-KG-

#Santé_mentale des #migrants : une #étude sonne l’alarme

Une étude réalisée par le Comité pour la santé des exilés (Comede), portant sur la violence, la vulnérabilité sociale et les troubles psychiques chez les migrants, souligne l’importance d’une meilleure prise en compte des questions de santé mentale des exilés et de leur accompagnement.

« La santé mentale des migrants/exilés constitue un enjeu important de santé publique », alerte le Comede. Dans son étude publiée ce mardi 5 septembre dans le #Bulletin_épidémiologique_hebdomadaire, le Comité pour la santé des exilés analyse les violences qu’ont subies les exilés, leurs conditions de vulnérabilité sociale et les troubles psychiques graves dont ils sont atteints. Et montre à quel point ces trois phénomènes sont étroitement liés. La question est rarement évoquée ; elle constitue pourtant un problème majeur dans les conditions de vie des migrants et leur intégration.

Hébergé au sein de l’hôpital du Kremlin-Bicêtre, en banlieue parisienne, voilà près de 40 ans que le Comede vient en aide aux personnes exilées, en leur proposant des soins et un accompagnement dans leurs démarches administratives. Le traitement des troubles psychologiques et psychiatriques représente une part non négligeable de son activité. L’étude rapporte ainsi que sur les 16 095 personnes reçues entre 2007 et 2016 pour un bilan de santé, 16,6% affichaient des troubles psychiques graves. Il s’agissait pour les deux tiers de syndromes psychotraumatiques et de traumas complexes, mais aussi de troubles anxieux et de psychoses. Des pathologies lourdes qui se manifestent par des troubles du sommeil, de la mémoire et de la concentration, des idées suicidaires, et qui nécessitent souvent plusieurs mois de suivi thérapeutique.

Ces troubles psychiques graves constituent ainsi « la première maladie qui affecte les exilés passés par le Comede, bien loin devant le VIH et la tuberculose », indique Arnaud Veïsse, l’un des auteurs de l’étude.

Violences

« Chez les exilés récemment arrivés en France, les psychotraumatismes résultent en premier lieu des causes ayant provoqué leur départ, ainsi que des conséquences immédiates de l’exil », remarquent les auteurs de l’étude. Or, 62% des quelque 5 000 personnes reçues en consultation médicale au Comede entre 2012 et 2016, originaires pour la grande majorité d’Afrique et d’Asie du Sud, ont dit avoir été victimes de violence, 14 % de torture et 13 % de violences liées au genre et à l’orientation sexuelle (viols, mariages forcés, excisions…).

Au-delà des souffrances physiques immédiates, ces violences peuvent provoquer à long terme une vulnérabilité sociale. Selon l’étude du Comede, 98% des personnes interrogées n’avaient pas de logement personnel, 81% étaient dépourvus de protection maladie, 38% ne pouvaient pas communiquer en français, 23% ne pouvaient pas manger à leur faim. Une vulnérabilité sociale elle-même susceptible de renforcer les troubles psychiques. « C’est un cercle vicieux, analyse Arnaud Veïsse : les violences subies sont susceptibles de générer des psychotraumatismes qui peuvent conduire à un isolement social, qui accroît le risque d’être exposé à des violences… » L’étude observe ainsi que les traumatismes complexes, les idées suicidaires, les troubles de la mémoire et de la concentration ainsi que les troubles dépressifs sont plus nombreux chez les personnes en situation de détresse sociale.

Le cercle vicieux des procédures administratives

La situation administrative des exilés est également pointée comme pouvant constituer un facteur aggravant. « Les psychothérapeutes témoignent fréquemment de décompensations, de syndromes psychotraumatiques et de dépressions lors de la détérioration de la situation socio-administrative des patients », rapportent ainsi les auteurs de l’étude. Et de préciser : « Les structures de soins spécialisés constatent que les thérapies des personnes déboutées de l’asile sont plus longues. Le rejet de la demande d’asile, qui représente pour certains exilés un déni de reconnaissance des violences subies, provoque la peur d’être reconduit dans le pays d’origine et entraîne le plus souvent une précarisation des conditions de vie (perte d’hébergement, absence de ressources, impossibilité d’exercer un emploi). »

Or le rejet de la demande d’asile peut être lui-même la conséquence de ces troubles psychiques et de l’incapacité de ceux qui en souffrent à se présenter aux convocations de l’administration, ou à raconter en détail les raisons qui les ont poussés à fuir leur pays. Comment en effet répondre à un interrogatoire ultra pointilleux sur les violences subies lorsqu’on souffre de pertes de mémoire ? Se profile alors le risque d’un autre cercle vicieux : incapables de tenir un récit solide et cohérent, les exilés voient leur demande d’asile rejetée, ce qui provoque une aggravation des symptômes.

Apparemment conscient de l’ampleur du phénomène et de ses enjeux, l’Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides (Ofpra), qui statue sur les demandes d’asile, affirme avoir pris des mesures pour y répondre. Des mesures qui passent notamment par la formation de son personnel et des interprètes.

Face à un constat alarmant, Arnaud Veïsse du Comede juge donc indispensable d’améliorer l’accueil des exilés en France, et plus spécifiquement l’accès à la santé mentale et à l’interprétariat. Et de déconstruire les idées reçues. « Souvent, les structures de santé publique nous renvoient des patients en disant qu’elles ne sont pas spécialisées dans le soin aux exilés. En réalité, elles manquent de temps et de moyens. »

#mental_health #migration #France #rapport #Comede #violence #vulnerability #trauma #public_health #BEH

Rapport : ▻http://beh.santepubliquefrance.fr/beh/2017/19-20/index.html

▻https://www.rfi.fr/fr/france/20170905-sante-mentale-migrants-une-etude-sonne-alarme

#Metalist #mental_health and #international migration

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L600xH223/uBmaKBHpng-aaddc-c127a.png

Metalist cover picture : ’I’m like a mouse in a trap’ : trauma of Europe’s refugees – in pictures (source below)

Et vidéo d’introduction :

Ouvrir sa porte à l’inconnu. Récit d’une solidarité ordinaire | Julia Montfort | TEDxParis

►https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNC4C4OqomI&feature=emb_logo

Budget européen pour la migration : plus de contrôles aux frontières, moins de respect pour les droits humains

Le 17 juillet 2020, le Conseil européen examinera le #cadre_financier_pluriannuel (#CFP) pour la période #2021-2027. À cette occasion, les dirigeants de l’UE discuteront des aspects tant internes qu’externes du budget alloué aux migrations et à l’#asile.

En l’état actuel, la #Commission_européenne propose une #enveloppe_budgétaire totale de 40,62 milliards d’euros pour les programmes portant sur la migration et l’asile, répartis comme suit : 31,12 milliards d’euros pour la dimension interne et environ 10 milliards d’euros pour la dimension externe. Il s’agit d’une augmentation de 441% en valeur monétaire par rapport à la proposition faite en 2014 pour le budget 2014-2020 et d’une augmentation de 78% par rapport à la révision budgétaire de 2015 pour ce même budget.

Une réalité déguisée

Est-ce une bonne nouvelle qui permettra d’assurer dignement le bien-être de milliers de migrant.e.s et de réfugié.e.s actuellement abandonné.e.s à la rue ou bloqué.e.s dans des centres d’accueil surpeuplés de certains pays européens ? En réalité, cette augmentation est principalement destinée à renforcer l’#approche_sécuritaire : dans la proposition actuelle, environ 75% du budget de l’UE consacré à la migration et à l’asile serait alloué aux #retours, à la #gestion_des_frontières et à l’#externalisation des contrôles. Ceci s’effectue au détriment des programmes d’asile et d’#intégration dans les États membres ; programmes qui se voient attribuer 25% du budget global.

Le budget 2014 ne comprenait pas de dimension extérieure. Cette variable n’a été introduite qu’en 2015 avec la création du #Fonds_fiduciaire_de_l’UE_pour_l’Afrique (4,7 milliards d’euros) et une enveloppe financière destinée à soutenir la mise en œuvre de la #déclaration_UE-Turquie de mars 2016 (6 milliards d’euros), qui a été tant décriée. Ces deux lignes budgétaires s’inscrivent dans la dangereuse logique de #conditionnalité entre migration et #développement : l’#aide_au_développement est liée à l’acceptation, par les pays tiers concernés, de #contrôles_migratoires ou d’autres tâches liées aux migrations. En outre, au moins 10% du budget prévu pour l’Instrument de voisinage, de développement et de coopération internationale (#NDICI) est réservé pour des projets de gestion des migrations dans les pays d’origine et de transit. Ces projets ont rarement un rapport avec les activités de développement.

Au-delà des chiffres, des violations des #droits_humains

L’augmentation inquiétante de la dimension sécuritaire du budget de l’UE correspond, sur le terrain, à une hausse des violations des #droits_fondamentaux. Par exemple, plus les fonds alloués aux « #gardes-côtes_libyens » sont importants, plus on observe de #refoulements sur la route de la Méditerranée centrale. Depuis 2014, le nombre de refoulements vers la #Libye s’élève à 62 474 personnes, soit plus de 60 000 personnes qui ont tenté d’échapper à des violences bien documentées en Libye et qui ont mis leur vie en danger mais ont été ramenées dans des centres de détention indignes, indirectement financés par l’UE.

En #Turquie, autre partenaire à long terme de l’UE en matière d’externalisation des contrôles, les autorités n’hésitent pas à jouer avec la vie des migrant.e.s et des réfugié.e.s, en ouvrant et en fermant les frontières, pour négocier le versement de fonds, comme en témoigne l’exemple récent à la frontière gréco-turque.

