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August 5th-11th 2002
09.May.02 - The freedom of movement and settlement is the right of every human being. It
is a right which should not depend on citizenship or wealth. It is a right
that belongs similarly to those who have fled from their home country
because of their opinions, religion or ethnicity and those who have left to
search for better living conditions somewhere else.
During the recent years we have unfortunately observed the tightening of
European refugee and foreigner policy, despite the politicians' speeches
praising globalization. Simultaneously as the borders inside the European
Union are opened for its citizens, the control in the outer borders of the
European Union is tightened in a way that it is more and more difficult for
people coming from the outside to get an asylum, permission of residence or
citizenship. Every year hundreds of people trying to enter Europe die by
suffocating in containers, by drowning in the Mediterranean and by being
shot by border guards. In addition to this, thousands of people are being
kept in nearly concentration-camp-like conditions in detention centers
waiting for deportation or asylum decision. In many countries the immigrants
that have entered illegally without getting caught at the border live
without rights under constant fear of getting caught and being returned to
their country of departure. There are from 3 to 4,5 million people like this
in Europe.
The No Border network consists of different groups that criticize the
current immigration and refugee policy of the European Union. The central
demand of the network is the freedom of movement and settlement for every
human being. This demand is expressed by different means of direct action
including demonstrations, stoppings of deportations, support of illegal
immigrants etc. One of the most important forms of action are the border
camps that have been organized by the network in the borders of e.g. Germany
and Poland, Poland and Belarus and Spain and Morocco. Their goal is to bring
together active people from different countries and also to create contacts
to the population in the border area.
The Finnish No Border group will organize a border camp in Imatra, in the
border of Finland and Russia, in the eastern border of the European Union,
which maintains the second largest difference in the standard of living in
the world. Commodities and money are circulated over the border but the
movement of people is strictly controlled.
After thousands refugees from Somalia came to Vainikkala during a short
period of time in 1990, the Finnish officials have with the help of
unofficial agreements succeeded in getting the Russian border officials to
examine that no one enters into Finland without Finnish visa. The paranoid
machinery built by the Soviet Union has therefore been harnessed for the use
of racist refugee policy of the European Union. The co-operation is
important for the officials because according to the international refugee
agreements any refugee at the Finnish border has a right to apply for an
asylum so it is necessary to take care that no refugee can get out of
Russia. During the recent years Finland has systematically refused to allow
visas for Chechens or any other Caucasians. This is against the spirit of
Geneve refugee agreement; no one should be prevented from entering a country
on the basis that there is a possibility of this person applying for an
asylum.
In the camp there will be workshops about e.g. immigration, racism,
detention centers, deportations and borders. There will also be practical
work with the inhabitants of the city in order to have an effect on the
attitudes concerning the border, e.g. by the means of music and other
cultural activity. The camp will offer a possibility to build co-operation,
activity and understanding and it is even as such a demonstration against
all borders.
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