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txttletale · 10 months

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Hi! Do you think you could link me to some resources about the problems/ evils of the EU? Would love to find some but it's hard to know what's reliable when I have no base knowledge in this area + you seem very well informed :)

sure. let's start with what the EU does to its own member states--in 2009, the EU bailed the greek government out of severe debt on the condition that they establish brutal austerity measures, cutting public spending and welfare. these measures served to immiserate and destroy the lives of thousands of greek people:

Greek mortality has worsened significantly since the beginning of the century. In 2000, the death rate per 100,000 people was 944.5. By 2016, it had risen to 1174.9, with most of the increase taking place from 2010 onwards.

[forbes]

Since the implementation of the austerity programme, Greece has reduced its ratio of health-care expenditure to GDP to one of the lowest within the EU, with 50% less public hospital funding in 2015 than in 2009. This reduction has left hospitals with a deficit in basic supplies, while consumers are challenged by transient drug shortages.

[the lancet]

The homeless population is thought to have grown by 25 per cent since 2009, now numbering 20,000 people.

[oxfam]

the most brutal treatment, however, the EU of course reserves for migrants from the global south. the EU sets strict migration quotas and uses its member states as weapons against desperate people fleeing across the mediterranean. boats are prevented from landing, migrants that do make it to land are repelled with brutal violence, and refugees are deported back to countries where their lives are in lethal danger. these policies have led to many, many deaths--and the refugees and migrants who do survive are treating fucking inhumanely.

After a perilous journey across the desert, Abdulaziz was locked up in Triq al-Sikka, a grim prison in Tripoli, Libya. Why? Because the EU pays Libyan militias millions of euros to detain anyone deemed a possible migrant to Europe [...] A leaked EU internal memorandum in 2020 acknowledged that capturing migrants was now “a profitable business model” [...] in Triq al-Sikka and other detention centres, “acts of murder, enslavement, torture, rape and other inhumane acts are committed against migrants”, observed a damning UN report.

[the guardian]

Volunteers have logged more than 27,000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large ships capsize. These account for nearly 80% of all the entries.

[the guardian]

Refugees and asylum seekers were punched, slapped, beaten with truncheons, weapons, sticks or branches, by police or border guards who often removed their ID tags or badges, the committee said in its annual report. People on the move were subject to pushbacks, expulsion from European states, either by land or sea, without having asylum claims heard. Victims were also subject to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, such as having bullets fired close to their bodies while they lay on the ground, being pushed into rivers, sometimes with hands tied, or being forced to walk barefoot or even naked across a border.

[the guardian]

In September, Greece opened a refugee camp on the island of Samos that has been described as prison-like. The €38m (£32m) facility for 3,000 asylum seekers has military-grade fencing and CCTV to track people’s movements. Access is controlled by fingerprint, turnstiles and X-rays. A private security company and 50 uniformed officers monitor the camp. It is the first of five that Greece has planned; two more opened in November.

[the guardian]

i could go on. i could cite dozens more similarly brutal news stories about horrific mistreatment, or any of the dozens of people who have killed themselves in the custody of border police under horrific conditions. the EU is a murderous institution that does not care about the lives of refugees and migrants or about the lives of the citizens of any member state that is not pursuing a vicious enough neoliberal political program

#ask #sa mention

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spidergvven · 10 months

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sick to my stomach reading about the capsized refugee boat, they killed those people on purpose

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odinsblog · 10 months

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While EU officials express their grief over the deadliest shipwreck in recent years, Solomon's analysis exposes the EU hypocrisy: Out of 800 million euros allocated to Greece for border management, only 600,000 euros (0,07%) are for search and rescue. (source)

Authorities practically watched them drown and nothing was done until it was too late

The Greek coastguard claimed it didn’t intervene when a boat carrying asylum seekers and refugees capsized because those on board refused help, leaving as many as 750 people to drown. Activists say Greece delayed aid as those on board pleaded for help for 15+ hours.

#greece #frontex #refugees #asylum seekers #politics #racism

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ausetkmt · 10 months

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Video shows migrants waiting before ill-fated migrant boat voyage

03:41 - Source: CNN

CNN —

The hull of the fishing trawler lifted out of the water as it sank, catapulting people from the top deck into the black sea below. In the darkness, they grabbed onto whatever they could to stay afloat, pushing each other underwater in a frantic fight for survival. Some were screaming, many began to recite their final prayers.

“I can still hear the voice of a woman calling out for help,” one survivor of the migrant boat disaster off the coast of Greece told CNN. “You’d swim and move floating bodies out of your way.”

