The EU War Against Refugees.

        No doubt tonight, as the clock strikes midnight, there will be celebrations across the globe, parties, food and drink, much merry making and comradeship. However, not for everybody, poverty, deprivation, imprisonment and detention centres, don't evaporate, refugees don't suddenly find a home. The suffering continues, it's just that most of us shut it out for a spell, perhaps we need a break from the poison fruits of the capitalist system and from the various states' power-grid of phoney borders, but we should not forget, the EU war against refugees takes no holidays.

This from Enough is Enough:

The Militarisation of Lesvos:

             Sometimes you don’t know where to start. Maybe that  Twitter “temporarily” warns people for my personal Twitter account because of “suspicious activities” (Hey Twitter maybe I logged in with a Greek IP adress because I am in Greece right now..)???
        But to be honest that’s a typical first world problem in comparison to the war against refugees the EU member states are fighting here on Lesvos. If you walk along the harbor of Mytilini, the capital of Levos island, you still see them; the small picturesque fisher boats. But nowadays you have to focus on these beautiful small boats to see them. When you see the big canons of a British “Border Force” ship, you start to ask yourself are they going to shoot and sink the dinghy boats with refugees one day? The big navy and Frontext ships are dominating the little harbor of Mytilini.
           And yes these ships also rescued a lot of refugees, but the Greek coastguard ships were also involved in illegal pushbacks to Turkey. Something the Turkish coastguard ships were also involved in. Sometimes the Turkish and Greek coastguard ships also attack the people on the dinghy boats with sticks or even sunk them, as can be seen on footage in a documentary I made here in September
       In the harbor of Mytilini I saw navy and Frontex ships from Bulgaria, Great Brittain, Greece and Italy. They are patrolling the sea between Turkey and Lesvos island. But you also see a lot of military- and Frontext vehicles on Lesvos. They come from countries like the Netherlands, Italy and Greece (just to name a few). The whole island is full of cops and military. Refugees get randomly checked in the city center of Mytilini all the time. You can observe several of these racial profiling operations when you drink a coffee on Sappho square. Day by day.

       The mutual aid work that we are doing here is one part, but we also document the situation and try to support people who are in danger to get deported. This all takes place in a hostile and militarized environment. In September I was chased by cops while taking pictures of the Moria Camp and last week a cops also wanted to check me, but I was lucky both times and was fast enough. The long days of buying food, sanitary products and other things people need for their daily life, documenting the situation and the work on legal issues and political stuff take their toll. I planned to report every day, but often I am to tired to write anything after the long days of work on the island. 
      Today is the last day of 2017, many people will celebrate New Years Eve but I don’t feel like celebrating at all and I have to save energy for the coming weeks. As part of the Cars of Hope team I will celebrate a bit with some of the people who are stuck here on Lesvos. I have a lot of wishes for the coming year, but I am afraid the EU member states will intensify their war against refugees.

Read the full article and view more videos HERE: