On Saturday 28th November 2009, French and British solidarity activists will stage a cross-channel protest from Calais to Folkstone. They will protest against the tightening of border controls and collaboration between the French and the British authorities, which is creating a heightened humanitarian crisis in Calais where hundreds of migrants now sleep rough and suffer constant police abuse, after being stopped from entering Britain, and having their homes in Calais bulldozed in September of this year

The protest will start at 10:00 local time in Calais, where both migrants and activists will gather at the town hall before boarding ferries in Calais and travelling on to Folkstone. While on the ferry, workshops will be held discussing the UK Border Regime and its impacts on migrants in Calais, and in Folkstone the final protest will be held outside the newly built Joint Intelligence Unit, which is a centre for both the British and French services who specialise in trying to combat international ‘illegal’ immigration networks. Join us at 1500 to demonstrate! Bring banners, and make some noise!

What they call ‘illegal’ immigration is in fact the visible human cost of war, which they don’t dare face. Everyday increasing numbers of UK troops are sent to Afghanistan, but when the human stories emerge and people inevitably migrate, we respond with further violence and hardships against these individuals.

Phil Woolas has announced that the United Kingdom will immediately contribute £15 million to the introduction of improved security mechanisms, such as developing high tech monitoring equipment, and building increasingly large detention centers, such as the biggest ever planned at Bullingdon house... all the while failing to acknowledge the reasons why people migrate. When Besson cleared the “jungle”, he did not stop migration. Attempts to make the borders ‘impermeable’ by 2010 will not stop people trying to cross, but only force them to take more life threatening measures.

France and England are tightening their grip on the border, but on both sides of the channel, resistance is spreading in solidarity with all those without papers. The demonstration today began and will end in Calais, with activists from across Europe travelling back together to Calais in order to continue the work with those migrants could not cross today. We will continue to resist police oppression in Calais and demand an end to these racist border controls, freedom of movement for all, and the right to stay without fear of persecution, invasion or natural disasters.

For more information,
Phone number (live from Friday 07535319119)
 calaisolidarity@gmail.com
calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com
Twitter: calaisolidarity

CONTEXT
Earlier this year Eric Besson – the French immigration minster – declared that Calais would be a “migrant free zone” by the end of 2009. To this end, on the 22nd September Eric Besson, Immigration Minister for France, oversaw the eviction and destruction of the Pashtun jungle in Calais which involved the violent arrest of more than 100 minors, with Home Secretary Alan Johnson saying he was ‘delighted’ with the operation. In order to implement this fascist concept, the repression against migrants in Calais - which has always been brutally significant - has reached an unprecedented level. Hundreds of people, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Darfur experience state violence everyday: they face constant arrest, they are evicted from their homes, their belonging are stolen, vandalized or event burnt – all at the hands of the French Police (for details, please see  http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com)

Deportation flights to Iraq and Afghanistan have also seen been co-organized lately, with 24 Afghans being deported to Karbul on October 22nd of this year. The charter flight to Iraq which left on the 15th October was the first attempted since the Iraq war – containing 39 people all taken from detention centers across the UK, was actually sent back by the Iraqi government as they deemed Baghdad to be too unsafe, but Besson and Woolas have recently restated their commitment to future flights.

The creation of this Franco-British centre is the first step in implementing the commitments made by President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the France-UK summit in Evian on 6 July 2009 to step up the two countries’ joint efforts to combat ‘illegal’ immigration networks. On 27 October 2009, Eric Besson - French Minister for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually-Supportive Development - and his British counterpart, Phil Woolas - Minister of State for Borders and Immigration - opened the Franco-British Joint Intelligence Unit in Folkstone. At the opening, Eric Besson said “Combating illegal immigration networks which attempt to use French soil in order to reach the United Kingdom represents a joint challenge for our two countries. We must face that challenge together.

[This year will see the opening of Bullingdon house in Bicester, which will be the largest immigration prison ever built in the UK, housing 800 men.

In June 2009 European activists held a No Borders camp in Calais. Since June ‘Calais Migrant Solidarity’ has maintained a constant presence in Calais, monitoring, communicating and resisting police violence against migrants. On the 1st of December there will be an international demonstration against the Stockholm programme in Brussells (with a No Borders camp also planned there in July 2010), and on the 14th December No Borders activist from across the world will take action in Copenhagen as part of the COP15 summit to highlight the plight of the millions who are predicted to migrate from the effects of climate change (for more information please visit  http://climatenoborders.wordpress.com).











ORIGINAL CALL OUT FROM PASSONS LA MANCHE, PARIS




EVERYBODY TO CALAIS November 28th !
LET’S CROSS THE CHANNEL!