With hundreds of people still missing after the overloaded vessel capsized in the Mediterranean on June 14, the testimonies of those who were onboard paint a picture of chaos and desperation. They also call into question the Greek coast guard’s version of events, suggesting more lives could have been saved, and may even point to fault on the part of Greek authorities.

Rights groups allege the tragedy is both further evidence and a result of a new pattern in illegal pushbacks of migrant boats to other nations’ waters, with deadly consequences.

This boat was carrying up to 750 Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian refugees and migrants. Only 104 people have been rescued alive.

CNN has interviewed multiple survivors of the shipwreck and their relatives, all of whom have wished to remain anonymous for security reasons and the fear of retribution from authorities in both Greece and at home.

One survivor from Syria, whom CNN is identifying as Rami, described how a Greek coast guard vessel approached the trawler multiple times to try to attach a rope to tow the ship, with disastrous results.

“The third time they towed us, the boat swayed to the right and everyone was screaming, people began falling into the sea, and the boat capsized and no one saw anyone anymore,” he said. “Brothers were separated, cousins were separated.”

Another Syrian man, identified as Mostafa, also believes it was the maneuver by the coast guard that caused the disaster. “The Greek captain pulled us too fast, it was extremely fast, this caused our boat to sink,” he said.

The Hellenic Coast Guard has repeatedly denied attempting to tow the vessel. An official investigation into the cause of the tragedy is still ongoing.

Coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told CNN over the phone last week: “When the boat capsized, we were not even next to (the) boat. How could we be towing it?” Instead, he insisted they had only been “observing at a close distance” and that “a shift in weight probably caused by panic” had caused the boat to tip.

The Hellenic Coast Guard has declined to answer CNN’s specific requests for response to the survivor testimonies.

Direct accounts from those who survived the wreck have been limited, due to their concerns about speaking out and the media having little access to the survivors. CNN interviewed Rami and Mostafa outside the Malakasa migrant camp near Athens, where journalists are not permitted entry.

The Syrian men said the conditions on board the migrant boat deteriorated fast in the more than five days after it set off from Tobruk, Libya, in route to Italy. They had run out of water and had resorted to drinking from storage bottles that people had urinated in.

“People were dying. People were fainting. We used a rope to dip clothes into the sea and use that to squeeze water on people who had lost consciousness,” Rami said.

CNN’s analysis of marine traffic data, combined with information from NGOs, merchant vessels and the European Union border patrol agency, Frontex, suggests that Greek authorities were aware of the distressed vessel for at least 13 hours before it eventually sank early on June 14.

The Greek coast guard has maintained that people onboard the trawler had refused rescue and insisted they wanted to continue their journey to Italy. But survivors, relatives and activists say they had asked for help multiple times.

Earlier in the day, other ships tried to help the trawler. Directed by the Greek coast guard, two merchant vessels – Lucky Sailor and Faithful Warrior – approached the boat between 6 and 9 p.m. on June 13 to offer supplies, according to marine traffic data and the logs of those ships. But according to survivors this only caused more havoc onboard.

“Fights broke out over food and water, people were screaming and shouting,” Mostafa said. “If it wasn’t for people trying to calm the situation down, the boat was on the verge of sinking several times.”

By early evening, six people had already died onboard, according to an audio recording reviewed by CNN from Italian activist Nawal Soufi, who took a distress call from the migrant boat at around 7 p.m. Soufi’s communication with the vessel also corroborated Mostafa’s account that people moved from one side of the boat to the other after water bottles were passed from the cargo ships, causing it to sway dangerously.

The haunting final words sent from the migrant boat came just minutes before it capsized. According to a timeline published by NGO Alarm Phone they received a call, at around 1:45 a.m., with the words “Hello my friend… The ship you send is…” Then the call cuts out.

The coast guard says the vessel began to sink at around 2 a.m.

The next known activity in the area, according to marine traffic data, was the arrival of a cluster of vessels starting around 3 a.m. The Mayan Queen superyacht was the first on the scene for what soon became a mass rescue operation.

Human rights groups say the authorities had a duty to act to save lives, regardless of what people on board were saying to the coast guard before the migrant boat capsized.

“The boat was overcrowded, was unseaworthy and should have been rescued and people taken to safety, that’s quite clear,” UNHCR Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean Vincent Cochetel told CNN in an interview. “There was a responsibility for the Greek authorities to coordinate a rescue to bring those people safely to land.”

Cochetel also pointed to a growing trend by countries, including Greece, to assist migrant boats in leaving their waters. “That’s a practice we’ve seen in recent months. Some coastal states provide food, provide water, sometimes life jackets, sometimes even fuel to allow such boats to continue to only one destination: Italy. And that’s not fair, Italy cannot cope with that responsibility alone.”