Un budget opaque

« EuroMed Droits s’inquiète de l’#opacité des allocations de fonds dans le budget courant et demande à l’Union européenne de garantir des mécanismes de responsabilité et de transparence sur l’utilisation des fonds, en particulier lorsqu’il s’agit de pays où la corruption est endémique et qui violent régulièrement les droits des personnes migrantes et réfugiées, mais aussi les droits de leurs propres citoyen.ne.s », a déclaré Wadih Al-Asmar, président d’EuroMed Droits.

« Alors que les dirigeants européens se réunissent à Bruxelles pour discuter du prochain cadre financier pluriannuel, EuroMed Droits demande qu’une approche plus humaine et basée sur les droits soit adoptée envers les migrant.e.s et les réfugié.e.s, afin que les appels à l’empathie et à l’action résolue de la Présidente de la Commission européenne, Ursula von der Leyen ne restent pas lettre morte ».

▻https://euromedrights.org/fr/publication/budget-europeen-pour-la-migration-plus-de-controles-aux-frontieres-mo

https://i.imgur.com/5Fki7aO.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Ory0Ybo.jpg

#budget #migrations #EU #UE #Union_européenne #frontières #Fonds_fiduciaire_pour_l’Afrique #Fonds_fiduciaire #sécurité #réfugiés #accord_UE-Turquie #chiffres #infographie #renvois #expulsions #Neighbourhood_Development_and_International_Cooperation_Instrument

Ajouté à la métaliste sur la #conditionnalité_de_l'aide_au_développement :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/733358#message768701

Et à la métaliste sur l’externalisation des contrôles frontaliers :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/731749#message765319

ping @karine4 @rhoumour @reka @_kg_

#Loveparade - Die Verhandlung

Am 24. Juli 2010 kommt es bei der Loveparade in Duisburg zur Katastrophe: 21 Menschen sterben im Gedränge, 652 werden verletzt. Erst mehr als sieben Jahre später, im Dezember 2017, beginnt die juristische Aufarbeitung der Katastrophe. Chronologisch folgt der Dokumentarfilm dem Prozess.

Eine gigantische Rave-Party endete in Tod und Verzweiflung. Wer ist für die Tragödie verantwortlich? 21 Jahre nach ihrer Gründung war die Loveparade in Duisburg angekommen. Was einst als Kleinstparade im Westberlin der Wendezeit begann, war längst zu einem Millionenspektakel von weltweiter Anziehungskraft geworden. An diesem 24. Juli 2010 kommt es in Duisburg zur Katastrophe: Auf den Zu- und Abgangswegen zum Festgelände stauen sich Zehntausende Menschen. 21 Menschen sterben im Gedränge, über 600 werden verletzt. Die Opfer stammen aus Deutschland, China, Australien, Spanien, Italien und den Niederlanden. Erst mehr als sieben Jahre später, im Dezember 2017, beginnt die juristische Aufarbeitung der Katastrophe. Der Loveparade-Prozess war ein Mammut-Verfahren, das am 4. Mai 2020 nach 184 Verhandlungstagen ohne Urteil zu Ende ging. Das Landgericht Duisburg stand unter enormen Erwartungsdruck und sollte auch eine Aufarbeitung der Katastrophe leisten. Chronologisch folgt die Dokumentation dem Prozess. Was das Gericht verhandelt, verhandelt der Film – mit dem Personal, das auch im Gericht eine Rolle hat. Der Film navigiert durch die schweren Wasser von „Recht“ und „Gerechtigkeit“, ohne dabei zu moralisieren.

#Germany #Duisburg #arte #film #documentary #death #trial

▻https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/080967-000-A/loveparade-die-verhandlung

A Look at the Refugee Crisis Five Years Later

In 2015, as almost a million asylum seekers poured into Germany, Chancellor #Angela_Merkel said: “We can do this.” Was she right? Five years later, we take a closer look in the most average of average German towns.

With its population of around 20,000, the town of #Hassloch is essentially the largest village in the Palatinate region of Germany. Still, it is well known in the country for being a special place - in that there is nothing special about it. Decades ago, the realization was made that from a demographic perspective, Hassloch is a microcosm of the country at large, with its age, gender and economic breakdown roughly reflecting that of Germany as a whole. Indeed, its demography is so normal that it was chosen in the 1980s by the Society for Consumer Research as the place where new products would be tested. After all, if people in Hassloch like it, you can be relatively sure that people in the rest of Germany will too. If Germany is a tree, Hassloch is its bonsai.

What, though, can the place tell us about Germany’s handling of the huge influx of refugees five years ago? On Aug. 31, 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel held a press conference in which she discussed the challenges that the wave of migration presented for the country. Hundreds of thousands of people were making their way into Europe at the time across the Mediterranean and along the Balkan Route – and many of them had set their sights on Germany. It marked the beginning of years of political discord, pitting EU countries, political parties and individuals against one another. In that press conference, Merkel said: “Germany is a strong country. We have done so much. We can do this!” It is a sentence that would become a trademark of her tenure.

Now, five years later, we know that almost exactly 890,000 asylum seekers came to Germany in 2015. But have we “done this”? It’s hard to say, just as it is difficult to define exactly what “this” means, or even who “we” are. It all depends on your perspective. In Hassloch, the question as to who managed to “do this,” and when and what that means, leads to a number of places — to a city administrator, to an expert on parrots, and to extremely German families with colorful collections of passports. This story, though, begins in city hall.

On the list of the most common German last names, Meyer is in sixth place. And Tobias Meyer, the town’s deputy mayor, looks so similar to his center-left predecessor that the two are often mistaken for one another. Meyer is a cheerful sort with expressive eyebrows and average height. In his office, he says that he joined the center-right Christian Democratic Union, Merkel’s party, on his 18th birthday out of admiration for Helmut Kohl. He sees himself “as a centrist” politically. “I find it astonishing,” says Meyer, “that not even the fall of the Berlin Wall changed our status as an average town.” It almost sounds as though normality in Germany is unchanging, no matter what happens and no matter who comes into the country.

Since 2015, Hassloch has been home to between 500 and 600 refugees. The precise total is unknown, since many either returned home or quickly moved onwards. Currently, the town is home to 152 refugees, including 72 whose asylum applications are currently being processed. Back in 2015, after that summer of migration, the total was 211, which represents 1.1 percent of Hassloch’s population.

And what about the 890,000 who showed up in Germany with its 82 million people? “You see?” says Meyer. Exactly 1.1 percent.

Meyer is happy to talk about refugees at length, and isn’t shy about saying that some of them came expecting a rosy future without wanting to do much in return. Or about the fact that, from his perspective, the town hasn’t changed much as a result. Perhaps more instructive, however, is a visit to the administrative expert in city hall, a certain Ms. Behret.

First, though, a final question for Tobias Meyer. Has Hassloch “done this?” Meyer’s response: “Hmmmm.”
Administration

The office is little more than the physical manifestation of the rules it is there to enforce, furnished with myriad filing cabinets with fake beech veneer. There are a few signs of life pinned to them, such as vacation pictures or funny Dilbert-esque cartoons about office life from the local paper. There are rows and rows of “meeting minutes” and “official correspondence,” along with a few stoic office plants doing their best to provide atmosphere. And in the middle of it all sits Christine Behret.

“I love my job” it says on her keychain. She is the only woman in a leadership position in Hassloch city hall and she says she has been carrying around the keychain since her first day there. “I fought for this job,” Behret says. She describes herself as “a bit tough.”

“We at the regulatory authority have a slightly different view of certain problems,” she says. “When a Sikh man shows up in your office, sits down on the floor and says he’s not going anywhere until he is allowed to cook in the hostel” – which isn’t allowed due to fire regulations – “then friendliness doesn’t get you very far. You have to pull out your English and affably throw him out. But you can never forget that you are dealing with a human being.”

In her accounts, the phrase “we can do this” sounds mostly like a ton of work. Back in 2015, Behret says, she and her colleagues worked seven days a week. No public office, she continues, was prepared for the onslaught: They needed beds, food and doctors, despite the shortage of family practitioners in many rural areas of Germany. The first question to answer: centralized or decentralized accommodations? Hassloch chose a mixture of the two, which included a large hostel. Most of the refugees, though, were put up in 51 apartments that had been rented for the purpose. The asylum seekers were housed together according to complicated parameters, for which Christine Behret received additional training in “intercultural competence.” She said they learned such things as “women have no power in the places they come from, but here, women tell them what to do.” It is a sentence that has been part of the German migration debate for decades.

Behret can provide a precise description of the asylum seekers in Hassloch using just a few sentences. She says they have “the entire spectrum” in the town, from a mathematics professor from Syria to others who can’t even write their own names. “The typical cases come by once a month to pick up their checks. For some of them, it’s enough. Others start working at McDonald’s at some point, or deliver packages for Amazon.”

There was the alcoholic from Nigeria who shoplifted every day. “He was sent to us with no warning whatsoever. And no file,” Behret says. “How can something like that happen?” In that case, Tobias Meyer drove to the central reception center in the nearby town of Kusel to see what had happened. They then came by and picked the man up, she says.

She tells the story of the man who died, yet couldn’t be buried because he had no birth certificate. “And if you haven’t been born, you can’t die.” In this room, focused on the administration of people, where everything is perfectly arranged, it is clear that she derives a certain amount of pleasure from such moments of turmoil.

Behret’s main problem, though, is a different one: “We get the people faster than the files arrive. I don’t know if the person might have hepatitis, or tuberculosis, or scabies. We don’t have anything except their names, nationalities and dates of birth.”
In the Bird Park

There is a birdcage standing on a small blanket in Wilhelm Weidenbach’s living room. The bottom of the cage is lined with newspaper, with the brass-colored lattice rising above it. The door usually stands open. Weidenbach says that he taught his last parrot to sing German folk songs.