The State is sinking!

In 2002, Sarkozy closed a hangar. In 2009, Besson tackles the wastelands (jungles!) On September 22nd, Besson played the big guy in Calais. In line with Sarkozy, the minister of national identity and immigration can say he does what he says.

But what did he do? He sent hundreds of cops to round the refugees up on wasteland (the jungles), most having fled the war made by Western powers in Afghanistan, Iraq ... No need to be a clairvoyant to know that the situation will not change. The refugees still want, the vast majority to live in Great Britain: they want to cross the border !

What he did is physically assaulting people (refugees, support activists ...), created a climate of terror. But ... the Refugees will not evaporate. For now some are in hiding or went to other parts of the coast and to other cities, Paris Angers.. others have moved to Belgium or Holland.

But many of them roam the streets of Calais, hounded daily by the CRS who destroy their tents , their blankets and their belongings .
What he has done, this is just posturing for the media to say that the state is there.
Besson justifies his posturing in the media as the hunt for smugglers.
Without doubt people are probably taking advantage of the situation created by the state and the European Community. The best way to fight against trafficking in human beings is to ensure that the material conditions of that trade no longer exist; closing the border states of the European Community creates the conditions for the general benefit of smugglers.

Besson is a liar. We know that, but it is beyond comprehension. Why did many refugees not seek political asylum in France?
If they ask asylum here, they are at high risk of being deported to a country in the sphere of the Dublin agreements. Clearly, they would be sent back to the country they have been
checked in for the first time and very often that means to Greece!

The European Community and the states that compose it are reinforcing the means for hunting migrants.
On the 2nd Of September the British and French governments opened in Folkestone in England in the Kent Police station a Joint centre for General intelligence sharing on immigration. Its mission is to improve the exchange of operational intelligence, to analyse the smuggling network and to allow them to follow up with joint and parrallel judicial enquiries

During the Franco-British summit on immigration July 6, 2009,
it was decided that these two authorities will act to, inter alia,
"Strengthen the operational role of Frontex [The European Agency for fight against illegal immigration ]..., including the development of Frontex co-operation with third countries, the establishment of returns by air with partners at the European level and making provision for the appropriate resources. . The European charters have been in preparation since at least July 6, 2009 and they want develop them!


We can never prevent people from wanting to immigrate. Confirming the contrary, is to affirm that there is trafficking in human beings, affirming that there are people who drown while trying to cross the oceans clandestinely ...

Justifying the closure of borders to protect our social rights is
also a lie. In France the borders have been officially closed since 1974. This has not prevented governments since from attacking our social gains.

The rationale has been used to make scapegoats and to fuel racist ideology to satisfy reactionary sectons of the population.

Closing the borders and attacking social benefits are two sides of the same policy to enhance misery !
The only realistic response to resolve the issue of asylum seekers, the refugees and the undocumented, especially in the Calais, is to open the borders and to let the people move where they wish, whatever their reasons.
It is important that we return to Calais to tell Besson, Hortefeux, Sarkozy that their batons, their cops did not stop us. That everyone will move and settle freely, that all people should always be received worthily. That we are sick that there is always enough money for repression, beatings, deportations, but there never there is never for the respect of human dignity!

ON SATURDAY NOVEMBER 28TH AT 10 AM WE WILL RALLY TOGETHER IN FRONT OF THE MAIRIE (TOWN HALL)OF CALAIS :
* TO CROSS THE BORDER WE ARE TAKING THE FERRY AT 13:10 TO GATHER AT FOLKESTONE STATION TO THEN GO TO THE "JOINT CENTRE FOR INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION" SHARING, Bouverie Road West, at Folkstone Police station, at 15:00
* WE WILL MEET THOSE WHO HAD THE CHANCE OF THE CROSSING AND ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT THEM

During the voyage to and returning we will discuss result of the international mobilization against the policies of European anti-migration.
All participants are invited to stay overnight in Calais for a
night wandering with the migrants for patrols for surveillance of the police.
Soup, coffee and tea all night at local ...
Everyone is responsible for their own ferry reservations
A number or email contact for reservations and payment will follow over the next few days.
Try to organize carpooling.
For pedestrians, there is a Dover-Folkestone train (12 minutes journey, two departures per hour)


INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF DETENTION PRISONS
NO TO FRONTEX AND THE CHARTERS OF SHAME
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND SETTLEMENT
THE OPENING OF BORDERS And PAPERS FOR ALL
NO IMMIGRATION QUOTAS NOR SELECTED IMMIGRATION
LET’S CROSS THE CHANNEL