Survivors who say the coast guard tried to tow their boat say they don’t know what the aim was.

There have been multiple documented examples in recent years of Greek patrol boats engaging in so-called “pushbacks” of migrant vessels from Greek waters in recent years, including in a CNN investigation in 2020.

“It looks like what the Greeks have been doing since March 2020 as a matter of policy, which is pushbacks and trying to tow a boat to another country’s water in order to avoid the legal responsibility to rescue,” Omer Shatz, legal director of NGO Front-LEX, told CNN. “Because rescue means disembarkation and disembarkation means processing of asylum requests.”

Pushbacks are state measures aimed at forcing refugees and migrants out of their territory, while impeding access to legal and procedural frameworks, according to the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). They are a violation of international law, as well as European regulations.

And such measures do not appear to have deterred human traffickers whose businesses prey on vulnerable and desperate migrants.

In an interview with CNN last month, then Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis denied that his country engaged in intentional pushbacks and described them as a “completely unacceptable practice.” Mitsotakis is widely expected to win a second term in office in Sunday’s election, after failing to get an outright majority in a vote last month.

A series of Greek governments have been criticized for their handling of migration policy, including conditions in migrant camps, particularly following the 2015-16 refugee crisis, when more than 1 million people entered Europe through the country.

For those who lived through last week’s sinking, the harrowing experience will never be forgotten.

Mostafa and Rami both say they wish they had never made the journey, despite the fact they are now in Europe and are able to claim asylum.

Most of all, Mostafa says, he wishes the Greek coast guard had never approached their boat: “If they had left us be, we wouldn’t have drowned.”

#‘If they had left us be #we wouldn’t have drowned:’ CNN investigation raises questions about Greek coast guard’s account of shipwreck tragedy #greek coast guard #greece #brown skin #white privilege #racism in immigration #africans #european racism

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mirrorofliterature · 10 months

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look - as someone who just concluded studying disasters in detail - what is happening with the titan is a disaster that was clearly preventable, plain and simple, and the most humane boils down to this: yes, it was certainly foreseeable, but wishing people death is callous.

and also: people are using the fact that the titan has garnered lots of media attention to guilt trip people into learning about a tragedy - a boat capsizing with asylum seekers killing dozens of people in the Mediterranean. whilst this is clearly terrible, guilt tripping is a terrible way to spread information and awareness. most people in Tumblr aren't responsible for mainstream Western media's focus, which (shockingly) often boils down to racism, ignorance and closeness to the country's public. like... I feel like some people are using the deaths of refugees as a gotcha moment over people and it's like... how insensitive can you be? a tragedy is not your internet trump card for you to look morally superior! 'oh, look at me, I care much more about underreported tragedy b than the silly not-tragedy b everyone is talking about!'

shut up you pretentious fucking twats and stop playing trauma Olympics with marine disasters. yes, capsizing of refugee boats should gain more attention, but their slow nature and repetitiveness just don't grab media attention, unfortunately.

a tragedy is a tragedy. slamdunking on the victims of the titan does shitall to help refugees

#titanic #titan #marine disasters #refugees #rambles

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asteroidtroglodyte · 10 months

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>millionaires want to visit Titanic

>governments say no

>it is a mass grave and illegal to disturb

>professional seamen say no

>cool motive, still a crime

>Stockton Rush, Venture Capitalist, founds SeaGate, an oceanic tourism company.

>he offers these people a submarine tour of the Titanic for the low, low price of $250000 a seat

>the engineers he hires say "a safe submarine costs $X,XXX,XXX"

>Stockton Rush says "I bet I can build it for $X,XXX"

>Engineers quit

>Mr Rush hires Workers (NOT engineers)

>uses his own design

>(Mr Rush is a Venture Capitalist and has never been to engineering school)

>sells 5 seats

>Mr Rush pilots the submersible himself

>(Mr Rush is a Venture Capitalist and has never piloted a submersible)

>They lose contact with the surface

>20 minutes into a "3 hour voyage"

>(professionals take 2 hours to GO DOWN)

