The No Border Network (In the United Kingdom also called "No Borders Network" or "Noborders Network") refers to loose associations of autonomous organisations, groups, and individuals in Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and beyond. They support freedom of movement and resist human migration control by coordinating international border camps, demonstrations, direct actions, and anti-deportation campaigns.
The Western European network opposes what it says are increasingly restrictive harmonisation of asylum and immigration policy in Europe, and aims to build alliances among migrant laborers and refugees. Common slogans used by the Network include; "No Border, No Nation, Stop Deportations!" and "No one is illegal."[2]
No Border Network has existed since 1999,[3] and its website since 2000. The No Borders Network in the United Kingdom claims to have local groups in 11 cities.[4]
No Border Camps
editGroups from the No Border network have been involved in organising a number of protest camps (called "No Border Camps" or sometimes "Border Camps" or "Transborder Camps"), e.g. in Strasbourg,[5][6] France (2002), Otranto, Italy (2003), Cologne (2003, 2012), Gatwick Airport (2007), United Kingdom,[7][8] at Patras, Greece,[9] Dikili, Turkey (2008),[10] Calais, France (2009, 2015),[citation needed] Lesvos, Greece (2009),[11] Brussels, Belgium (2010), Siva Reka, Bulgaria (2011),[12][13] Stockholm, Sweden (2012), Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2013),[14] Ventimiglia, Italy (2015),[15] Thessaloniki, Greece (2016),[16] near Nantes, France (2019) in Wassenaar, Netherlands (2019), near Nantes, France (2022), and in Rotterdam, Netherlands (2022).
Activities
edit
On 18 December 2007, to coincide with the UN International Migrants Day, the network carried out a coordinated blockade of Border and Immigration Agency (now UK Border Agency) offices[17] in Bristol, Portsmouth, Newcastle[18] and Glasgow[19] to prevent dawn raids by immigration officers from taking place. This form of action has been repeated across the UK by the network several times since.[20][21]
On 24 October 2008, Phil Woolas, UK Minister of State for Borders and Immigration was pied by No Borders activists[22] following his remarks on population control.
On 10 August 2013, No Border groups from The Netherlands squatted a large terrain at Rotterdam to gather and held several demonstrations.[23]
In February 2010 No Borders groups from the UK and France opened a large centre for refugees sleeping rough in Calais, France, under the name "Kronstadt Hangar".[24]
Calais authorities have accused "extremist activists" within to the No Borders network of being "driven by an anarchist ideology of hatred of all laws and frontiers" and engaging in, and encouraging, violence and harassment against French police and social workers at the Calais Jungle migrant camp, as well as "manipulating" and "misleading" the migrants living there.[25]
After the intercultural philosophy journal "polylog" demanded in connection with the book "Global Freedom of Movement: A Philosophical Plea for Open Borders" that the "debate on freedom of migration or restrictions on immigration should be received more strongly in the context of intercultural philosophizing",[26] new local groups such as NoBorder. NoProblem oriented themselves to international migration-sensitive contributions - also in connection with Islamic and decolonial feminisms, degrowth, global ecofeminisms, or the "ethnic studies" less known in the German-speaking world.[27] The group is a student-run independent project of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim, which itself conducts research on philosophies in global perspective.
Publications
edit- Freedom to Move, Freedom to Stay: a No Borders Reader. London: No Borders, 2007.
- James A. Chamberlain. Minoritarian Democracy: The Democratic Case for No Borders Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory (forthcoming)
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Two arrested on immigration march". BBC News. 22 September 2007. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ Naples, Nancy A.; Mendez, Jennifer Bickham (2014-10-31). Border Politics: Social Movements, Collective Identities, and Globalization. NYU Press. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-4798-5817-0.
- ^ "European Citizenship and the Place of Migrants' Struggles in a New Radical Europe. An interview with Sandro Mezzadra. | Lefteast". Criticatac.ro. 2013-07-03. Retrieved 2016-10-29.
- ^ "NoBorders UK general public mailinglist". Archived from the original on 2008-10-03. Retrieved 2008-10-25.
- ^ "International noborder-camp 2002 in Strasbourg". Archived from the original on 2009-02-06. Retrieved 2008-10-25.
- ^ Shuddhabrata Sengupta. "No Border Camp Strasbourg : A Report, 29 Jul 2002". Archived from the original on 2004-03-13.
- ^ "Protest camp starts near Gatwick". BBC News. 20 September 2007. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ "Protesters blame police over camp". BBC News. 18 September 2007. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ "No Border Patras 2008". Archived from the original on 2008-09-15.
- ^ "Turkey, Dikili, No Border Camp". 13 September 2008. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
- ^ "Noborder Lesvos '09 welcomes you". Welcome to Europe (formerly lesvos09.antira.info). 25 August 2009. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
- ^ "No Border Camp in Bulgaria: 25th to 29th of August 2011". Welcome to Europe. 28 June 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
- ^ "Some news from No Border Camp Bulgaria". 5 September 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
- ^ "No Border Camp Rotterdam 2013 – August". No Border Netwerk Nederland. 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 6 August 2013. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "Ventimiglia everywhere". 1 October 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "A collection of texts presented at the Thessaloniki No Border Camp (July 15–24, 2016)". 2 August 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ Bridge, Sarah (18 December 2007). "Protesters blockade immigration depots". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ "Activists hold dawn raid protests". BBC News. 18 December 2007. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ "Dawn raid demonstrators arrested". BBC News. 18 December 2007. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ "Protest at deportation dawn raids". BBC News. 12 February 2008. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ "SchNEWS 630 - Snatch of the Day". Schnews.org.uk. 2008-05-02. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-10-29.
- ^ "Migrant row minister hit by pie". BBC News. 24 October 2008. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ Redactie (2013-08-10). "Enkele honderden activisten No Border in Rotterdam". Het Parool (in Dutch). Retrieved 2021-09-16.
- ^ Gupta, Rahila (4 February 2010). "Solidarity is not an offence". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ John Lichfield (2016-03-01). "Calais Jungle: 'Dangerous' UK activists don't care about refugees, says official responsible for clearing camp". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21. Retrieved 2016-10-29.
- ^ Nausikaa Schirilla: »Politisch unbequem – kein Recht auf Ausschluss?« In: http://www.polylog.net/fileadmin/docs/polylog/39/39_rez_Schirilla_Cassee.pdf. WiGiP, 2018, retrieved 16 December 2020.
- ^ "Forschender Aktivismus – NoBorder. NoProblem".
Other sources
edit- Cohen, Steve, Deportation Is Freedom! The Orwellian World of Immigration Controls.
- Cohen, Steve (2003), No One is Illegal: Asylum and Immigration Control, Past and Present, Trentham, ISBN 9781858562919.
- Hamm, Marion (2002), A r/c tivism in Physical and Virtual Spaces, archived from the original on 2016-10-26, retrieved 2008-10-26.
- Schneider, Florian (2002), Knocking Holes In Fortress Europe.
- Sengupta, Shuddhabrata (2002), No Border Camp Strasbourg : A Report, archived from the original on 2004-03-13.
- Hauptfleisch, Wolfgang (2002), "Come Together – Das erste europäische Grenzcamp in Straßbourg vom 19.-28. Juli 2002", Graswurzelrevolution 271/2002, Muenster.
- Tsavdaroglou, Charalampos (2019), "Reimagining a Transnational Right to the City: No Border Actions and Commoning Practices in Thessaloniki", Social Inclusion, 7 (2): 219–229, doi:10.17645/si.v7i2.1973, S2CID 198670655.