Weidenbach, a 64-year-old retiree, has been in a wheelchair since suffering an accident and is the chairman of the Hassloch Club for the Protection and Care of Domestic and Foreign Birds. Every morning at 9 a.m., he heads over to the Hassloch Bird Park, one of the area’s places of interest.

Last year, Hassloch was hit by a major storm that left the park in disarray. Together with a local group that helps asylum seekers, Weidenbach organized a day for volunteers to come and help out — and not long later, the municipality got in touch to ask if the asylum applicants would be willing to come by more regularly. The first of them came to the park just over two weeks ago, and they now work there three days a week for four hours at a time. On a recent Friday morning, they were busy with rakes and hoes at the duck enclosure: Ranj Suleiman, a Kurdish man from Iraq; Mohammad Ali Mozaffri from Afghanistan; and Aria Rahimzade from Iran — three of the 72 asylum applicants in Hassloch currently awaiting a ruling on their status.

Suleiman was a computer technician, Mozaffri wanted to work in old-age care and Rahimzade had his sights set on becoming a hairdresser. All of those professions are in need, but because the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) hasn’t yet decided on whether they can stay or not, it is difficult for them to find real work. So the three of them rake detritus out of the enclosures for 80 cents an hour.

Weidenbach says they’re doing a good job. Iran? Iraq? People are people, he says. All they have to do is follow the rules and show up on time. And it’s important for them to learn the language and speak German among themselves, he says, though they sometimes have trouble understanding the local dialect he speaks. In the courses they attend, they are learning high German.

Mozaffri talks about how he got to Germany from Afghanistan three years ago: “Walking. Bicycle. Boat.”

“Yes, necessity is the mother of invention,” Weidenbach jokes. The men likely would have laughed if they had understood him, but they didn’t. So Weidenbach repeats himself, slower and louder: “Ne-cess-i-ty is the MOTHER of in-ven-tion!”

Now, the three start laughing, though they still haven’t understood him. No matter, they continue on to the emu enclosure, pushing their wheelbarrows past the parrots. Suleiman makes a face and jokes: “They speak better German than we do.”

The municipality has bought a flat-roofed structure at the edge of town. Plastic chairs have been set up in the grass outside and there is hardly any natural light inside, with the only window being a skylight. A bit of carpeting hangs over the fence and it is quiet.

This is where the levity from the aviary comes to an end. Suleiman, Mozaffri and Rahimzade live here, and there is a sign on every door inside covered in pictograms to illustrate all that is forbidden in the hostel: wall clocks, coffee machines, irons, hairdryers, washing machines, vacuums, cameras, telephones and computer monitors.

The structure is home to around 30 asylum seekers. The metal bed belonging to Mozaffri can be found in the corner of Room 3, where the wall is covered with bits of paper bearing the German words he is currently learning. On the other side of a metal locker is another bed, belonging to a young Iraqi, whose asylum application has been rejected. He says that he grows afraid at night when he hears doors close and that he can’t bear living in the hostel for much longer. Indeed, it seems to be part of the concept to make it as uncomfortable as possible.

At the end of June, decisions were pending on 43,617 asylum applications. BAMF works through the files, specialized lawyers file grievances, papers are intentionally hidden and replacement documents must be requested from Eritrea, Morocco and the many other countries from which the applicants come.

The asylum applicants, such as the three that work in the Bird Park, are stuck in limbo. They have made it; they have arrived in Germany. But at the same time, they haven’t yet made it. They haven’t yet “done this.”
Numbers

In a survey conducted by BAMF, 44 percent of asylum seekers who participated reported having good or very good knowledge of the German language. Three-quarters of them felt welcome in Germany. But the phrase “we can do this” was primarily focused on the other side. Merkel was referring to the Germans.

Andreas Rohr is a man knee-deep in statistics. There are no plants in his office and there is likewise little in the way of decoration. Rohr used to work as a treasurer in the town administration and has a business degree. He is a family man with a strong physique and a gray shirt that matches the textured walls around him. In 2015, he was the Hassloch bureaucrat responsible for the refugees, though today his portfolio includes daycare centers, leases and cultural activities. He is able to distill Hassloch’s ability to “do this” into columns of numbers.

From an administrative point of view, Rohr says, Hassloch has indeed been successful. “In 2016, we spent around 550,000 euros ($630,000) on shelter costs and about 870,000 euros on benefits for the asylum applicants. We were reimbursed for all those costs by the administrative district. But the town was responsible for personnel costs and materials. We only had two part-time positions back then, but now we have four working in that division, and it was five at the peak. A full-time position costs 50,000 euros, so we’re talking about a quarter million per year at that time.”

▻https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/has-germany-done-this-a-look-at-the-refugee-crisis-five-years-later-a-68ebba
#5_ans_après #2020 #crise_des_réfugiés #Allemagne #réfugiés #asile #migrations #in_retrospect #Merkel #we_can_do_it #wir_schaffen_das #économie

ping @_kg_ @karine4 @isskein

Une décision sans précédent en #Tunisie : le #Tribunal_administratif suspend la détention de 22 migrants détenus arbitrairement au #centre_d’accueil_et_d’orientation #El_Ouardia

Une décision sans précédent en Tunisie : le Tribunal administratif suspend la détention de 22 migrants détenus arbitrairement au centre d’accueil et d’orientation El Ouardia

Tunis, le 16 juillet 2020 – Saisi le 5 juin dernier de 22 requêtes en référé et en annulation concernant des migrants détenus arbitrairement au centre d’accueil et d’orientation El Ouardia, le tribunal administratif vient de rendre des décisions sans précédent. Il a en effet ordonné la suspension de leur détention au motif que leur privation de liberté est contraire au droit tunisien, mais aussi aux engagements internationaux de la Tunisie, notamment le Pacte international relatif aux droits civils et politiques et la Convention contre la torture.

Rappelant le principe fondamental de #légalité qui doit encadrer toute #restriction_de_liberté, le tribunal a notamment estimé que la #privation_de_liberté des 22 migrants ne respectait pas les conditions essentielles que sont l’existence d’une base légale et l’intervention d’une autorité juridictionnelle. Le tribunal a ainsi apporté une première réponse positive aux nombreux arguments soulevés par les avocats des détenus pour demander l’annulation immédiate du placement en détention de leurs clients. En vertu de ces décisions rendues en référé, les 22 migrants doivent être immédiatement libérés en attendant que le tribunal administratif statue sur les recours en annulation des mesures de détention.

En vertu de ces décisions, le Ministère de l’Intérieur, responsable du centre de Ouardia, doit agir immédiatement afin de libérer les 22 migrants en attendant que le tribunal administratif statue sur les recours en annulation des mesures de détention. Une procédure qui pourrait durer des années et qui sera l’occasion pour le tribunal d’examiner en détails tous les arguments soulevés par les avocats des requérants.

Dans leurs requêtes, les avocats avaient notamment dénoncé le fait que les migrants étaient détenus en dehors de toute procédure légale et de tout #contrôle_juridictionnel, sans accès à un avocat, sans notification écrite du fondement de leur placement en détention dans un centre qui n’est d’ailleurs même pas officiellement enregistré comme un lieu privatif de liberté. Autant de motifs qui concourent à qualifier ces détentions d’#arbitraires, en violation flagrante du droit international des droits de l’homme et de la Constitution tunisienne.

Afin d’éviter que ces violations graves puissent encore être perpétrées, les autorités tunisiennes, et en particulier le Ministère de l’Intérieur, doivent clarifier le statut juridique du centre d’El Ouardia pour qu’il ne soit ne soit plus utilisé en tant que lieu de privation de liberté.

▻https://ftdes.net/une-decision-sans-precedent-en-tunisie-le-tribunal-administratif-suspend-la-d

#migrations #réfugiés #détention #rétention_administrative #justice #suspension #droits_humains

ping @_kg_

La #France acte la #restitution définitive d’objets d’art au #Sénégal et au #Bénin

https://img.lemde.fr/2020/07/16/0/0/1183/763/688/0/60/0/9532ef3_744953741-sabre.JPG

Le projet de loi dérogera exceptionnellement au principe d’inaliénabilité pour un sabre et 26 objets culturels pillés lors du sac du palais royal d’Abomey en 1892.

Le Monde avec AFP Publié hier à 10h30, mis à jour hier à 10h45

Temps de Lecture 2 min.
A Dakar, le 17 novembre 2019, l’ancien premier ministre français Edouard Philippe remet au président sénégalais, Macky Sall, le sabre dit d’El-Hadj Oumar Tall, pour un prêt de longue durée avant une restitution définitive.

La France va officialiser la restitution définitive, avec transfert de propriété, d’un sabre historique au Sénégal et, dans les prochains mois, de 26 objets du trésor des rois d’Abomey au Bénin. Le gouvernement a examiné, mercredi 15 juillet, le premier projet de loi permettant le transfert vers leur pays d’origine d’œuvres culturelles prises pendant la colonisation en Afrique. La volonté d’une refondation du partenariat culturel entre la France et le continent avait été affirmée par le président Emmanuel Macron dans son discours de Ouagadougou, le 28 novembre 2017.
Lire aussi Au Sénégal, une visite d’Edouard Philippe sous le signe des armes

Cette restitution définitive « correspond à un engagement très fort pris par le président de la République pour que la jeunesse africaine ait la possibilité d’accéder à son patrimoine, à son histoire, en Afrique », a expliqué le porte-parole du gouvernement Gabriel Attal à l’issue du conseil des ministres. Elle est « l’un des enjeux essentiels pour une relation d’amitié nouvelle entre la France et l’Afrique ».