>they have not returned

>>>MEANWHILE

>in the Mediterranean

>boat full of Pakistani refugees

>stopped by Greek coast guard

>capsizes

>hundreds drown in largest maritime tragedy in decades

>every news outlet covering SeaGate

>nobody covering hundreds of dead poor people

>>>Fuck Them Yachts

>>>Fuck That Submarine

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lemonpixycat · 10 months

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Since we’re talking about people who don’t deserve to die a horrible death, I thought i’d really like to talk about the boat that was carrying hundreds of people off the coast of Greece that capsized. Notice how shitloads of dollars weren’t spent trying to rescue these people like they were spent trying to find the 5 billionaires in the titanic sub. I’d like to point out the discrepancy in the way we treat people and who gets attention in the news and who gets the resources for rescue. Whose lives are valued and whose are not. While I don’t believe that the titanic sub didn’t deserve the attention it got, I wish we spent even half as much trying to rescue the people in the capsized boat who were looking for a better life. It’s really disturbing and gross that it didn’t receive as much resources and attention. They were much more easily saveable, too, than the people at the bottom of the ocean. No one in either situation deserved the death they received, but I notice which deaths the media was mourning and which they weren’t.

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/06/20/world-refugees-mediterranean-capsize-trawler-migrants-greece-245523

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mirrorballtales · 6 months

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Dear Reader,

I have so much to say about Gaza and Palestine. The universal screams of mothers mourning their children, playing like drums, calling to the world to do something and met with a silence so loud, another life has exhaled their last breath. Children pay the ultimate price. I am taken back to September 3, 2015. A little Syrian boy, 2 years old, Alan Kurdi, I remember his name because that is also my brother’s name, washed ashore at a beach in Turkey. He looked so peaceful. Sleeping. He’d drowned when the rubber boat they were in, capsized. That picture is the reason I chose Syria as the country I would focus on in all my research papers. This was during the height of the Syrian refugee crisis and the ongoing civil war in Syria. It still haunts me and evokes a guttural pain whenever I picture his little face, his red shirt, his shoes still on, his hands to his side. It breaks me. I remember feeling so helpless then. I feel helpless now. He died and paid the price for a war he did not start, a war he had nothing to do with. It’s happening. Again. Children being slaughtered for something they did not do. Innocence being ripped apart and torn to pieces.

Terror begets terror. Hate begets hate. But what we are witnessing today, is genocide. This is an act of evil by Netanyahu. I have screamed from the top of my lungs since last week, that the irresponsible support of the fascist Netanyahu regime would bring innocent blood shed.

Netanyahu does not care for the people of Israel. Netanyahu does not represent the people of Israel. His blatant and willful call for the destruction of Palestinians, especially children, are grounds for charges to be brought against him in the International Court. We are witnessing war crimes being committed, a genocide, occurring before our eyes, does he not know, even wars have rules?

I will never side with the oppressor. You will never bully me into changing my stance. My whole belief system is in the protection of innocence. My entire studies were dedicated to the Lost Generation of children in Syria. You think I’ll turn a blind eye and stay silent about this?

I received a death threat earlier, which, I took with a grain of salt, not because I am invincible but because it looked like a child was allowed on the computer, but beyond this, this ideology that I must conform to a full blind support of Israel or I am anti-Semitic is an insult to my intelligence and an insult to those who have died at the hands of anti-semitism. I worked at the Museum of Tolerance. If I took one thing away, from my time there, it was to always stand up for those who had no voice. One day I might need someone to stand up for me. I believe that Israeli lives are valuable. I believe Hamas is a terrorist group and must be met with full condemnation. I believe no Israeli should die because of the errors of the government. I, too, believe Palestine should exist without Israeli occupation. I believe Gaza belongs to Palestine. I believe in the liberation of Palestine, and I believe no blood should be shed in Palestine. I believe both Israel and Palestine bleed as mothers wail and cry for their children to breathe again. I believe that pain is universal. It is insurmountable grief. How do we fix it?

No child should die. Not for a war they were not fighting.

I leave you with this. Alan’s picture. And video of the children playing this morning, in Gaza, at the hospital that was bombed, admittedly, by the Israeli government (though they’ve back tracked after the intl backlash). Filled with joy and innocence. Now taken. Their light extinguished. I hope when you see these pictures what you see is the very best of humanity, and the worst. Choose what side you want to be on.

#palestine #palestinians #free palestine #free gaza #gaza strip #free palestine 🇵🇸#genocide #occupied palestine #syria #Alan Kurdi #refugees #united nations

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drsonnet · 11 months

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Greece after a fishing boat overloaded with migrants capsized and sank.

Questions are emerging about how a fishing boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized in international waters off southern #Greece.

THE TRUTH? What happened in #Refugees #kalamata #greekcoastguard #greeceboatdisaster #greece #RefugeesWelcome

Greece: Athens protesters take to the streets after migrant boat sinking: Demonstrations erupt in Greece after a fishing boat overloaded with migrants capsized and sank. Officials say the migrants had departed from Libya and had been headed for Italy.

