No Border continues ! Answer to the french state...
Despite the use of flash ball (rubber bullets) and the prohibition to demonstrate, No Border continues...
30.Nov.99 - The State Police Departement has just prohibited any public demonstration emerging from or carried out by the No Border Camp from Thursday 0h to Saturday 24h.
This unbelievable repressive measure of rare severity clearly shows the State's fear of the issues raised by the Camp: freedom of movement and settlement in Europe, refusal of State social control and security laws. The very existence of the camp in Strasbourg was already enough to temporarily stop the deportation of sans-papiers in the Strasbourg region and to empty the deportation centre in Geispolsheim, (source: CIMADE).
A large number of people (around 2000 on the camp) coming from all around the world, adults and children, have gathered and have successfully carried out several actions and demonstrations: a protest in front of the European Court of Human Rights against the forced residence with restricted mobility in Germany (Residenzpflicht), anti surveillance samba, street theatre, targeted actions against Accor and its complicity in the deportation of sans papiers...
These actions couldn't be stopped despite attempts of intimidation that turned into real police provocations after today's demonstration (see previous release of the Collective Anti Expulsion). Since the beginning if the week, the No Border Camp has also organised a number of public debates, workshops, caravans in the banlieues, film screenings, theatre spectacles on the site of the Parc du Rhin, in the City centre and in the banlieues. We see the decision of the State Police Departement as an expression of weakness and political provocation just like the use of rubber bullets against demonstrators. We will obviously not refrain from demonstrating and acting during the coming days just because the State attempts to prohibit it. We are already working on mobilisations for the announced court cases for February 25th 2003 and the possible suits that may follow up from today's numerous arrests. We will maintain until Sunday this political space of struggle and experimentation for a world without borders and without nations.
Participants of the No Border Camp
Strasbourg July 24th 2002