Pour cela, le projet de loi autorise, « par une dérogation limitée au principe essentiel d’inaliénabilité applicable aux collections publiques françaises », le transfert au Bénin de la propriété de 26 objets pillés lors du sac du palais des rois d’Abomey par des troupes coloniales françaises en 1892. Ces totems et spectres, actuellement conservés au Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac à Paris, seront exposés dans un lieu public au Bénin.
Lire aussi « La première œuvre qui est “restituée” à l’Afrique est un objet européen »

Au Sénégal, la France restitue formellement un sabre que l’ex-premier ministre français Edouard Philippe avait symboliquement remis en novembre 2019 au président Macky Sall à Dakar.

Cette arme est historiquement significative puisqu’elle a appartenu à l’entourage d’El-Hadj Oumar Tall, un chef de guerre et érudit musulman qui a conquis au XIXe siècle un immense territoire à cheval sur le Sénégal, la Guinée et le Mali, et a lutté contre l’armée coloniale française. « Dans les deux cas, le projet de loi prévoit un délai maximal d’une année pour la remise, par les autorités françaises, de ces œuvres », précise le gouvernement, qui n’a pas indiqué si de nouvelles œuvres allaient être restituées à d’autres pays, tels que la Côte d’Ivoire ou Madagascar.
Recherches sur l’origine des œuvres

Emmanuel Macron avait annoncé ces décisions fin 2018 sur la base d’un rapport des universitaires Bénédicte Savoy, du Collège de France, et Felwine Sarr, de l’Université de Saint-Louis au Sénégal, qui ont recensé 90 000 œuvres africaines dans des musées français.

Les deux spécialistes y avaient posé les jalons d’une restitution à l’Afrique subsaharienne d’œuvres d’art transférées durant la colonisation, recensant des dizaines de milliers d’artefacts, dont beaucoup ont été pillés.
Trois statues issues du pillage en 1892 du palais des rois d’Abomey par les troupes coloniales et conservés au Musée du quai Branly, à Paris.

Mais leurs travaux ont été contestés par d’autres spécialistes et des musées comme le Quai Branly, qui dispose de la plus importante collection d’arts premiers. Leurs détracteurs se sont inquiétés d’une politisation du débat et de l’argument selon lequel toutes les œuvres en dépôt chez eux depuis la colonisation ont été malhonnêtement acquises ou pillées, et doivent être rendues. Ils avancent aussi l’argument de l’inaliénabilité des collections françaises, privilégiant la « circulation » des œuvres entre la France et l’Afrique, plutôt que des restitutions définitives avec transfert de propriété, sauf quand, comme c’est le cas pour les statues du palais royal d’Abomey, le pillage par des soldats français à la fin du XIXe siècle a été flagrant.
Lire aussi Les dessous du retour manqué de la « couronne » de la reine Ranavalona III à Madagascar

L’origine de certaines œuvres est inconnue, d’autres ont été achetées ou encore collectées lors de missions ethnologiques et religieuses dans des conditions sujettes à caution en raison des rapports de domination qui régissaient les relations coloniales. Pour en finir avec les incertitudes, les auteurs du rapport plaident pour donner des moyens à la recherche afin de lever le doute sur l’origine de ces œuvres quand c’est possible.

▻https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/07/16/la-france-acte-la-restitution-definitive-d-objets-d-art-au-senegal-et-au-ben

#Kant and #Racism #Debate following #BLM

#philosphy #slavery #Michael_Zeuske #Germany #cultural_change

#IOM using #Facebook #advertisment to reach potential #return_migrants

Mail received by a friend with Pakistani citizenship:

“I am adding a screenshot of advertising on Facebook by German government which suggest me to ’ If I would like to return my home country and don’t know how then I can contact there’ Advertising is in Urdu which means they already know who they are showing this advertisement. This is interesting that they use my personal data and target me as a refugee I guess. [...]
Screenshot is attached and the link where the advertisement leads is below.”

https://i.imgur.com/5EjekUl.jpg

▻https://www.online-antragsmodul.de/OAM/MIRA/Default.aspx

#Germany #migration #return_migration #explusion #social_media #social_networks #data_privacy

ping @cdb_77 @rhoumour @deka

#Burkina_Faso: Residents’ Accounts Point to Mass #Executions | #Human_Rights_Watch

Identify Remains of 180 Men Found in #Djibo; Prosecute Those Responsible

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(Bamako) – Common graves containing at least 180 bodies have been found in a northern town in Burkina Faso in recent months, and available evidence suggests government security force involvement in mass extrajudicial executions, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should seek assistance from the United Nations and other partners to conduct proper exhumations, return remains to families, and hold those responsible to account.

Residents of the town of Djibo who saw the bodies told Human Rights Watch that the dead, all men, had between November 2019 and June 2020 been left in groups of from 3 to 20 along major roadways, under bridges, and in fields and vacant lots. With few exceptions, the bodies were found within a 5-kilometer radius of central Djibo.

Residents buried most in common burials in March and April, while other remains are still unburied. They said they believed the majority of the victims were ethnic #Fulani or #Peuhl men, identified by their clothing and physical features, and that many were found blindfolded and with bound hands, and had been shot. Several residents said that they knew numerous victims, including relatives.

"The Burkina Faso authorities need to urgently uncover who turned Djibo into a ’killing field’ said #Corinne_Dufka, Sahel director at Human Rights Watch. “Existing information points toward government security forces, so it’s critical to have impartial investigations, evidence properly gathered, and families informed about what happened to their loved ones.”

Since November, Human Rights Watch has interviewed 23 people by telephone and in person who described seeing the bodies. Several interviewees provided hand-drawn maps of where they found and buried the dead. All believed that government security forces, who control Djibo, had executed the vast majority of the men. However, none had witnessed the killings and Human Rights Watch could not independently verify those claims. Human Rights Watch is analyzing satellite imagery of the locations of common graves in the vicinity.

On June 28, Human Rights Watch wrote the Burkinabè government detailing the major findings of the research, and on July 3, the Minister of Defense responded on behalf of the government, committing to investigate the allegations and to ensure the respect of human rights in security operations. He said the killings occurred during an uptick in attacks by armed Islamists and suggested they could have been committed by these groups, using stolen army uniforms and logistics, noting it is at times “difficult for the population to distinguish between armed terrorist groups and the Defense and Security Forces.” The minister also confirmed the government’s approval for the establishment of an office in Ouagadogou by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Beginning in 2016, armed Islamist groups allied with Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State have attacked security force posts and civilians throughout Burkina Faso, but mostly in the Sahel region bordering Mali and Niger. Human Rights Watch has since 2017 documented the killing of several hundred civilians by armed Islamist groups along with their widespread attacks on schools. Human Rights Watch has also documented the unlawful killing of several hundred men, apparently by government security forces, for their alleged support of these groups, including 31 men found executed after the security forces detained them in Djibo on April 9.

The 23 people interviewed, including farmers, traders, herders, civil servants, community leaders, and aid workers, believed the security forces had detained the men as suspected members or supporters of Islamist armed groups.

“So many of the dead were blindfolded, had their hands tied up … and were shot in the head,” said a community leader. “The bodies I saw appeared in the morning … dumped at night on the outskirts of Djibo, a town under the control of the army and in the middle of a curfew imposed and patrolled by the army.”

Some residents said that they found the bodies after hearing the sound of vehicles passing and bursts of gunfire at night. “We’ve grown accustomed to hearing the sound of shots ringing out at night, and later seeing bodies in the bush or along the road,” an elder from Djibo said.

“At night, so many times I’d hear the sound of vehicles and then, bam! bam! bam!” said a farmer. “And the next morning we’d see or hear of bodies found in this place or that.”At least 114 men were buried in 14 common graves during a mass burial on March 8 and 9 organized by residents with the approval of the military and local authorities. Local residents also buried 18 men, found around March 18 about a kilometer east of Djibo, in a common grave in early April. The bodies of another approximately 40 men, including 20 allegedly discovered in mid-March south of Djibo and another 18 found in May near the airport, had yet to be buried.

An ethnic dynamic underscores the violence in Burkina Faso. The Islamist armed groups largely recruit from the nomadic Peuhl or Fulani community, and their attacks have primarily targeted agrarian communities including the Mosssi, Foulse, and Gourmantche. The vast majority of men killed by alleged security forces are Peuhl because of their perceived support of the armed Islamists.

“Djibo reidents should feel protected by, not terrified of, their own army. The government’s failure to make good on promises of accountability for past allegations of security force abuse, including in Djibo, appears to have emboldened the perpetrators,” Dufka said. “The authorities need to put an end to unlawful killings through credible and independent investigations.”

Bodies Appear in Djibo

Residents of Djibo said they first started seeing bodies in the more rural, less inhabited parts of the town in November 2019. “Human remains are strewn all over the outer limits of Djibo town … along sides of road, near a pond, by the Djibo dam, near abandoned houses, under a bridge, and in the bush,” one man said.

“From November 2019, so many bodies started showing up,” another man said. “Five or six here, 10 or 16 there, along the three highways out of town ... to the north, east, and south.”

Residents said the vast majority of the dead were ethnic Peuhl, identified as such by their clothing, features, and, in about 10 cases, by those who knew individual victims by name.

The people interviewed were extremely anxious as they spoke with Human Rights Watch and said they feared reprisals from the security forces, who had been implicated in the extrajudicial killing of 31 men in Djibo in April, and other killings there, since 2017.

The residents did not believe the men were killed in a gun battle. “Yes, Djibo has been attacked and there are jihadists [armed Islamists] not so very far from Djibo,” said a resident who had observed several groups of bodies. “But on the days before seeing bodies, we weren’t aware of any clashes or battles between the jihadists and army in the middle or outskirts of Djibo. Word travels fast and we’d know if this were the case.”

Another resident, who said he frequently travels from Djibo, said: “Had there been clashes with the terrorists, the public transport would have stopped.… We never would have been able to travel.”