Thousands are on the streets of Athens as over 500 migrants are feared dead in the #Pylos shipwreck. Anti-racist demonstrations have been called across #greece dubbing the deaths a "massacre" at the hands of Fortress Europe.

WATCH THE Videos:

#genocide #Greece #refugees #kalamata #unhcr #refugees welcome #syria

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projectourworld · 1 month

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At some point humans, need to care, humanity has to rise and we all have to stand together with the people who get left behind

West Aceh, Indonesia Rohingya refugees on a capsized boat before being rescued

Photograph: Hendri/Reuters / Guardian #humanity #peoplehelpingpeople

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mariacallous · 11 months

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The Greek Coast Guard on Wednesday stated that at least 78 migrants have been found dead after a fishing boat was wrecked off Pylos, Peloponnese. So far, 104 migrants have been rescued.

A rescue operation took place in the early hours of the morning in international waters 47 nautical miles southwest of Pylos.

Italian authorities informed the Greek authorities about the boat, which was carrying a large number of migrants. The Greek media reported that about 400 people were on board. Other reports have put the number as high as 750.

The boat had been deported from Libya, bound for Italy. The migrants were not wearing life jackets.

The survivors have been taken to the port of Kalamata, in the Peloponnese, where a reception centre with first aid has been organized in collaboration with the General Secretariat of Civil Protection.

The fishing vessel was spotted on Tuesday by a EU border protection agency FRONTEX aerial vehicle and by two ships. A Greek boat sailed to the spot, while a helicopter took off at the same time.

In successive telephone calls to the fishing vessel, offering assistance, they received a negative response, stating the vessel’s desire to continue the voyage to Italy.

The boat later capsized and sank. Two patrol boats, a coast guard’s lifeboats, a frigate of the navy, seven ships sailing alongside, a helicopter of the navy, and an unnamed aerial vehicle are operating at the site of the investigations.

Six such shipwrecks with migrant victims have occurred in the first six months or so of 2023.

More than 70,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe’s frontline countries this year, with the majority landing in Italy, according to UN data, the BBC reported Wednesday.

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece in July 2022 for violating the European Convention of Human Rights over the sinking of a migrant boat in 2014 in which 11 asylum seekers, among them eight children, lost their lives.

CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour asked Greek ex-PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis if he will order a full and independent investigation into a New York Times video allegedly showing Greek authorities illegally setting adrift some migrants in the Aegean. “I have already done so, Christiane. I take this incident very seriously. It is already being investigated by my government,” said Mitsotakis.

On 5 June, MEPs in the LIBE committee debated the situation in Greece with home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson.

The European Union submitted an official request to Greece for an independent investigation into the pushbacks of refugees-immigrants after The New York Times video document.

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thessalian · 3 months

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Thess vs A Global Laughingstock

So for those of you who aren't aware, this bloody country is still going around in circles about the Rwanda Bill. Catch-up and updates follow:

What the fuck is the Rwanda Bill? Well, y'see, the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has decided to really appeal to the racist right-wing asshole voter - the kind of nitwit that voted for Brexit because of "those damned foreigners" - by dealing with "illegal migrants" once and for all. For a definition of "illegal migrants", see also "refugees" - people who are fleeing from their country of origin because their country is unsafe. The UK Nitwit Brigade keep bitching about, "They really should stop in the first safe country they find!" and ignore anyone who explains that people are only willing to pay literal people-smugglers to cross the English Channel in very small unsafe boats for very good reasons - like, they have family here, or can speak the language, or all of the above. The whole problem is that there aren't enough safe legal routes for refugees to take to get here, so they take what they can get. Anyway, the three-word slogan currently dominating the noise from 10 Downing Street is "Stop The Boats", and after discussions about things like "literally shoving the small boats back towards France with fucking gunships, inevitably causing them to capsize and drown in the process" were shut down by "lefty lawyers" who care about human rights and, y'know, not drowning innocent people. So then came the next step: "Deport them all to Rwanda".

Why Rwanda? Fuck only knows. I'm assuming it's to do with an awful lot of money. Though weirdly, we seem to have paid them more than they've paid us.

What's the problem with Rwanda? Well, it's been deemed an unsafe country by the European Commission of Human Rights, to which we still belong - it's not an EU thing, it's a European continent thing. The only two countries in Europe-the-continent that aren't a part of the ECHR are Russia (yes, it's classified by the UN as a European country) and Belarus. Neither of which have ever struck me as all that interested in human rights on the whole, honestly. Anyway, Rwanda's run by a despot, and whatever Sunak meebles about how "It's totally safe now!", the ECHR - and our own Supreme Court - have been calling that bullshit out for awhile.

