Rotterdam: No Border Camp 2022 has started

Week of actions and workshops against repressive border and migration policies

Rotterdam, 8 August 2022 – At 10 am this morning the No Border Camp 2022 has started at the Giessenweg 25 in Rotterdam. Over the coming week, hundreds of international activists will gather for actions, meetings, workshops, discussion and culture in the context of the struggle for a world without borders and freedom of movement for all. The international ‘Abolish Frontex’ campaign is an important spearhead of the camp.

The camp, including its actions and workshops, will call attention to the repressive and militarised Dutch and EU border and migration policies, at a time they reach new heights with walls, racism, violence and pushbacks at and beyond the borders. ‘The No Border Camp will bring people together to build a movement to resist the appalling, racist European border policies and take action against its profiteers, such as arms companies ‘, according to Noah of the organisation of the camp. [Read More]

Rotterdam: ‘Abolish Frontex’ – International No Border Camp

The No Border Camp will take place in Rotterdam! We will start on Monday morning the 8th of august at 10:00 by building up the camp. The exact location we will specify at that time. Make sure you are in or around the city and keep an eye on radar and website! Monday morning at 10:00 we will publish the exact location. We hope as many people as possible will show up as soon as possible to help us build the camp. Beware: there is a chance the police will be present and they will try and stop us. Be prepared for this. Take your bike (or other means of transportation) to make sure you can move around. See you Monday!

From Tuesday to Friday there will be a program of workshops, discussions and presentations. Next to the workshops below, there is plenty of room for ad hoc meetings, spontaneous workshops and other activities. The Sahara tent is always available for this, the We Are Here tent when there is no workshop scheduled. If you want to do something, please add this to the timetable on the tents. If you need help with something, please come to the entrance stand.

Workshops will be in English, unless noted otherwise. We’ll do our best to have people to do whisper translation available for each workshop. [Read More]

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Transnational Summer Camp ends

More than 500 activists from across Europe, northern and western Africa took part in the Transnational Summer Camp  held between 9th and 14th July at ZAD site located near Nantes in France.

The camp’s callout stated:

[Read More]

Calais (France): Homes on trial

On September 28, eight friends will have an appeal trial for charges related to the last squat attempted in Calais. Aquitted by a previous court ruling, largely due to police abuse and police not even following procedures. Now the state representatives have filed an appeal (to contest what?!).

If you think of the judicial system as a good measure of “right” and “wrong,” it is Natacha Bouchart (Calais’ mayor) and Philippe Mignonet (deputy mayor) who should be on trial. They have executed massive and numerous evictions in Calais – making thousands of people homeless, using force to traumatize people, damaging people for years. [Read More]

Italy: Either we cross, or nobody will. No Borders action in Ventimiglia

A No Borders Camp has been happening on the Franco-Italian border since June, when the French government shut the border to refugees without travel documents or legal status.

From the camp’s website:

The No Border Camp of Ventimiglia started on the 11th of June, when a group of migrant moved on the rocks in order to resist the police eviction, identification and continue to struggle for their freedom. A group of migrant moved on the rocks in order to resist the police eviction, identification and continue to struggle for their freedom. From that day solidarity networks from different territories have been working to build a permanent laboratory of resistance to repressive politics we see in action on borders. [Read More]

Calais: demos every day against the border

Across Europe, people without papers are refusing to suffer the brutal border regime. From Hungary to France, people are cutting the fences, blocking trains and roads, occupying train stations and public buildings, self-organising and fighting. In Calais, the pace of struggle is picking up with large scale actions now happening on an every day basis, as well of course as individuals and groups taking on the fences every night. Here are reports from the last two days reposted from Calais Migrant Solidarity. Yesterday (Thursday) a crowd of hundreds blockaded the government’s aid distribution centre, demanding free movement not rotten crumbs of aid. Today the crowd marched into town to confront the politicians. Another big action is planned for tomorrow. [Read More]

Calais: The womens house is evicted, mass evictions due to start this week – callout from No Borders

