind bars or forced to survive on nothing.

This is a day of freedom. Refugees of WE ARE HERE needs the same freedom as you have.
Until all are free no one is free! We want our rights. We want permission to stay! [Read More]

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Calais (France): Summer of evictions reaps devastation

By: fawda - October 21st, 2013  Filed under: News
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As we come towards the end of the summer no borders are counting there losses, every shelter has been raided, trashed, evicted on multiple occasions, leaving many of the migrants on the streets without tents or sleeping bags. Added to this, the rain and the cold are sapping any remaining energy, and many are sick.

The project no borders have been most involved with, that had become a shelter for the most venerable woman, children, elderly and injured people in small house called Victor Hugo or often by the migrants the woman’s house. This project has gone through many changes from being a social centre on the first floor enabling many migrants to cook their own meals to kitchen for activist groups round Europe.

Unfortunately with the massive pressure put on the space by the police evictions, the rules decided by the women of the house aren’t being respected, as there are many men coming with no other place to go leading to a desperate situation. [Read More]

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Calais (France): Call out for active solidarity

By: xxx - September 7th, 2013  Filed under: News

Urgent Call out for Calais!

A big squat in Calais was emptied of its occupants Thursday.

Today they tried to occupy the old hospital that has been empty for some years:
They were expelled in this afternoon, and twenty people were arrested.

Many migrants are in the street and looking for a place to shelter.

Many evictions of living spaces are planned in the coming days.

The people of Calais are making a desperate appeal to activists reinforcements quickly.
The tension is high! [Read More]

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Calais (France): Egyptian squat demolished and destroyed

By: fawda - May 22nd, 2013  Filed under: News
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An Egyptian squat was evicted this morning and demolished instantly. The squat has been home to about 30 people for the last 6 months+, with sometimes 50+ people living crammed together during the winter period.
Everyone was made to leave the building at about 9am this morning, taking with them what they could instantly carry. The rest was taken by city workers to the dump.

This was the last remaining squat amongst a demolished street by old Africa House on rue Descartes. It is no longer just a matter of raids and evictions… now systematic demolitions are becoming the norm.
It seems these demolitions must be part of a wider centralised planning effort by the town hall, as a more systematic attack to eradicate people’s means of shelter. [Read More]

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Calais (France): Illegal eviction of new legal squat

By: dolph-l - April 12th, 2013  Filed under: News

March 28th: At 3pm the cops discovered a new squat. The occupants had put up the legal notice article 423-8 and proof that they had been in the building for more than 48 hours – but the police, as so often, did not care about their own laws. Luckily there were only a few people inside who managed to escape before the police broke an illegal entry. Legally they would have needed a court order to enter, which they never presented. [Read More]

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Paris: Week of solidarity and struggles against repression (20-27 february 2011)

By: liberation - February 16th, 2011  Filed under: News

[February 2011 – Translation from fr.squat.net.]

To control population movements is one of the States priorities. It is, in particular, to select with care the labour force needed for the economy, and this in a general context of deterioration in the standard of living. This selection requires the reinforcement of imprisonment of people called “undesirable”, border controls and raids, dropping visas and an intensification of the struggle against the ones who in one way or another go against keeping under control population movements. For few years, people who fight against detention centres, raids and generally speaking against the deportation machine are more and more filed by the police. Interior ministers of the European Union increase measures to intensify the struggle against what would be according to them a same threat : “illegal immigration and terrorism” [Read More]

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Brussels: Gathering against repression in Calais, sept. 25th 2009

By: liberation - September 23rd, 2009  Filed under: News

25/09: Assembly against repression in Calais

Solidarity with the migrants in Calais and Belgium. Gathering against the repression of migrants in Calais, this Friday September 25th 5 pm at French embassy in Brussels. Address : boulevard du Régent 42, 1000 Brussels.

The “dismantlement” of “the jungle” has started this tuesday (September 22nd). Police and military have evacuated several hundred persons and destroyed the homes of hundreds of migrants (not withstanding the resistance of many activists). [Read More]

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