So your Supreme Court said the Bill is illegal. Why are they still talking about it? Because Sunak, apparently having glommed onto this as the thing that will save his arse at the next general election (coming at the end of this year), is trying to write amendments into this fucking thing that will somehow circumvent any and all human rights law, and somehow ignore any human rights law it can't circumvent (like, all of them). This Bill is full of things like, "Oh, our civil servants will just ignore ECHR law and process things like we tell them to!" and "We'll get 150 new justices to rubber-stamp the deportation papers like good little puppets!" and holy fuck, it's kind of disgusting.

So ... and I realise you've answered half the question, but... How is this making the UK even more of a laughingstock than it already was to begin with? Well. Currently the Conservative party that came up with this bullshit is tearing itself apart. Some want the bill as it is. There's a whole cluster of rebels who want to vote it down because it's "not hardline enough and not punitive enough" when it comes to stripping human rights from refugees (and they're also the ones insisting that we have to leave the ECHR, which is part of the laughingstock thing because I don't think we want to be in the same boat as Russia and Belarus). There are a very few moderates who are actually accepting that this is never going to work and saying "enough is enough; drop this already". Meanwhile, one of Sunak's people is going, "If you don't vote for this, start looking for another job". I am only very slightly paraphrasing. So in the run-up to an election, the Tories are fighting like rats in a sack. Add to that the fact that if this thing manages to pass the Commons, it still has to pass the Lords, who have no horse in the election race (they're appointed, not elected) ... and a lot of them are lawyers. Lawyers know very well what will happen if we keep attempting to violate (or actually succeed in violating) international law. They probably won't like that idea very much. So once again, the absolute fucking irony of the "lazy unelected shit-lumps in the Lords" maybe saving our international reputation is beyond compare. ...But that's nothing compared to what Rwanda's doing.

...I am afraid to ask. Well, apparently Rwanda has been offering us (us as a country, that is) our money back. See, we've already paid Rwanda scads of money for even setting up for this doomed-to-failure bit of bullshit, as previously stated. And apparently this is getting so ridiculous and so very obviously blatantly violating international law that the president of Rwanda of all places has offered to give back a significant amount of money just to get his name and that of his country out of the whole mess. I have to wonder at what point Rwanda just goes, "You know what, no - if you don't want the money back, fine, but we're out of this shit".

I'm still terrified for refugees. I don't know what happens with this because seriously, there's no fucking way to tell what anyone in this government is going to do from one minute to the next. But I can still hope that we don't end up leaving the ECHR, because I don't really know what happens if we do that just to be able to send poor miserable people to fucking Rwanda. I mean, beyond the UN also giving up on this whole country because the UN doesn't like the idea of deporting people to Rwanda either. I mean, given the anti-trans sentiment in this country, and the fact that they're already being assholes to the disabled by cutting their benefits if they don't work from home to "do their duty" (yes, that is exactly how the government put that) ... I'm foreign, disabled, and not cishet (though I pass, and I guess that's something but I HATE IT SO MUCH THAT I HAVE TO), and this country already hates me. Take away basic human rights, and whatever replaces it is going to fuck me over very, very hard.

Gods, this place is a fucked-up mess.

#Thess vs the Tories #Thess on politics

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thewriterkb · 1 year

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CLICK TO READ ON MEDIUM

The man’s face remained expressionless as he methodically scribbled a picture of a capsized boat on a napkin in front of him. Left hand scrawling, and his gloved right hand sitting motionless on the table.

He pointed to his sketch. A boat on its side, lashed against the rocks. He had taken the time to sketch some items strewn across the water’s surface; bags, life vests, swimming people. Between the boat and the shore was a figure, head barely above the water, arm wrenched into jagged metal and rock. He pointed to the figure, then pointed to his lifeless right arm. Undoing the buttons of the cuff, he shuffled the cloth up and over, exposing a deformed mass of pink and scarification. It was still healing after the doctors in Spain had saved the man’s life, and an ooze of exudate glistened on the surface. Through each motion, his face did not change, despite unquestionable pain. He was a figure of tranquillity, spoiled only by his disfigured circumstances.

I reached for the sketch and slid it across the table to get a closer look. Half of the boat rose above water, and a number of faces — all without eyes or mouths or noses — were shown above the surface. But my eye was drawn to the submerged section of the boat. A section that didn’t possess detail or information like the rest of the sketch, but only had a perfect square, diligently scratched with ink to cover it in blackness. My fingers traced the etched surface of the paper, feeling the force that the man had exerted on this single shape.

