Crossing the Channel: Initiatives start preparing for a Noborder Camp in Calais in June 2009

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http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

from london noborders, updated 17 March 2009:

The No Border Camp in Calais, France, will be held from 23-29th June 2009, including a transnational demonstration on Saturday 27th June in Calais.

Groups from France and the UK including people involved in the UK NoBorders Network agreed in a recent meeting in Lille to organise a transnational Noborder Camp in Calais, France, which will be held in the last week of June 2009.

While Europe is tightening its border controls to the outside of Europe, and especially to northern Africa, one of its internal borders is often overseen.

Many migrants who come to Europe aim to reach the United Kingdom, but after the closing down of the centre in Sangatte/Calais, people are forced to sleep rough in the woods around the harbour, getting pushed around and often finally sent back to Paris where they are forced to sleep rough in their hundreds.

Furthermore the British border serves as a mechanism of internal control and filtering in Europe. We from Britain would especially like to talk about the new proposed laws in Britain which will strengthen the migration controls and establish a new level of detention regime in the UK.

By pushing the British border onto French territory, the British government has made it impossible for many people to claim asylum in Britain and forced those that do try into the hands of people smugglers.

We believe that this situation can only be changed when we start a public discourse about the British Border regime and the humanitarian situation of the people who try to reach Britain from France.

We believe that the border regime can be only understood in its political and economic context, i.e. the exploitation of cheap work from migrants. Therefore we think that the struggle for equal rights for migrant workers and the struggle against the European detention and asylum system are closely connected.

We also believe that we need to intensify the transnational cooperation between initiatives made by people on both sides of the border who find the current situation unbearable.

[original article]

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