IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Wanneer: 08/08/2013 - 13:34

Vandaag protesteren activisten vanuit het No Border Camp zowel bij de ambassade van Spanje en bij de vertegenwoordiging van de Europese Commissie in Den Haag. Zij eisen ter ondersteuning van het Beraad van Subsahara Migranten in Marokko dat de mensenrechten worden gerespecteerd. Zij eisen tevens dat Europa een einde maakt aan het externaliseren of exporteren van de Europese grensbewaking en het omkopen van de Marokkaanse staat om de rol van waakhond te vervullen.

In de nacht van 23 op 24 juli 2013 heeft een groep Subsahara migranten gepoogd de hekken van Melilla over te steken. Melilla is een Spaanse enclave tegen Marokko aan aan de Middellandse Zee. De migranten hoopten in Europa een beter leven op te bouwen en geld naar huis te kunnen sturen. Zij werden echter allen zwaar mishandeld door zowel Spaanse als Marokkaanse bewakers. De volgende dag vonden er massale razzia’s plaats in steden in het Noorden van Marokko waarbij honderden subsahara migrante vrouwen, mannen en kinderen werden geslagen, gearresteerd en uitgezet naar de Marokkaans-Algerijns woestijngebied. Anderen zijn in het ziekenhuis van Nador waar twee zijn overleden en meerder met zware verwondingen liggen. De migranten vragen nu om hulp.

Sinds 2 augustus is er in Rotterdam een No Border Camp. Dit kamp is een actiekamp ter ondersteuning van migranten onder de leus ‘vrijheid van beweging’.

Onderstaande Engelstalige brief wordt aangeboden aan de Spaanse ambassade en de Europese Commissie, en is ook verstuurd naar de Marokkaanse ambassade:

Arrests of Sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco
with great concern I learned from Moroccan, Spanish and international media, that Moroccan security forces executed various raids against Sub-Saharan migrants in the North of Morocco and in other cities like Mekhnés and Rabat. For example: on July 27th 140 migrants were detained close to the city of Nador and some days before, on July 24th, nearly 300 migrants were detained in the neighbourhood Boukhalef in Tanger. Latest news – 7th of august – is that 68 migrants of whom 34 women,28 children and 6 men, are kept in a camp in the city of Berkan near the Algerian border.

A group of unarmed migrants attempted to override the border fortifications to Melilla in the night of 23th to 24th of March and these desperate trys which are going on since years now were given as a reason for the actual police raids. During the raids hundreds of migrants – men, women and children – have been severly beaten by the Spanish guards back to Moroccan territory and there
arrested, beaten and deported to the desert at the moroccan-algerian border. In Tanger a senegalese woman in presence of her two year old child was injured and humiliated by police forces and was deported half naked in a lorry to the border between Morocco and Algeria. Close to Nador a woman was forced to leave her seven months old child behind in the forest, another one had to leave one of her three year old twins behind. Those who managed to escape and to hide in the close by forests did not dare to go back into the cities for fear of new raids. Others are in hospitals in Nador, numerous severely injured and two dead persons are reported.

To my opinion it is alarming, that Moroccan media are justifying these inhuman raids by claiming, that the migrants were responsible for armed attacks against the fences of Melilla as they should have used sticks. It is highly deceptive to call these sticks arms (if ever they have been used) and to call the desperate try to overcome the fences violence. The violence was clearly committed by the Spanish and Moroccan security forces as the above mentioned examples show.
And it has to be mentioned here too, that a big part of the responsibility for the violence is the deeply inhuman policy of Spain and the European Union, to externalise and militarise its border regime. Last but not least this policy is responsible for the death of some ten thousands of refugees and migrants from both Sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb on their way to Europe since 1993.

Basically I would like to ask you, to advocate for an immediate stop of the ongoing raids, arrests and deportations to the moroccan-algerian border. It is also of great importance, that the responsible persons for the recent cases of death are brought to justice. Moreover all wounded migrants should have the possibility of medical treatment in hospitals without being in fear of being arrested.
Finally I would like to point out, that I explicitly support all corresponding demands of Moroccan human rights organisations.

Yours sincerely,