“Niña,” the man said. Daughter.

It was two months ago that Ali Boulifa cashed in the entirety of his meagre life’s savings to a man on the north coast of Morocco. He had promised him his transit to Spain, and less than 48 hours later, his daughter would be dead, drowned in the hold of a refugee boat. Ali was rescued and taken for treatment. And there he would lay unconscious in a Spanish hospital bed, arm gnarled and ineffectual, until he awoke into the nightmare of his new life.

Ali covered over his arm and re-cuffed the shirt at his wrist. His eyes glanced up at the clock on the wall, then dropped to remain fixed on a spot a few paces to my right. I leaned back into my chair to allow the silence to permeate the air. Ali only spoke a rare Berber language that was native to North Africa. He muddled through with a few scattered words in Spanish and English, but our verbal communication was nearly impossible. Yet even still, I knew there were some occasions when you should just keep your mouth shut.

I cautiously returned my gaze to Ali, but his focus still hadn’t moved from the floor. His eyes were locked, glass-like and vacant, with dark brows holding a slight grimace over his expression. A single divot formed within the crook of his nose, and his jet-black facial hair shaded the sharp edges of his chin. His cheeks were notably gaunt, depicting the look of a man who wasn’t looking after himself. His gaze softened suddenly and his eyes darted up to check the clock once again, until he finally looked back at me and gave me a slight nod. It was time. He took up an envelope that he had concealed on his lap and slid it across the table towards me. The envelope had Ali’s geometric handwriting scratched into the top corner, expressing a single number next to a single word in Spanish. 15, Justicia.

I took a deep breath to calm myself before continuing. Sliding open the envelope, I extracted the thin stack of photos that were concealed inside, and I began to sift through the first few images. Man in suit laughing with man in coat. Man in suit being handed a satchel by man in coat. Man in coat leaving. This was absolutely stunning.

My quivering hand reached out for the glass of ice water on the table and I took a sip, hoping the cold shock would soothe my excitement. Ali had not paid me any attention during this reveal but was again scrawling serenely on a napkin, this time with rows of lines and curves. Once he had finished he gave the clock another quick glance before slowly writing the word Algeciras across the top of his sketch, each letter with clean and lovely lines. It was the name of the small town on the south coast of Spain where he had spent his months of recovery. The closest hospital to the end of his failed voyage. Passing me the napkin, I immediately recognised his depiction of the port.

“Look,” he said without emotion, this time in English.

He turned over one of the photographs and pointed to the man in the coat. He then pointed to himself and drew two small figures on the map of the port of Algeciras. He traced a line, winding up and through a number of grid-like streets on his map, until it reached the end of the napkin, where he then drew another figure.

“García,” he announced as he pointed again at the photograph, this time at the man in the suit. Cancio García, The Minister for Immigration. A face etched into my subconscious.

Cancio García had been in control of the borders, in one way or another, for the better part of two decades. Among immigrant communities in Spain, there had always been stirrings about the corruption and malevolence bestowed upon them by politicians. But the name most often heard was that of García, who seemed to possess an almost villain-like aura among the refugee population. This man had somehow been involved in just about every back-alley payment that led to the Spanish border security looking the other way, allowing for the arrival of refugee boats onto Spanish shores. Throughout all of this, García had somehow remained squeaky clean, and I had spent the last decade of my career as a journalist fishing for evidence and scouring Spain for clues. All of which had led me to absolutely nothing. Just tales and hearsay about money, names, and faces.

Thanks to Ali’s talent as an artist and the words in Spanish and English he had picked up over the last two months, I learned that García’s co-star in the photographs — the man in the coat — was the people smuggler that Ali had paid for the privilege of his daughter’s untimely death. In the short few weeks after his release from hospital, Ali endeavoured to find the man, his investigations leading him to a busy industrial area within the port of Algeciras. With the characteristic stoicism that I had seen that day, Ali waited hours for the man to leave at nightfall, where he followed him through busy streets. His patience led the pursuit to a nondescript little bar in town, allowing Ali to take some photos of the meeting with García. Through this twist of fate, Ali suddenly gained revenge much stronger than any act of violence might have provided.

It was just before three in the afternoon and an undoubtedly exhausted Ali drained his glass of water before politely excusing himself to go to the bathroom. Before he left, he stood up, gave a little bow, and said thank you to me. Whether this was a quirk of culture or personality, I wasn’t sure. But while Ali was gone, I spread the photographs out before me on the table. The silence of the bar amplified the significance of the moment. There I was, in possession of photographs that showed a long-term people smuggler consorting with Cancio García, the man I had wanted to expose for the last ten years.