Nine people identified some of the dead by name, including family members, whom they had either witnessed being detained by the security forces or had been informed by someone else who had seen the men being detained. In each of these incidents, the body they identified had been found with numerous other victims. One man, for instance, recognized “a man named Tamboura from a village further south, who I’d seen arrested in the Djibo cattle market by soldiers some days earlier.” Another recognized a man who worked as a security guard and who had been arrested by soldiers days before his body was found. Others described seeing the bodies of men they had seen being arrested by the authorities at the market, the hospital, during a food distribution, or at the bus station.

Several residents said they believed many of the unidentified victims had been detained during army operations or were internally displaced villagers who in recent months had settled in and around Djibo after fleeing their home villages. “Djibo isn’t such a but town that we wouldn’t recognize people, which is why we think so many of the dead were displaced,” one resident said.

Many residents speculated that the army had arrested the displaced people for questioning, fearing infiltration by armed Islamist groups, which had attacked Djibo on several occasions. “The army has really hit the IDPs [internally displaced persons],” a resident said. “They’ve gone for them in the animal market, as they come in to Djibo to buy and sell. After so many major jihadist attacks in Mali and Burkina, they’re really afraid of infiltration.”

Apparent Extrajudicial Executions

Residents described seeing groups of bodies near their homes as they grazed their animals or as they walked or drove along the major roads leading out of Djibo.

Apparent Execution of Five Men on June 13, 2020

On June 14, several residents described seeing the bodies of five men scattered over a half a kilometer in two of Djibo’s southern neighborhoods, sectors 3 and 8. One of those found, 54-year-old Sadou Hamadoume Dicko, the local chief and municipal councilor of Gomdè Peulh village, had been seen arrested by soldiers the previous day. Residents could not identify the other four bodies.

A trader described the arrest of Dicko on June 13:

Being the chief, he’d just finished picking up sacks of rice and millet for his people, now in Djibo after fleeing their village, about 125 kilometers away. Mr. Dicko had in April 2018 been abducted and held for several days by the Jihadists but this time it was the army who took him. At around 11:30 a.m. four men in uniform on motorcycles surrounded him and about six others and took them into an unfinished building for interrogation. Eventually, the soldiers let the others go but left with Mr. Dicko.

Three residents said they heard gunshots on June 13 and found the bodies of the five men the next day. “The gunshots rang out around 8 p.m. and the next day, June 14, I was called to be told the chief was dead,” one resident said. “It was what we feared. His hands were bound tightly behind his back and he had been shot in the head and chest.”Said another: "The shots rand out a few hours after the 7 p.m. curfew...[L]ater we saw one body to the north, near La Maison de la Femme [Women’s Center], another south near a large well, and three others next to an elevation of sand.” All of the men were buried later the same day.

Apparent Execution of 18 Men, May 13 and 19, 2020

Residents described seeing the security forces arrest 17 men near a Djibo market on May 13. The bodies of the 17 were found the next day along a path going through sector 5, also known as Mbodowol. The men had been shot in the head, according to the residents. Another man, with a mental disability, was found around the same place after having been arrested on May 19. At writing, the bodies had not yet been buried.

Said one resident:

I was in the market, when at around 10 a.m. I saw two vehicles with about 10 soldiers drive up. I don’t know if they were gendarmes or army. I was too afraid to stare at them, but I saw they were in uniform, with helmets and vests and all held semi-automatic weapons. The 17 men had come from other villages to buy and sell that day. I recognized many of them, who worked as blacksmiths.

A sector 5 resident who heard gunshots on May 13 and saw the bodies a day later near the Djibo airfield said:

They were killed as darkness fell. I saw a vehicle from afar, coming from the direction of town. Sometime later we heard shots. Around 15 minutes later the same vehicle returned, this time with the headlamps on. On Thursday, May 14, around 9 a.m. we discovered the bodies – eight on one side close together … their faces covered with their shirts – and around 20 meters away, nine more bodies. They’d been shot in the head. You could see this clearly…and there were bullet casings on the ground. The men looked to be from 25 to 45 [years old.] The body of another man was found in the same place a few days later. That one, I’d seen arrested…he lives near me. He is not normal [has a mental disability] … He was picked up outside his house listening to his radio. There is a curfew and only the army can drive around at night like this.

Apparent Execution of 18 Men, March 17, 2020

Residents said that on March 18, they saw 18 bodies about 500 to 700 meters east of Djibo. The bodies were found near several large publicity signs that line the Djibo-Tongomayel road.

A man who feared his brother was among the dead explained why he believed government security forces were responsible for killing the 18 men:

On March 17, around 7 a.m., I got a frantic call from the bus station saying my brother and another man had just been arrested by gendarmes as they boarded a bus to Ouagadougou [the capital]. Later that night, around 9 p.m. I heard many gunshots, and thought, oh God, my brother is dead.

Just after dawn, I went in the direction of the shots and found 18 bodies. Their hands were tied, and they were blindfolded, each shot in the forehead. The blood flowed like a pond. The bodies were all together in a pile. I looked for my brother among the corpses … moving them enough to see if he was there. But he wasn’t. Among the dead, I recognized six men … they’d all been arrested by the FDS [Defense and Security Forces]. One was [name withheld] who had recently had a foot operation and had been arrested in front of many people near the hospital. I recognized his boubou [wide-sleeved robe]; his foot was still bandaged. Five others were traders I myself had seen arrested by the FDS on market day a week prior. As for my brother, he is still missing, even today.

Apparent Execution of 9 Men, January 15, 2020

A man who saw nine bodies on the road going east to Tongomayal, including a close relative, on January 16, said:

I discovered the bodies of nine people some meters off the road, one of whom was my 23-year-old nephew. They’d been arrested the day before. A friend called around 11 a.m. saying there was trouble in the market, that my boy had been arrested. I went to the market immediately and saw all nine, tied up and face down on the ground. Four gendarmes led them into their vehicle and took them away. That night around 8 p.m. I heard shots near the Djibo dam, and in the morning saw them in the bush, hands tied, riddled with bullets … Eight were Peuhl and one was a Bellah. We were too afraid to even bury them … we had to watch my nephew turn into a skeleton. He was not laid to rest until the mass burial in March, with dozens of others, but it was hardly a funeral and my boy was not a jihadist.

Bodies Found Near Djibo’s Sector 4, November 2019 and January 2020

Five residents of Djibo’s Sector 4 (also known as Wourossaba and Boguelsawa), south of the town, described seeing three groups of bodies within what they said was a one kilometer radius: a group of 8 bodies and a group of at least 16 bodies in November 2019, and a group of between 16 and 19 bodies around January 8, 2020. The total number of bodies seen largely corresponds to the 43 bodies buried in this sector during the mass burial on March 8 and 9.

A resident of Sector 4 described the three groups of bodies:

Many didn’t have shirts, and most were tied — some their eyes, others by the wrist, and they’d been shot. I knew none of them but believe all 43 were prisoners because all three times, I’d heard vehicles coming from the direction of town and saw the headlights … and heard gunshots. It was too far and too dark to see their uniforms but there wasn’t a battle and the jihadists can’t be driving around in a heavy truck that close to Djibo.

Another resident of Sector 4 described seeing 19 bodies around January 8:

I saw them around 7 a.m., 19 bodies in a line – all men, save one around 15 years old. The night before, I’d seen lights of a vehicle – it was around 8 p.m. and we were under curfew. Then I heard the shots. The bodies were about one kilometer south of Djibo, and 150 meters west from the highway – many bound at the arms, and with their eyes blindfolded. They’d been shot in the head, others in the chest, others the stomach. We didn’t know any of them, so they just stayed there until the March burial, by that time they were almost skeletons.

A health worker said that in February on the way to Ouagadougou she saw five bodies from her bus window, about 15 kilometers south of Djibo, near the village of Mentao: “They were 20 meters from the road – the bodies smelled – it seemed they’d been there for a week or so. By their dress, all the men appeared to be Peuhl. When I returned a week later, they were still there.” These bodies were not buried during the March mass burial.

Burials in March and April 2020

Djibo residents described an organized mass burial on March 8 and 9 during which at least 114 bodies were collected and buried in 14 common graves.

Residents who attended the burials said the bodies were in various stages of decomposition. “Some had just been killed, others had started to decompose, and many others were skeletons,” one said.

“Given how long the bodies had been outside, notably under the hot sun, many were only identifiable by their clothing,” said another.

Several residents said the dead were left unburied both because the families were either not from Djibo or because they were too frightened to claim the body. “Fear stopped people from burying the dead,” a village elder said. “You need permission from the security forces to bury a body and given the level of tension in Djibo these days, people are just too terrified that if they claim the body of a man accused of being a terrorist, they too will be taken and end up dead.” Many residents described the burials as “a delicate subject” which was not covered by local media. “Fear has kept us from talking much about the mass burials,” a village leader said.

“The bodies were scattered along and not far from the major roads leading to and from Djibo,” a resident said. “The first day, we worked from 9 a.m. to noon and buried 42 bodies to the south, along the Djibo-Ouagagdougou road. On the second day it was worse … working from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. we buried 72 people, 20 to the north and 52 to the east, along the Djibo-Dori road. Some people gathered the bodies while others dug the graves. The dead were buried in 14 common graves with from 3, 6, 7, up to 23 bodies.”

They said Djibo residents had obtained permission from both the civilian and military authorities based in Djibo to bury the dead largely because of the potential health and sanitation risk. “We were fearful of epidemics, especially as we approach the rainy season,” a community leader said. “We were overwhelmed seeing the bodies of lifeless people and so we organized ourselves and asked the authorities for permission to bury the dead,” said another.

Other residents spoke of the mental health impact on the town. “We organized the burial on health grounds but also because of the psychological impact on people, especially children, having to walk by the bodies every day on their way to market or school,” one resident said.

A herder said: “Imagine what it’s like to see these bodies every day, some eaten by dogs and vultures. It’s not easy living with that terrible reality day after day.”

