"WHY ARE WE AFRAID OF #REFUGEES? / by ELIF SHAFAK"

"In this episode, [Turkish writer] Elif Shafak is focusing on the word #REFUGEE. Why are we afraid of them?"

"Climate change refugees?"

[Photo credit: 

David Gray/Reuters]

"Millions of people have to move each year due to natural disasters and the impacts of climate change.

We talk about "climate refugees"...but [in a legal sense] they don't exist. In fact, those displaced by climate change have no special protections under international law. But that may be changing."

The UN is finally recognising this fact.

More from source at PRI here.

"By land and by sea: Salvini’s war on immigration in Italy"

[Piazza duca d’Aosta, Milan, Italy (2016). Photo source: Wiki Commons]

"Salvini’s war against immigration is being waged by land and by sea. 


It is a war against a section of society that makes up over eight per cent of the country’s population. 

By sea, the war is being waged through a criminalization of humanitarian rescue operations. 

The decree recently approved by [his] Italian government restricting the right to asylum is the terrestrial counterpart to the criminalization of NGOs operating in the Mediterranean. 

This not only pertains to operations carried out by foreign NGOs, which are accused of failing to observe the sovereignty of national borders, but also to operations carried out by the Italian Coast Guard itself. 

This is a schizophrenia typical of authoritarianism and amounts to a call on the state authorities to close ranks.
The climax to Matteo Salvini’s ongoing campaign against humanitarianism, it will have a fundamental impact on the management of migration within the country..."

Read more from source at EuroZine here.

Barcelona as a 'shelter city' (on World Refugee Day)

"*The following is an edited transcript of an interview [with Barcelona city council spokesman Marc Serra] conducted for European Alternatives’ forthcoming documentary Demos: Solidarity in Europe.

In February 2017 thousands of citizens marched in the city of Barcelona following the mayor’s call to challenge the national government over its failure to accept the country’s quota of refugees set by the EU. Like many other EU members, Spain has not fulfilled this quota, with only 1,279 people entering the country in 2018, while its citizens demand more migrants are welcomed. If cities are ready to house these people, and citizens are willing to cooperate with local institutions, what is stopping the process?

European Alternatives: What is the Shelter Cities program and how does it work?

Marc Serra: The Shelter Cities program started around the summer of 2015, when we witnessed the states’ failure to manage the human rights crisis, the refugee crisis. When the cities verified that the states were auctioning off the cities that could accommodate less refugees, we said that’s enough. It started as a cry of anger. Barcelona said “We are actually willing to take in people looking for shelter, fleeing war (in this case it was above all the conflict in Syria) in our cities.” Then, little by little, other cities joined the cry started in Barcelona. Today, almost three years later, a program called Shelter Cities exists, it combines the initial advocacy –– we have been to the United Nations, the European Commission, the Spanish government, even to the Vatican, to demand safe and legal channels to receive refugees–– with local policies, providing housing, translators, human resources teams (social workers, social educators…) to accommodate the refugees who, despite the difficulties created by the states and the EU, are arriving in our cities and, for whom, therefore, we must provide decent living conditions to – it is our duty and obligation.

European Alternatives: What would you say has been, up until today, the greatest success of the program?

Marc Serra: I believe the greatest success of the Shelter Cities program has been to manage to channel the desire to show solidarity, a growing desire among the citizenship. It has been difficult, but I believe we have been able to seize this opportunity. We must take into account that Barcelona has a very long history of solidarity; that the city had already invested a great deal in welcoming East European refugees fifteen years ago, that there had been protests against the war in Iraq, and that here the biggest protests in Europe and perhaps in the entire world took place in favour of the refugees.

The city has opened up and since the beginning of the term the number of asylum seekers it assists has grown threefold. We took care of 4,400 people applying for asylum in 2017, through our service providing counselling for immigrants and refugees, obviously for free, offering free legal assistance, hosting those in need of emergency housing, and developing a local shelter program for vulnerable families.

I believe that, above all, the program has been able to channel this desire to help despite the institutions, so also counteracting the declarations expressed in the public debate, which treat the issues of migration and refugees in a populist manner, therefore allowing us to take a stand against fascism and extremism.

European Alternatives: You talk about institutions, and right now we are in a situation where, on the one hand, Barcelona is an example of wanting to welcome people coming from countries at war, and on the other, despite the EU has imposed national refugee quotas on member states, in order to try to manage this arrival of people, the nation states are blocking that arrival. How does Barcelona cope with this “duality”, this double policy of these two institutions, at the national level and the European one?

Marc Serra: In light of the Spanish government’s reiterated refusal to fulfill the quotas, we went to Brussels to ask the European Commission to take action, as it has already done with some states that have neglected the quota issue in an even more evident way. The fact is that the deals signed in 2015 are still in force, even though they have expired, because they are agreements made not only with the EU, but also with the entire citizenship. Therefore the European Commission can, and must, initiate disciplinary procedures against the states that have failed to comply with the quota system. We want the Spanish government to actually take in the 17,000 people it has committed to take in. We want it because the citizenship wants it, and we will do everything we can to remind both the Spanish state and the European Commission of this..."


Read more from source at European Alternatives here.

spoke with Marc Serra from the City Council of Barcelona about ‘Shelter Cities’, a program initiated by the city to manage the arrival of asylum seekers at a local level.  

We spoke with Marc Serra from the City Council of Barcelona about ‘Shelter Cities’, a program initiated by the city to manage the arrival of asylum seekers at a local level.  

Syrian refugees to finish university studies in Catalonia

"Students who were forced to interrupt their studies because of the war in Syria and who are now refugees in Lebanon, will finalise their degrees in Catalonia starting next year. 

The 20 students will be spread across 12 Catalan universities, thanks to a pioneering project promoted by the Generalitat. Each will have a grant of €10,000 a year to study and maintain themselves in a student flat."

Source: Catalonia Today (news.)

Barcelona Mayor restates role of the city in settling refugees

[Colau with her counterparts from Madrid, Zaragoza and Valencia at the Vatican.  Photo: EFE.]

 "The mayoress of Barcelona, Ada Colau, yesterday [restated] the role that cities can play in the reception of refugees in contrast with the “disastrous handling” so far of the states and the international community in the face of the crisis. 

Colau made these claims at the Vatican during her speech at the international summit ‘Europe: refugees are our brothers and sisters' where she was participating with seventy European mayors including those of Madrid, Manuela Carmena; Valencia, Joan Ribó; Zaragoza, Pedro Santisteve, and Malaga, Francisco de la Torre.

The summit opened yesterday but today Colau and other municipal leaders will be received by Pope Francis, who has also been critical of the management of the refugee crisis. Colau appreciated the role taken by the Pope in the issue and denied the existence of any contradictions in being a representative of a lay and non-confessional institution agreeing with the words of the Pope. 

For Colau, the meeting is focused “on human rights and democracy,” and asked the other municipal representatives to join forces to combat “the growth of neo-fascism” on the European continent as is represented by the presidential candidate in France, Marine Le Pen.

Warning that the European Union is at a crossroads where it must decide to aid refugees or support the far right, she called for safer means of access to prevent deaths when refugees are forced to flee their countries. Colau demanded more resources and authority for the cities to welcome refugees, grant work permits and allow them to pay taxes “like other citizens.”

“At stake is our civilisation and heritage. The EU was born to say no more to the horrors generated by wars, violence and dehumanisation,” the mayoress concluded."

Source: Catalonia Today.

Stand with Team Refugees at the Rio Olympics - Video/Online Petition

 

http://www.refugeespetition.org/