For more information call: +44 (0)7884 040 683
calais.press@riseup.net
According to verified sources the destruction of the ‘Jungle’ [1] announced by French immigration minister, Mr.Besson, will take place this Tuesday 21st July. Activists on the ground in Calais have been told that the police preparing to destroy some or many of the ‘jungles’ housing around 1,800 migrants in Calais. The jungle of the Afghan Pashtu will be the first hit, but other jungles also risk being destroyed. 800 places have been “reserved” in different hostels.
France’s Interior Minister Eric Besson made it clear in January that he wanted to see all migrants removed from Calais and the surrounding area by the end of this summer. The project has already started with the bulldozing of camps at Loon-Plage and Teteghem and the destruction of squats in Calais over the past month. Now comes the main act in this summer festival of destruction.
After the Evian pre G8 summit of the 6th July, 2009 where an agreement was signed between the French and British governments, [2] details are emerging of plans to forcibly deport hundreds of people by charter flight to Kabul. Last November, 2 charter flights to Afghanistan were cancelled thanks to the mobilisation of all.
Humanitarian groups in Calais are attempting to inform migrants and a campaign of solidarity to prevent human rights attrocities is gathering pace on both sides of the channel.
In France, Salam [3] a humanitarian group who provide food daily to hundreds in Calais said yesterday, “We will continue our presence alongside the migrants everyday. Everything will be put in place to ensure they can exercise their rights and do avoid the charter flight to Kabul. We call out to everyone, DON’T LET THIS CHARTER OF DEATH LEAVE!”
Alice Cutler from UK based group, Calais Witnesses [4] said, “Many individuals in Calais who are simply seeking safety and are trapped by a European immigration policy that is denying basic human rights. Without urgent intervention that there is very real threat of mass refoulement [5] of asylum seekers back to countries of origin from which they have fled and where they could face torture, imprisonment and in some cases death.” [6] The British government share equal responsibility for the proposed atrocities in northern France.”
A statement that is being circulated to condemn the plans is calling for observers to go to Calais urgently, “In the wake of the clearance of migrant camps and residences in Patras, Greece and in Paris last week, we believe that strong condemnation of these plans and independent observers and monitors in Calais are urgently required. We call on you to pressure the British and French authorities to respect their international obligations to provide protection under the Geneva Convention and respect human rights. We demand the immediate cessation of any attempts to clear and destroy refugee camps as well as plans to deport migrants who have a right to seek asylum in Europe.”
For more information:
Calais Migrant Solidarity (UK based group)
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/open-statement-about-calais-situation-to-all-concerned/
CALAIS WITNESSES
Laura Maragoudaki/ Alice Cutler
Tel: +44 (0) 7884 040683
calais.witnesses@googlemail.com
SALAM ASSOCIATION
www.associationsalam.org (France)
Sylvie COPYANS + 33 (0)6.26.38.66.19
Vincent LENOIR + 33 (0)6.12.52.53.72
Notes to editors:
[1] The Jungle is the name given to the makeshift camps were migrant are living. On 4 July 2009, in her article for the Guardian newspaper, Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, wrote: “The conditions for the migrants in Calais are atrocious. They are camped on waste ground and in squatted houses in the town, they queue each day for soup kitchens provided by local volunteers, and have little access to facilities as basic as running water. Included in this group are unaccompanied children.
It is to all our shame that they are left to live in such appalling circumstances.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/04/migrants-calais
For a comprehensive report on the humanitarian crisis at Calais, please see the 2008 Report by Coordination Francaise pour le Droit D’Asile (in French), at:
http://associationsalam.org/docs/SALAM_Rapport_CFDA_092008.pdf
A short summary of the report in English is attached to this mail.
[2] The UK has promised France £15m for border protection in return for help deporting immigrants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8136059.stm
[3] Please see featured announcement by ASSOCIATION SALAM on 16/07/09 at:
http://associationsalam.org/infos/index.php?Infos-salam English translation attached below.
[4] CALAIS WITNESSES is a network of individuals who work towards supporting rights for refugees and migrants and have first hand experience of witnessing the situation for migrants at the UK French Border of Calais.
[5] On 5 November 2008, the UK and French governments’ attempts to carry out a mass deportation to Afghanistan through a joint charter flight were overruled by the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that the operation would violate article 4 of the European Declaration on Human Rights, which forbids the “collective expulsion of foreigners”, as well as the trilateral agreement signed in 2002 by UNHCR with the Afghan and French governments, which stipulates that “the return of Afghans who do not enjoy protection… will be carried out in a gradual, ordered and humane way”. In an open letter to then interior minister Brice Hortefeux, MEP Hélène Flautre highlighted the risk that the repatriations would entail as “irreparable”, referring back to the recent case of an Afghan, Mohammed Hussain, who was repatriated by Australia and ended up being kidnapped, tortured and finally beheaded.
[6] The 1951 Refugee Convention prohibits the return of refugees “in any manner whatsoever” to places where their life or freedom would be threatened [otherwise referred to as Article 33; the nonrefoulement provision of the Refugee Convention]. As explained by the UK House of Lords, “Article 33 can be breached indirectly as well as directly. Thus for a country to return a refugee to a state from which he/she will then be returned by the government of that state to a territory where his/her life or freedom will be threatened will be as much a breach of Article 33 as if the first country had itself returned him there direct.” Many of the migrants in Calais will have travelled overland through Greece or Italy, where they will have had their fingerprints taken. Under the Dublin II convention they would be removed to Greece or Italy on claiming asylum in France or the UK. The likelihood of an Iraqi getting asylum in Greece is 0% (UNHCR, 2007).http://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/47302b6c2.pdf Therefore they are being denied their right to seek protection. Crossing a border without the right papers is not illegal if you are doing so to claim asylum.
In addition, the Greek government frequently carry out non-official forcible returns from Greece to Turkey. Most take place under cover of darkness across the Evros River or off the Turkish coast. Pushbacks at sea or on the border do not nullify the nonrefoulement obligation and migrants deported to Greece face a high risk of being forcibly removed to other ‘non-safe’ countries outside the EU. (Human Rights Watch 2008) http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76211/section/14
http://www.refugeeresearch.net/node/197