Those who observed the mass burials said they were attended by the civilian authorities, who they said helped organize the funeral; the health authorities, who provided masks and sanitizer; and the security forces, which provided security. They said they were “strictly forbidden” from taking photographs of the burials. “No one would dare do that because the FDS was watching,” a resident said.

A resident who was at the burial said:

After getting authorization – from the army – and after involving health officers – we spent two days burying the dead who were in groups of 5, 7, 9, 20 – scattered all over. I didn’t recognize any of them, but several of those watching the burial later told me they’d recognized their father, brother, or son … that he’d been missing since being arrested by the soldiers in Djibo or in their village – weeks or months earlier. They didn’t say anything during the burial though … out of fear that they too would be arrested.

A man who buried 13 of the bodies found in north Djibo, including a family member whom he had last seen in the custody of the security forces in January, said “The road to Tongomayel was full of corpses and remains. Honestly, many were only skeletons … and their bodies had been scattered by animals. We were divided in groups, and went about looking for ribs, body parts.”

Two people described the burial in early April of the 18 men whose bodies were found on the road to Tongomayel around March 18. The bodies appeared after the security services had allegedly arrested the men. “We dug a large hole, big enough for all of them, and put sand and branches on top of it,” one man said. “The road to Tongomayel is full of bodies … the 52 buried during the mass burial, the 18 from mid-March, and it hasn’t stopped.”

Bodies Found, Left Unburied

Three residents described seeing 20 bodies that they said had been left in mid-March about 100 meters from the cemetery in Boguelsawa neighborhood, several kilometers south of Djibo.“Just days after we buried over 100 bodies, we woke up to find another 20 bodies,” a resident said. “It’s like, whoever is doing the killing is mocking us.” They told Human Rights Watch on June 14 that the bodies, now scattered and decomposed, have yet to be buried. “With death all around, we feel like tomorrow could be my turn to die,” a resident wrote.

Another man said that on June 1, “My nephew came across three dead while gathering wood north of Djibo, including two [ethnic] Bellahs we know well. He was so frightened he ran straight home without the wood.” As of June 30, the 18 dead found near the airport in mid-May had similarly yet to be buried.

Recommendations

Residents who spoke with Human Rights Watch were unaware of any judicial investigations into the apparent killings. Some killings allegedly implicating the security forces had occurred after the government’s pledge to fully investigate the apparent execution of 31 men detained by the security forces on April 9, 2020.

Human Rights Watch urges the Burkina Faso authorities to:

Promptly and impartially investigate the killings in Djibo since November 2019, and fairly and appropriately prosecute all those responsible for extrajudicial killings and other crimes, including as a matter of command responsibility. Ensure the findings are made public.
Send the commanders of the two security force bases in Djibo– the gendarmerie and army – on administrative leave, pending outcome of the investigation.
Invite United Nations or other neutral international forensic experts, including those with experience working before criminal tribunals, to help preserve and analyze evidence in common graves. Exhumations without forensic experts can destroy critical evidence and greatly compromise the identification of bodies.
Return remains of individuals found to be buried in graves or left unburied to their family members.

▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/08/burkina-faso-residents-accounts-point-mass-executions

EU pays for surveillance in Gulf of Tunis

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A new monitoring system for Tunisian coasts should counter irregular migration across the Mediterranean. The German Ministry of the Interior is also active in the country. A similar project in Libya has now been completed. Human rights organisations see it as an aid to „#pull_backs“ contrary to international law.

In order to control and prevent migration, the European Union is supporting North African states in border surveillance. The central Mediterranean Sea off Malta and Italy, through which asylum seekers from Libya and Tunisia want to reach Europe, plays a special role. The EU conducts various operations in and off these countries, including the military mission „#Irini“ and the #Frontex mission „#Themis“. It is becoming increasingly rare for shipwrecked refugees to be rescued by EU Member States. Instead, they assist the coast guards in Libya and Tunisia to bring the people back. Human rights groups, rescue organisations and lawyers consider this assistance for „pull backs“ to be in violation of international law.

With several measures, the EU and its member states want to improve the surveillance off North Africa. Together with Switzerland, the EU Commission has financed a two-part „#Integrated_Border_Management Project“ in Tunisia. It is part of the reform of the security sector which was begun a few years after the fall of former head of state Ben Ali in 2011. With one pillar of this this programme, the EU wants to „prevent criminal networks from operating“ and enable the authorities in the Gulf of Tunis to „save lives at sea“.

System for military and border police

The new installation is entitled „#Integrated_System_for_Maritime_Surveillance“ (#ISMariS) and, according to the Commission (▻https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2020-000891-ASW_EN.html), is intended to bring together as much information as possible from all authorities involved in maritime and coastal security tasks. These include the Ministry of Defence with the Navy, the Coast Guard under the Ministry of the Interior, the National Guard, and IT management and telecommunications authorities. The money comes from the #EU_Emergency_Trust_Fund_for_Africa, which was established at the Valletta Migration Summit in 2015. „ISMariS“ is implemented by the Italian Ministry of the Interior and follows on from an earlier Italian initiative. The EU is financing similar projects with „#EU4BorderSecurity“ not only in Tunisia but also for other Mediterranean countries.

An institute based in Vienna is responsible for border control projects in Tunisia. Although this #International_Centre_for_Migration_Policy_Development (ICMPD) was founded in 1993 by Austria and Switzerland, it is not a governmental organisation. The German Foreign Office has also supported projects in Tunisia within the framework of the #ICMPD, including the establishment of border stations and the training of border guards. Last month German finally joined the Institute itself (▻https://www.andrej-hunko.de/start/download/dokumente/1493-deutscher-beitritt-zum-international-centre-for-migration-policy-development/file). For an annual contribution of 210,000 euro, the Ministry of the Interior not only obtains decision-making privileges for organizing ICMPD projects, but also gives German police authorities the right to evaluate any of the Institute’s analyses for their own purposes.

It is possible that in the future bilateral German projects for monitoring Tunisian maritime borders will also be carried out via the ICMPD. Last year, the German government supplied the local coast guard with equipment for a boat workshop. In the fourth quarter of 2019 alone (▻http://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btd/19/194/1919467.pdf), the Federal Police carried out 14 trainings for the national guard, border police and coast guard, including instruction in operating „control boats“. Tunisia previously received patrol boats from Italy and the USA (▻https://migration-control.info/en/wiki/tunisia).

Vessel tracking and coastal surveillance

It is unclear which company produced and installed the „ISMariS“ surveillance system for Tunisia on behalf of the ICPMD. Similar facilities for tracking and displaying ship movements (#Vessel_Tracking_System) are marketed by all major European defence companies, including #Airbus, #Leonardo in Italy, #Thales in France and #Indra in Spain. However, Italian project management will probably prefer local companies such as Leonardo. The company and its spin-off #e-GEOS have a broad portfolio of maritime surveillance systems (▻https://www.leonardocompany.com/en/sea/maritime-domain-awareness/coastal-surveillance-systems).

It is also possible to integrate satellite reconnaissance, but for this the governments must conclude further contracts with the companies. However, „ISMariS“ will not only be installed as a Vessel Tracking System, it should also enable monitoring of the entire coast. Manufacturers promote such #Coastal_Surveillance_Systems as a technology against irregular migration, piracy, terrorism and smuggling. The government in Tunisia has defined „priority coastal areas“ for this purpose, which will be integrated into the maritime surveillance framework.

Maritime „#Big_Data“

„ISMariS“ is intended to be compatible with the components already in place at the Tunisian authorities, including coastguard command and control systems, #radar, position transponders and receivers, night vision equipment and thermal and optical sensors. Part of the project is a three-year maintenance contract with the company installing the „ISMariS“.

Perhaps the most important component of „ISMariS“ for the EU is a communication system, which is also included. It is designed to improve „operational cooperation“ between the Tunisian Coast Guard and Navy with Italy and other EU Member States. The project description mentions Frontex and EUROSUR, the pan-European surveillance system of the EU Border Agency, as possible participants. Frontex already monitors the coastal regions off Libya and Tunisia (▻https://insitu.copernicus.eu/FactSheets/CSS_Border_Surveillance) using #satellites (▻https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2018-003212-ASW_EN.html) and an aerial service (▻https://digit.site36.net/2020/06/26/frontex-air-service-reconnaissance-for-the-so-called-libyan-coast-guar).

#EUROSUR is now also being upgraded, Frontex is spending 2.6 million Euro (▻https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:109760-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML) on a new application based on artificial intelligence. It is to process so-called „Big Data“, including not only ship movements but also data from ship and port registers, information on ship owners and shipping companies, a multi-year record of previous routes of large ships and other maritime information from public sources on the Internet. The contract is initially concluded for one year and can be extended up to three times.

Cooperation with Libya

To connect North African coastguards to EU systems, the EU Commission had started the „#Seahorse_Mediterranean“ project two years after the fall of North African despots. To combat irregular migration, from 2013 onwards Spain, Italy and Malta have trained a total of 141 members of the Libyan coast guard for sea rescue. In this way, „Seahorse Mediterranean“ has complemented similar training measures that Frontex is conducting for the Coastal Police within the framework of the EU mission #EUBAM_Libya and the military mission #EUNAVFOR_MED for the Coast Guard of the Tripolis government.

The budget for „#Seahorse_Mediterranean“ is indicated by the Commission as 5.5 million Euro (▻https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2020-000892-ASW_EN.html), the project was completed in January 2019. According to the German Foreign Office (▻http://dipbt.bundestag.de/doc/btd/19/196/1919625.pdf), Libya has signed a partnership declaration for participation in a future common communication platform for surveillance of the Mediterranean. Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt are also to be persuaded to participate. So far, however, the governments have preferred unilateral EU support for equipping and training their coastguards and navies, without having to make commitments in projects like „Seahorse“, such as stopping migration and smuggling on the high seas.

