2016
Solidarity is the mother of every human being
Human progress throughout history would never have been possible without the people who have crossed borders. Migration means saying “yes” to life. Migrating means getting together and communicating customs, knowledge, cultures and religions. Migration is essential to move towards a real culture of encounter. We demand the right of every person to emigrate.
The historical moment we are currently living through is marked by two perverse and intimately interwoven dynamics. On the one hand, the brutality of great powers and big multinational corporations seeking to preserve their inhumane interests and, on the other hand, the manifest political inability to resist imperial economic powers. As a result of these two dynamics, a large part of the population is condemned to hunger, misery and war. In consequence, many innocents die or are forced to migrate. We claim every person has the right to not have to emigrate.
Nowadays, borders are the clearest evidence of the failure of politics. These policies place servility to criminal economic interests over the defense of democracy, human rights and the common good. The capital has open borders. On the contrary, when immigrants from impoverished countries come to the borders of enriched countries, they usually face death, scorn and persecution. It is common that the very same countries that have indulged in plundering, that have promoted wars and have implemented disastrous economic policies in poor countries, refuse to accept with dignity those who emigrate seeking to get out of those situations. Borders are often used to select those who might be of some “interest” among the poor, like in the times of slavery. It is a double injustice. We demand everyone’s commitment in the fight against the causes of hunger and war.
We know we cannot be overcome with fear and powerlessness. Solidarity has always been the strength of those at the bottom. We have seen how those who supposedly have no strength to fight and work, those who supposedly have no chance, associate nonviolently. We have seen the dignity in many women and men struggling between life and death. We want to unite our efforts. We trust that we can change things from the grassroots, because it has always been that way in history. We commit ourselves to work jointly against the injustice of borders in today’s world.
As a universal gesture of commitment, for the fourth consecutive year, we call for a worldwide fasting in solidarity with migrant people. We address this call out to all types of collectives and groups of people working on different aspects with migrants who suffer injustice anywhere in the world. We call on you to join us on December 18, 2016, Migrants’ Day.
We propose:
– promoting a solidarity fasting on December 18, in solidarity with migrant people.
– performing acts in order to make the fasting and its meaning visible.
– signing up to and spreading this manifesto.
2015
The current „migration crisis” across the world, from South East Asia, Mediterranean Sea, Australia, United States and Mexico, highlights the fundamental importance of continue the struggle for the respect of the human rights.
Nowadays, more than 230 million people are living out of their origin countries.
Since January 2015, states wars, provoked by the intresests of the great powers forced more than 5 milllion people to leave their homes. At the same time, only at the Mediterranean Sea more than 6 000 people drowned this year, escaping from their countries at war or from from hunger. People are being pushed to flee also from Central America, Mexico, Africa, Asia and other places in the world. In Europe, at the italian, greek and maltasian shores, we have been observing, especially during January and February, how autorithies choose to stay silent when people were drowning and murdered at the Mediterranean Sea. And it’s still happening while we are drafting these words with pain. Right now, entire families with babies and children are being blocked in Greece and Macedonia at the so called Humanitarian Corridor, that is just a full controlled way made to make suffer people fleeing war and the terrorism.
We hear and see everyday xenophobic violence, racism and intolerance against migrant people. Every day media re-create a criminal status for undocumented people when they call us illegal or spread fear against us. Our rights as migrants, our fundamental rights -such as the right for being respected as human beings, the right for education, work and healthcare and other rights -are being broken constantly. But the worst is that the first, essential and fundamental right- the right to life is being violated with impunity. This right does not depends on regular or irregular situation of anybody, or on the countries policies, nationalities, borders, regimes or on the lack or possesion of any documents. Nobody can deprive anybody of this right.
That’s why we will not stay silent and we will protest this year, like we are doing since 2013, making a one-day fast on the international migrants day. We will fight for our and everybodies right to live in dignity and respect, for the fundamental rights. Migrants, asylum seekers or refugees, we are under protection and it’s based on international law, the human rights law, humanitarian law and refugee law treaty framework. Why they are not being respected?
We need to make together this struggle, all over the world, together in cooperation and solidarity. We need to shout out it one voice, because nothing and no one is more important than human life. Nothing is more important than the hands that we give each other to help us.
2013 and 2014
We, women and men persecuted for being immigrants or refugees,
We, international workers,
we call all the people who feel committed to the struggle for a more just world to join a pacific action of protest against the laws that are persecuting migrants. Over 250 million of migrants are being persecuted in different ways. That’s why we start this call from Europe, where exist 420 detention centres for migrants, and from Tijuana Baja California México, where hundreds of thousands of migrants are being deported and arrested, extorsioned, robbed, beaten and even killed by municipal police. Stop the oppression! Stop the unjust imprisonment! Stop the shedding of innocent blood! Stop the inhumane acts against international workers, the forced to migrate! From here we cry out to all the people and organisations commited to justice to demand justice and respect the dignity of the migrant people. We invite you to join this day of HUNGER STRIKE FOR MIGRANTS’ JUSTICE AND DIGNITY this December 18th fasting for a peaceful protest to demand the protection of all our rights – the human rights.
We had to leave our countries because of wars or poverty and many of us had been killed and died in outlying districts of different countries. Over recent years, more than 25,000 people died on their way to Europe, 3,000 trying to reach Australia, 10,000 trying to cross the US-Mexican border, thousands in the way to the border and more than 20,000 migrants are kidnapped in Mexico per year. Most of us have lost everything – motherland, family, friends, and we can save only our honor that is now being humiliated in front of everybody’s eyes and on legal grounds. We are people who are trying to get asylum, save our dignity and life in foreign countries, if we manage to reach them, but our rights of asylum seekers, or just as human beings, are violated today. But this trend can’t just continue.
Because we are immigrants or refugees, we are deprived from freedom for months or years and treated as we were criminals. Among other things, we are forced to eat rotten, being humiliated and treated in a degrading manner, if we protest they oblige us to clean toilets and the guards beat us. We are also forced to lie in order to act accordingly to the rules of the procedures, our children can be for months or years locked up in jail deprived of education. If we are ill, we are fnot allowed to eat and we have no right to have a competent doctor or no healthcare at all, we have only a superficial inspection of our cases, we are deported to unsafe areas where our life is in danger. At times, we even come to think that death in our own country would be better than being humiliated and treated in a degrading manner in a “safe” country.
We, as a part of the humiliated and forgotten people, we call upon you to support us and show your solidarity with us. We are all humans, no human being is illegal and we have the right to live with respect, dignity and justice. We are asking to protect the most valuable thing we have – the life. In the name of the past, present and future generations, in the name of Humanity.
2017 - 18D 