Campaign: Facilitation of Freedom of Movement
We fight for a society in which freedom of movement is not only for a small privileged part of the people of the global north, but for everyone.
The EU tries hard to portray the "facilitation of entry / immigration" primarily as the business of criminal, internationally operating smuggling networks that act for pure profit, exploite refugees and put them at risk of life and limb.
The almost mantra-like reference by European authorities to the "criminal gangs" that endanger "the lives of people on heavily loaded, non-navigable boats" is both a diversionary tactic and an attempt at discrediting. Not only is the "facilitation of entry" thus fundamentally equated with criminality, but the focus is also diverted from European politics to the smugglers alone with regard to the question of responsibility and guilt for the death and exploitation of people on the move.
It is neither the fault of smugglers that almost every legal and safe way to Europe is blocked for refugees, nor is it only smugglers in the sense of commercialized assistance who are affected by the criminalization. On the contrary, it is mostly people acting in solidarity, friends, family members - people who have the protection of refugees in mind - and above all refugees themselves who are targeted by criminal investigations. The discursive fight against "evil smugglers who exploit refugees" is not only deeply mendacious, but also another instrument to criminalize and prevent the arrival of refugees.
We are convinced that migration, the overcoming of borders and the facilitation of this represent one of the central struggles or forms of active political resistance against the global relations of domination and exploitation. By strategically intervening in the dominant discourse again and again over several months with various means and publicly questioning the narrative of the "criminal smugglers", we want to promote a public debate around the issue of facilitation of entry and, in the long term, create a discursive counter-power for the practical undermining of borders.
Our campaign is embedded in our very concrete support work for people who are criminalized for facilitating entry, which we have already been doing continuously for years in the form of, among other things, trial support and campaigning.
The campaign is funded by Bewegungsstiftung.
Wednesday, 23 November 2022
