(Issue 13/22, also available as a PDF)
Welcome to the latest edition of Statewatch News, featuring:
7 May 2021 — Statewatch News
(Issue 09/21, also available as a PDF)
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As part of its ongoing drive to increase the removal of migrants from EU territory, the European Commission unveiled a new strategy on “voluntary” return and reintegration at the end of April. The document states the use of detention “can increase the uptake of voluntary returns at early stages of the return process.” In particular, the proposed introduction of “border return procedures” – which could introduce mandatory detention of up to 10 months – is seen as key.
23 April 2021 — Migrants Organise
At the end of March, the Home Office launched its consultation about the New Plan for Immigration. The consultation questionnaire has 45 questions – some are multiple-choice and some are open questions. But all of them are framed in such a way that it is almost impossible to answer any of them in a meaningful way. Priti Patel’s “New Plan for Immigration” is not so new and it is not a plan either. Continue reading…
23 March 2021 — Migrants Organise
Dear friends,
We are excited to announce the third event in our #SolidarityKnowsNoBorders webinar series THIS Thursday 25th of March at 6pm – Cases into Causes, Causes into a Movement: How Can Individual Campaigns Lead to Collective Justice? Make sure you register on Zoom to join now!
12 June 2020 — Statewatch
COVID-19 has become another touchstone for today’s deeply entrenched politics of militarised borders and anti-migrant racism. Leaders like Trump and Orban have blamed the virus on foreigners and to claim justification for their racist politics. But they have also been used European Union Member States of all political tendencies have used the crisis to close off ports to rescue ships, making the Mediterranean even more deadly for refugees. The ‘necropolitics’ of border militarization that justifies systemic crimes against humanity has become tragically hegemonic.
31 October 2015 — The Real News Network
20 September 2015 — Electronic Intifada
As most of the world looks on in horror at Europe’s atrocious response to refugees escaping war and persecution in the Middle East and Africa, some Israeli officials are quietly reveling in the chaos.
Dore Gold, director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, expressed optimism that the refugee influx will shift Europe to the right, making it more sympathetic to Israel’s “security” justification for its ongoing colonization of Palestine. Continue reading
9 September 2015 — Black Agenda Report
Margaret Kimberley is a BAR editor and senior columnist
Americans are made uncomfortable by pictures of drowned refugee children, but most cannot accept that their own government’s “unrelenting effort at regime change in Syria is the cause of this crisis.” U.S. corporate media parrot Washington’s lies, keeping tally of the displaced and doomed, but blaming Syria’s government for defending itself against western-backed jihadists. Rather than demand the West leash its dogs, “they call for more war.”
7 September 2015 — Statewatch • e-mail: office@statewatch.org
3 September 2015 — Lenin’s Tomb
My social media feeds are filled with dead children. Small bodies, washing up on the shores of a Mediterranean beach.
Why are they washing up on the shores? European governments want us to blame traffickers. The advantage of blaming traffickers is that it actually licenses those governments to implement even more repressive measures. But traffickers are only out to make a quick buck off the system that European governments have created.
31 August 2015 — Global Research
Thousands of refugees and asylum seekers head for safe havens daily – a human flood entering Europe, risking life and limb to get there. Why?
Endless US direct and proxy wars force desperate people to seek safety out of harm’s way. Numbers fleeing war and destabilized areas are greater than any time since WWII – increasing exponentially as conflicts and chaos rage in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Donbass, Somalia, South Sudan, and elsewhere.
29 May 2015 — Statewatch.org/ • e-mail: office@statewatch.org
Statewatch coverage of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean
New Key Documents
1. European External Action Service (EEAS): Military Advice: RESTRICTED doc no: 8802-15
2. Political and Security Committee: PMG Recommendations on the draft Crisis Management
3.Draft Crisis Management Concept for a possible CSDP operation to disrupt human smuggling networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean – Approval
4. Proposal for Council Decision
5. WRITTEN PROCEDURE for adoption of: Council Decision
6. Formal Decision in the Official Journal
11 July 2014 — The Greanville Post
The lids between deck and dark airless hold are bolted shut. The 45 lifeless bodies are neatly stacked in the hold one atop the other. Silence reigns down in the torrid darkness. The lifeless bodies are all young males. From Central Africa. No signs of mass panic among them. No blood anywhere.
The New Dark Age 