▻https://digit.site36.net/2020/06/28/eu-pays-for-surveillance-in-gulf-of-tunis

#Golfe_de_Tunis #surveillance #Méditerranée #asile #migrations #réfugiés #militarisation_des_frontières #surveillance_des_frontières #Tunisie #externalisation #complexe_militaro-industriel #Algérie #Egypte #Suisse #EU #UE #Union_européenne #Trust_Fund #Emergency_Trust_Fund_for_Africa #Allemagne #Italie #gardes-côtes #gardes-côtes_tunisiens #intelligence_artificielle #IA #données #Espagne #Malte #business

ping @reka @isskein @_kg_ @rhoumour @karine4

–—

Ajouté à cette métaliste sur l’externalisation des frontières :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/731749#message765330

Et celle-ci sur le lien entre développement et contrôles frontaliers :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/733358#message768701

#Tunisia : #Sexualized_harassment

#Tunis : Suspension du professeur de l’ENS, accusé de harcèlement sexuel par des étudiantes - Kapitalis

http://kapitalis.com/tunisie/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ENS-Tunis.jpg

A. H., le professeur de l’Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) de Tunis, accusé de harcèlement sexuel par des étudiantes et faisant l’objet d’une enquête par l’Inspection générale du ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche scientifique, a été suspendu des ses fonctions.

C’est ce qu’indique le collectif « Le harceleur n’enseigne pas », qui se réjouit de cette décision et espère que cela ne s’arrêtera pas là et que la justice entrera aussi en ligne.

« Pour le moment, il a été décidé de le suspendre jusqu’à la fin de l’enquête et, de son côté, il a menacé de porter plainte contre les étudiantes pour diffamation », précise le collectif.

Les étudiantes, qui se sont présentées comme victimes, disent avoir des preuves de leurs accusations et souhaitent que cette affaire ne soit pas étouffée et que A. H. ne soit pas muté dans une autre université.

« S’il est muté, il recommencera, et on ne fera que déplacer le problème. C’est dans sa nature et il n’a jamais été puni par la loi. A Lyon où il a étudié, il y a également eu plusieurs témoignages remontant à plus de 10 ans et il n’a donc jamais cessé son manège », déplore Y. D., une des victime présumée.

« Bravo aux normaliennes qui ne renoncent pas et qui ne cessent de lutter pour que justice soit faite », a commenté pour sa part, le collectif #EnaZeda, luttant contre le harcèlement sexuel, le viol et les violences faites aux femmes et qui a, dès le début de l’affaire, soutenu les étudiantes.

Y. N.

#Tunisie #Ecole_normale_supérieure #ENS #étudiantes #harcèlement_sexualisée #ministère #Enseignement_supérieur #professeur #suspension

►http://kapitalis.com/tunisie/2019/12/26/tunis-suspension-du-professeur-de-lens-accuse-de-harcelement-sexuel-par-d

#metooanthro

About

metooanthro is a collective of anthropologists* from around the world committed to making our discipline a safer and more just space by combatting sexual assault and harassment. This collective grew out of a meeting of anthropologists at the Shifting States conference for AAS/ASA/ASAANZ in December, 2017.

Anthropologists face unique working conditions – both inside and outside the university – that increase our exposure to the risk of sexual assault and harassment. We want to create a safer culture at our conferences, campuses, field sites, and all spaces in which anthropologists work.

We begin by acknowledging that that many groups in our community are disproportionately affected by assault and harassment, and are further discriminated when attempting to seek redress.

“Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.”
― Sara Ahmed

We are currently working on three main actions and collecting personal stories of harassment in the discipline.

We need to hear from more voices, not the same voices, in this work. We encourage all to participate.

* The metooanthro collective is a broad and evolving group. At the moment, our emails, social media and website are run by Esther, Hannah and Mythily, who are all based in Australia.

Resources

Here you can find a collection of resources about the issue of sexual assault and harassment in anthropology. If you know of any other resources that could be useful, please email metooanthro.

How to respond to and support others:

Naomi Quinn – ‘What do do about sexual harassment: A short course for chairs’
Laura A. LeVon – ‘Teaching fugitive anthropology with Maya Berry and colleagues’
Kristen Drybread – Writing about violence Part I; Writing about violence Part II

Anthropology blogs and popular reporting on anthropology and sexual assault:

The New Ethnographer – ‘Gendered Bodies’
Cynthia Mahmood – India’s shame: The personal ordeal of Cynthia Mahmood
Ann Gibbons & Elizabeth Culotta – ‘Anthropologists say no to sexual harassment’
Alix Johnson – The Self at stake: Thinking fieldwork and sexual violence; Paranoid reading, writing, and research: secrecy in the field; Violence and vulnerability in anthropology
Megan Steffen – Doing fieldwork after Henrietta Schmerler
Bianca C. Williams – MeToo: A crescendo in the discourse about sexual harassment, fieldwork, and the academy Part I; MeToo: A crescendo in the discourse about sexual harassment, fieldwork, and the academy Part II
Kate Clancy – ‘I had no power to say that’s not okay: Reports of harassment and abuse in the field’
Mingwei Huang – ‘Vulnerable observers: Notes on fieldwork and rape’
Nell Gluckman – How Henrietta Schmerler was lost, then found
Melissa Demian – Anthropology after #MeToo
Danielle Bradford & Charlotte Payne – Fieldwork safety, or: ‘don’t grab my pussy’
Lexie Onofrei – #MeToo in anthropology: A call for updating codes of conduct in the field
Elizabeth Beckmann – #MeToo in Anthropology (on the origins of a movement, and its future)
Holly Walters – #MeToo Anthropology (reflecting on stories and potential responses)

Anthropology News #MeToo series:

Mingwei Huang, Vivian Lu, Susan MacDougall & Megan Steffen – Disciplinary violence
Cheryl Rodriguez – Black women and the fight against sexual violence
Gil Schmerler & Megan Steffen – The disavowal of Henrietta Schmerler
Shan-Estelle Brown – #MeToo conversations on campus
Kathleen S. Fine-Dare – The long view on #MeToo
Mariam Durrani – #MeToo, believing survivors, and cooperative digital communication

Podcast episodes:

MeTooAnthro with Mythily Meher, Hannah Gould, Martha McIntyre & Tanya King for Anthropology @ Deakin: Episode #13
Emma Louise Backe for This Anthro Life – ‘#MeToo: Stories in the age of survivorship’
Elizabeth Watt (interviewed by The Familiar Strange) – ‘Ep. #9 Calculated risk: Elizabeth Watt talks sexual power, politics, and vulnerability in the field’

A bibliography of writing on anthropology, sexual assault, gendered harassment, and identity:

Berry, MJ, Chávez Argüelles, C, Cordis, S, Ihmoud, S & Velásquez Estrada, E 2017, ‘Towards a fugitive anthropology: Gender, race, and violence in the field’, Cultural Anthropology, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 537-565.

Bohannon, J 2013, ‘Survey of peers in fieldwork highlights an unspoken risk’, Science, vol. 340, no. 6130, p. 265.

Clark, I & Grant, A 2015, ‘Sexuality and danger in the field: Starting an uncomfortable conversation‘, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 1-14.

Congdon, V 2015, ‘The ‘lone female researcher’: Isolation and safety upon arrival in the field‘. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 15-24.

Isidoros, K 2015, ‘Between purity and danger: Fieldwork approaches to movement, protection and legitimacy for a female ethnographer in the Sahara Desert‘, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 39-54.

Johansson, L 2015, ‘Dangerous liaisons: risk, positionality and power in women’s anthropological fieldwork‘, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 55-63.

Kloß, ST 2017, ‘Sexual(ized) harassment and ethnographic fieldwork: A silenced aspect of social research’, Ethnography, vol. 18, no. 3, p. 396-414.

Krishnan, S 2015, ‘Dispatches from a ‘rogue’ ethnographer: exploring homophobia and queer visibility‘,Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 64-79.

Lewin, E & Leap, WL (eds.) 1996, Out in the field: Reflections of gay and lesbian anthropologists, University of Illinois Press, Urbana.

McDougall, S 2015, ‘Will you marry my son? Ethnography, culture and the performance of gender‘, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 25-38.

Miller, T 2015 ‘‘Listen to your mother’: negotiating gender-based safe space during fieldwork‘, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford: Special issue on Sexual Harassment in the Field, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 80-87.

Moreno, E 2005, ‘Rape in the field’, in D Kulick & M Willson (eds.) Taboo: Sex, identity and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork, new edn, Routledge, London, pp. 166-189.

Nelson, RG, Rutherford, N, Hinde, K & Clancy, KBH 2017, ‘Signalling safety: Characterizing fieldwork experiences and their implications for career trajectories’, American Anthropologist, vol. 119, no. 4, pp. 710-722.

Pandey, A 2009, ‘Unwelcome and unwelcoming encounters’ in P Ghassem-Fachandi (ed.) Violence: Ethnographic encounters, Berg, Oxford, pp. 135-144.

Pollard, A 2009, ‘Field of screams: Difficulty and ethnographic fieldwork’, Anthropology Matters, vol. 11, no. 2.

Scheper-Hughes, N 2016, ‘James X: A reflection on rape, race, and reception’, Anthropology Today, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 21-25.

Schneider, LT 2020, ‘Sexual violence during research: How the unpredictability of fieldwork and the right to risk collide with academic bureaucracy and expectations’, Critique of Anthropology, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 173-93.

Williams, BC 2009, ‘”Don’t ride the bus!”: And other warnings women anthropologists are given during fieldwork’, Transforming Anthropology, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 155-158.

