Tuesday 31 July 2018

Today's Scapegoats, The Migrant.


           More on the state's brutal savagery in seeking total control, pick a country, and there will be state repression either on its own citizens or as is common place now, the modern scapegoat, migrants. This example is from Athens, but, today, it could be any city in Europe.
   Freedom For All Migrants.
          Hicham, is a North African-born migrant, living in Athens for the past 10 months. He is a member of our squat community of Exarchia, and an active participant in the free public bath initiative. Hischam was arrested in June this year on Kallidromiou st. in a police control check.
He has been held in the dungeon cells of Kallidromiou police station ever since. Hicham, who is a Europe-wide organizer of unions and activists of unregistered refugees, was held completely incognito for the first ten days, and denied any contact with the outside world, including his Belgian wife and child. Like so many migrants he gets no regular access to visitors, no legal advice, no translation, no information about his case and future. Instead he gets constant humiliation, violence and psychological torture from the repressive, racist organs of the state. Conditions in these police cells are inhuman, more like lightless, airless underground pits, conditions that are designed to crush the prisoner, leading to severe depression and mental illness.
        Combined with denying them any information about the length of detention, this amounts to torture. Though Hicham has legal papers in Belgium, he is caught in the trap of the state judicial system. Indefinite detention means what it says – indefinite.
         The state’s fascist politics unfolds in its full magnitude in its treatment of migrants. They are the scapegoats, stripped of all dignity. The scope is international, the borders of Europe now an untold war. Daily killings, torture, mass imprisonment and abducted deportations have all become commonplace. New concentration camps are planned outside of Europe, without regard for the humanity of their inmates.
        Hicham’s case is only one example of thousands of migrants and refugees imprisoned in administrative detention around the country. The only reason, not having the right papers! This is the fascist nature of the system which categorizes and criminalizes people in order to exploit them. Only solidarity can make these people visible, and their cases known. This occurs in Exarchia at a time when the state is implementing a plan for total control and subjugation of this neighborhood, because it is a neighborhood of resistance!
         Renewed police sweep operations have become a weekly routine, and many refugees and members from our squat communities have been controlled, beaten and detained. Exarchia is and should remain a place of direct political action, of self organization of the oppressed, a site of diversity and freedom. Militants, migrants and prisoners alike, we can only defend our community through unified action against the state. Solidarity is our weapon, and our key.
And much nearer home, Glasgow.
        Sorry a bit late with this for the protest, but you can still take action and join one of the support groups, links below.

Protest - Stop The Mass Eviction of Refugees Tonight 6:00 Buchanan Street.

      PROTEST: Glasgow stands with 300 refugees facing mass eviction from
their homes over the next week.

        The mass eviction of 300 refugees is set to take place across Glasgow
city over the next week. Serco who are the private housing firm who deal with accommodation for refugees have deployed beyond disgusting tactics to displace people from their homes. Serco will issue "lock change" notices on Monday giving residents a week to get out with nowhere else to go.
       With the night shelter and housing schemes already massively stretched, hundreds of people in Glasgow will be facing street homelessness and will be extremely vulnerable.
        "This is, ultimately, a brutal consequence of Home Office using deliberate destitution and homelessness as a key immigration enforcement policy. Alongside the use of private asylum accommodation providers" - Stuart McDonald, MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East

This display of a brutality is not the values of the citizens of Glasgow and we are urging people to join our protest against this mass eviction. Speakers on the day to be announced. We also recommend writing to your elected representatives urging them to take action and sharing this with friends and family. If you want to learn more about organisations working on these issues or find out more about what it's like to go through the asylum process - here are some useful links:

Refugee Survival Trust - http://www.rst.org.uk/
Glasgow Night Shelter - https://glasgownightshelter.org/
Glasgow Asylum Destitute Action Network -
Positive Action in Housing - http://www.paih.org/
Scottish Refugee Council - http://www.scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/
Govan Community Project - http://www.govancommunityproject.org.uk/
Ubuntu Women's Shelter - http://ubuntu-glasgow.org.uk/
Scottish Detainee Visitors - http://sdv.org.uk/
Maryhill Integration Network - http://www.maryhillintegration.org.uk/
Maslow's Community Shop Govan -
Right To Remain Toolkit - https://righttoremain.org.uk/toolkit/
Report on Asylum Destitution in Scotland:
https://digitalpublications.parliament.scot/Committees/Report/EHRiC/2017/5/22/Hidden-Lives---New-Beginnings--Destitution--asylum-and-insecure-immigration-status-in-Scotland
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

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