The evictions have already started. Eviction is not just the moment when the police come to the jungles and squats and kick people out through a physical confrontation, but it begins way before. The women’s house Victor Hugo is a good example of this. The eviction on the 25th of March happened in a subtle way. The women and children living within Victor Hugo did not want to leave, but instead have been forced to move to the Jules Ferry Day Centre. They were evicted under the threat of violence. This imposed and non consensual arrangement has happened without considering the wishes, opinions, needs or safety of the women living in the Victor Hugo house. The media have supported this by talking about the eviction in terms of “moving out”, therefore this violence has been ignored and made invisible. This forced relocation is an example of how the state controls movement and physical bodies and how it perpetuates and reproduces violence against women. [Read More]

Calais (France): Upcoming Evictions, expected March 2015

In April 2015 the municipality of Calais in collaboration with the socialist state government intends to open the Day Centre Jules Ferry for all migrants living in and around the city. This centre is sold by the government and its media as a humanitarian gesture. This is bullshit! This is a poor attempt to alleviate the catastrophic situation of the migrants here. A situation that is created by the very policies the government have put in place. The opening of the day centre will go along with the mass eviction of 2000 people and the destruction of their homes: the squats and jungles of Calais. [Read More]

Demonstration in Calais 12th July

Never again ?!

We thought that we had witnessed the worst in 2009 with the destruction of the Afghan jungle; the mass arrest of 278 of its inhabitants and their coordinated detention across the whole of France. However, this Wednesday 2 July 2014 the state showed how much further it can go. At 6am the CRS, PAF, Gendarme, and the Police Nationale undertook massive coordinated evictions and raids against the migrant population of Calais.
[Read More]

Refugees in Calais: the hunger strike has begun

As agreed, the refugees occupying the food distribution center had breakfast together this morning. They formed two groups, those who will continue to eat and those who are fasting. Those fasting had slightly larger portions. They sat in the middle of the courtyard. Yesterday, they made a list of 53 people willing to get involved. By late morning, there were more than thirty of them waiting for those who had tried to cross that night to join them – something they will no longer be able to do during the fast. This afternoon, we should know more precisely how many will participate in the hunger strike. [Read More]

Another illegal eviction in Calais

After Natasha Bouchart, Senator-Mayor of Calais, presented her new anti-squatting law in the senate last week, the illegal evictions continue in Calais.

A new house was opened in Calais on the weekend of May 31st to 1st June. After a week of going unnoticed (to avoid possible eviction without a trial in the first 48 hour), the occupation was made public on Sunday, June 8 (despite some confusing information announcing it as “the next opening” published on the website of La Voix du Nord on Saturday, June 7th ), and the first contact was made with passersby, neighbors and the bar newsagent opposite. Some of them considered the occupation of this house, which has been empty for three years, totally legitimate. Another house on the street about fifty yards away is already squatted. [Read More]

Calais: The State Fumbles, Migrants Continue their Struggle

On Friday, the migrants occupying the food distribution center brought a list of demands that they had agreed upon to the prefect and the media. At first, the prefect maintained that the 48 hour period in which they were to vacate the premises had expired and refused to enter a dialogue. However, seeing that they were determined to stay, he set up a meeting for today [Saturday] with the departmental Director of Social Cohesion, who was soon joined by the sub-prefect. They proposed a second meeting to the refugees next Tuesday, on the condition that by then they move to another place and leave the food distribution center. It seems that a meeting is planned Monday morning at the Ministry of the Interior regarding the situation of the migrants in Calais; the meeting on Tuesday will likely depend on the decisions taken Monday. The proposal to continue the dialogue in another location was accompanied by a threat: if the migrants did not leave the food distribution center on their own over the weekend, they would be evicted by force, arrested and sent back to their countries of origin. Of course, this poses the question of where should they go. The authorities let slip the idea of moving to the old municipal camp site. The state now stands before the contradiction of demanding that people leave one place only to occupy another, without permission, somewhere which inevitably belongs to someone. The site of the old camp grounds belongs to the city of Calais. [Read More]