I leaned back in my chair and took a moment to digest it all. I supposed I had García to thank for my career, in some perverse way. Although the lives of Ali and myself seemed worlds apart at that moment, we weren’t actually so different. My father had also paid a people smuggler to ship his family to the riches of Europe when I was a girl, likely lining the pockets of Cancio García. The only difference being the universe decided to let me and my parents live in that generation, and decided to punish Ali and his daughter in the next. But it finally felt like fate was turning in the right direction. The little refugee girl toppling one of the most corrupt figures in all of Europe.

One of those retro little clocks with the flapping numbers sat on the bar ahead, drawing my attention with its clacking sound as the time hit 15:00 in the afternoon. The entrance opened and two men entered the room. I gathered up the photographs with skittish hands, a wave of anxiety washing over men after realising how public I was being with the photographs. The men, clean and well-dressed, took a few glances around the bar, before having hushed discussions with one of the waiters. The waiter promptly gestured to a table in the corner of the restaurant, and the men returned to the door to hold it open.

One of my few memories of being a young girl was when my father and I climbed into the boat to voyage to Spain. I’ve since described it in my publications as a feeling of intense and acidic fear that washed over my viscera. A sensation of spilling bile coating my insides. The grey ocean looked filthy and poisonous, and stepping onto that old boat filled me with sheer terror. This is a feeling that has stuck with me, but one that I have thankfully never experienced since that time.

At that moment, though, when the face of Cancio García emerged from the open door, I became that little girl all over again. The same sickness enveloped me, the same sense of foreboding draining the blood from my face. I became utterly bathed in terror.

I sat motionless, clutching at the envelope, as García leisurely walked past me and settled himself into the corner table. He sat with his back facing me, rows of fatty neck stacking on top of the tight collar of his suit. His two companions joined him on either side, and the waiters busied themselves preparing the table. I was welded to my chair, as inanimate and lifeless as the other pieces of furniture that decorated the room. My statuesque exterior in contradiction to the quivering of my insides and the thoughts that now spun through my head. This could not be a coincidence, that much I was sure of. It was clear that García had somehow caught Ali in his web. No doubt he had his spies, and Ali made a real racket these last few weeks, asking every North African in Spain for the whereabouts of one of García’s men. That kind of thing does not go unnoticed.

The clock on the bar clicked again. 15:01 in the afternoon. This whole ordeal had taken less than a minute.

I looked again at the geometric number 15 that decorated the clock and felt my stomach somersault. Ali had been so insistent about meeting at this place, and at this time. I glanced down at the envelope that was still crumpled in my terrified hands to again read the markings that Ali had written on the top of the envelope. 15, Justicia.

From behind me, I heard the sharp click of the bathroom lock, followed by gentle padding footsteps. Ali placed each step with precision, walking past me without so much as a glance, his eyes locked forward on the table in the corner of El Rinconcillo. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, a reflection of how he might have one day walked along the beach with his daughter. Emanating an air of satisfaction and genuine happiness in his posture, a smile lining his lips. A character in stark contrast to the figure of stoicism who sat before me only moments ago. He approached García and stood over the table, without uttering a sound.

“Can I help you?” García asked in Spanish.

A moment went by in silence, with Ali only continuing to stare. His eyes were static and glass-like in his head, the brand new little smirk etched onto his face. I watched as García’s eyes locked with Ali’s. He then turned towards the two men and motioned for them to deal with the quiet stranger.

In a flash, Ali’s right arm flung around, and a loud crack ruptured the silent restaurant in two.

A dull thud rattled the cutlery as García’s head and body thumped on the wooden table in front of him. Ali stood motionless with his right arm extended, sleeve rolled up and his glove removed, proudly displaying the scarred right arm and hand that clasped at a makeshift pistol. He hadn’t lowered the gun in this time, but merely stood there. The weapon pointed at the place where García’s head had once sat, smoke rising from the end of the crude barrel. The men at the table seemed to be frozen in shock, and for the next few moments, the Earth stopped spinning. Silence blanketed the bar once again.

When the men finally came to their senses, they pounced on Ali and pinned him to the ground in a heartbeat. The men frantically restrained him, and a fist pushed Ali’s head against the tiled floor. The painted flamenco dancer watched the scene from the wall, her face as serene as ever. Amid the fray, the weapon scuttled across the tiled floor toward me. It was a pipe with a makeshift curved metal handle wrapped in a generous coating of duct tape. It was crude in all ways imaginable, except for one. A single word emblazoned on the side of the weapon in marker pen, written with the beautiful clear writing of Ali.

‘Justicia’.

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