Willson, M 2005, ‘Afterword: Perspective and difference: Sexualisation, the field, and the ethnographer’, in D Kulick & M Willson (eds.) Taboo: Sex, identity and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork, new edn, Routledge, London, pp. 190-207.

#metoo #sexualized_harassment #gender #university #fieldwork #anthropology #collectiv #ressources #support #blog #reporting #podcast #references

▻https://metooanthro.org/resources

#Harcèlement_sexuel à l’#université...

Je me suis retrouvée à faire des recherches sur seenthis sur le sujet que j’ai partagée avec quelques collègues, du coup, j’en fait ici une sorte de #métaliste...

#facs #sexisme #patriarcat #violences_sexuelles #violences_existes

ping @_kg_

« #Retour ». Banalité d’un mot, #brutalité d’une politique

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Au catalogue des euphémismes dont aiment à user les institutions européennes pour camoufler le caractère répressif de la politique migratoire, le terme « retour » figure en bonne place. En langage bureaucratique européen, « retour » veut dire « #expulsion ». Mais, alors qu’expulser une personne étrangère suppose l’intervention d’une autorité pour la contraindre à quitter le territoire où elle est considérée comme indésirable, l’utilisation du mot « retour » donne l’illusion que cette personne serait l’actrice de son départ. Preuve que le mot est inapproprié, le discours européen a été obligé de lui adjoindre un qualificatif pour distinguer ceux des retours qu’il considère comme imposés – il parle alors de « retours forcés » – de ceux qu’il prétend librement consentis, qu’il nomme, toujours abusivement, « retours volontaires ». Il ajoute ici le mensonge à l’euphémisme : dans la grande majorité des cas, les conditions dans lesquelles sont organisés les « retours volontaires » n’en font en réalité qu’un autre habillage de l’expulsion [1].

C’est sur cette double fiction que s’est construite la directive européenne relative aux normes et procédures communes applicables dans les États membres au retour des ressortissants des pays tiers en séjour irrégulier, communément appelée directive « Retour », adoptée en 2008.

Cette directive a clos un cycle normatif, constitué d’une dizaine de règlements et de directives, dont l’objet était de définir des règles communes dans les trois domaines censés asseoir la politique d’asile et d’immigration de l’Union européenne (UE), ainsi qu’il en avait été décidé au sommet européen de Tampere en 1999 : l’intégration des immigrés en situation régulière, la protection des demandeurs d’asile et des réfugiés, et la gestion des frontières pour lutter contre l’immigration irrégulière. Très vite, surtout après le 11 septembre 2001 qui a favorisé l’amalgame entre immigration irrégulière et terrorisme, il est clairement apparu que les États membres accordaient la priorité au dernier volet, en traitant la question migratoire sous un angle principalement sécuritaire, avec l’adoption d’une série de mesures qui s’articulent autour de deux objectifs : protéger les frontières et éloigner les indésirables.

Dès 2001, une directive sur la « reconnaissance mutuelle des décisions d’éloignement » prises dans les différents États membres est adoptée pour faciliter l’expulsion d’un étranger par les autorités d’un autre pays que celui qui l’a ordonnée. En 2002, un « Programme d’action en matière de retour » est élaboré, qui vise à organiser « des retours efficaces, en temps voulu et durables » de plusieurs façons. Parmi celles-ci, figure la coopération opérationnelle entre États membres et avec les pays tiers concernés : il s’agit d’améliorer les outils de mesure, les statistiques et les échanges d’informations entre fonctionnaires et de rationaliser les procédures, les ressources humaines et les moyens matériels afin de faciliter les expulsions. Dans la foulée, l’agence Frontex est créée en 2004. Si, dans ses premières années d’existence, elle a surtout fait parler d’elle pour ses opérations de surveillance des frontières extérieures, notamment maritimes, dès l’origine, elle comptait parmi ses tâches celle de « fournir aux États membres l’appui nécessaire pour organiser des opérations de retour conjointes ».

Mais un autre volet du « Programme d’action » de 2002 prévoit aussi l’élaboration de normes communes applicables au renvoi des étrangers. Il faudra attendre plusieurs années pour que ce projet se transforme en proposition, puis devienne la directive « Retour ».

Officiellement, comme précisé dans la première proposition présentée par la Commission européenne en septembre 2005, celle-ci vise à « définir des règles communes claires, transparentes et équitables en matière de retour, d’éloignement, de recours à des mesures coercitives, de garde temporaire et de réadmission, qui prennent pleinement en compte le respect des droits de l’homme et des libertés fondamentales des intéressés [2] ». On relèvera que, bien qu’il s’agisse du principal objet de la directive, il n’est pas fait allusion à l’expulsion, ici appelée « retour » ou « éloignement », non plus qu’à l’enfermement, pourtant pierre angulaire de la mise en œuvre des expulsions : la Commission européenne préfère pudiquement parler de « droit de garde ». La fiction continue.

Bien loin des principes proclamés (des règles communes transparentes et équitables, dans le respect des droits fondamentaux), la directive de 2008, qualifiée de « directive de la honte » par les associations qui l’ont combattue, consacre au contraire un nivellement par le bas des pratiques des différents États membres. C’est notamment le cas en matière de détention, autorisée jusqu’à 18 mois, mais également sur le plan des garanties procédurales. Au demeurant, l’usage des « mesures coercitives » au cours des expulsions entraîne régulièrement des dérives inquiétantes [3].

Pour quel résultat ? Pour les observateurs qui en constatent chaque jour les conséquences sur les droits des personnes, dont ce numéro de Plein droit donne quelques illustrations, le bilan de la politique d’expulsion de l’UE est négatif. Au regard des objectifs qu’elle prétend atteindre (nombre d’« éloignements effectifs »), elle semble toujours très en-deçà des attentes. Dans son premier rapport d’évaluation de la directive, rendu public en 2014 [4], la Commission européenne révèle qu’elle a été saisie de « cas flagrants de détention dans des conditions inhumaines », reconnaissant par là que de graves violations des droits étaient commises et restaient impunies au niveau national. Pour autant, déplorant « l’écart considérable entre le nombre de personnes qui s’étaient vu notifier une décision de retour et celles qui avaient effectivement quitté l’UE » (environ le quart), elle n’en conclut pas moins à la nécessité de défendre et d’encourager la poursuite du dispositif, en proposant de « promouvoir des pratiques plus cohérentes et compatibles avec les droits fondamentaux ».

Elle invite en particulier à un « recours proportionné à des mesures coercitives d’expulsion, des moyens de recours effectif, des garanties dans l’attente du retour, des conditions de rétention humaines et dignes, de même que la protection des personnes vulnérables ». Elle porte une attention particulière aux opérations de retour conjointes menées par l’agence Frontex, annonçant que chacune d’entre elles ferait l’objet de contrôles « indépendants ». Vœu pieux lorsque l’on sait les conditions dans lesquelles sont organisés ces charters d’expulsion [5].

Si, dans son bilan de 2014, la Commission se félicite que la directive « Retour » ait « contribué à la convergence – et d’une manière générale à une réduction – des durées de rétention maximales dans l’ensemble de l’Union », ajoutant qu’elle constate « une tendance soutenue en faveur d’une plus large mise en œuvre de solutions alternatives à la rétention dans les États membres [6] », la réalité est tout autre. Les États membres, dont la France, continuent en réalité à recourir largement à la rétention en abusant de la marge d’appréciation dont ils disposent quant à la définition du risque de fuite (voir infra). Quant aux garanties procédurales, le Rapporteur spécial des Nations unies pour les droits de l’Homme des personnes migrantes, François Crépeau, s’alarmait déjà en 2013 du fait que le droit au recours effectif reste très fortement limité [7].
« Frontières intelligentes » contre le « return shopping »

Un an et demi plus tard, le contexte n’est plus le même. En pleine crise de l’accueil des personnes exilées en Europe, la Commission adopte, en septembre 2015, à l’invitation du Conseil européen, un « Plan d’action de l’UE en matière de retour » [8]. Le ton adopté par la Commission se durcit. Si le retour dit « volontaire » figure toujours comme une voie à privilégier, les conditions de sa mise en œuvre par les États membres doivent être révisées et harmonisées, afin d’éviter qu’elles ne constituent un facteur d’attraction vers les pays où elles sont plus favorables. La rétention doit en principe rester une mesure de dernier ressort mais elle ne doit pas pour autant cesser « tant qu’une perspective raisonnable d’éloignement existe ». Devront s’y ajouter d’autres projets mis sur la table des négociations par la Commission, tel le programme des « frontières intelligentes » de l’UE et la création d’un système d’entrée/sortie des ressortissants de pays tiers qui franchissent les frontières extérieures de l’Union.

En mars 2017, les mesures proposées dans ce premier plan d’action font l’objet d’un bilan mitigé [9]. Selon la Commission, les taux de retour effectif restent faibles : de 41,8 % en 2014, il s’élève à 42,5 % en 2015. Le ton est alors donné : tous les instruments juridiques, opérationnels, financiers et pratiques disponibles devront être mis au service de la politique de retour.

Un « Groupe de haut niveau » est créé afin d’étudier les possibilités d’interopérabilité de différents fichiers, existants et à venir, que les agents chargés de l’immigration et des frontières devront pouvoir consulter. Les législations nationales devront être adaptées afin que la décision du refus de séjour ou de rejet d’une demande d’asile, et l’obligation de quitter le territoire soient notifiées dans une seule et même décision, avec une durée de validité illimitée.

Quant aux garanties procédurales, que la Commission semblait avoir à cœur de préserver lors de sa communication de mars 2014, elles passent au second plan, les États membres étant surtout invités à « éviter toute utilisation abusive des droits et des procédures ».

Tout comme l’action déployée par l’UE à l’égard de pays tiers pour qu’ils s’engagent à accepter sur leur sol les personnes expulsées depuis l’un des États membres, la « dimension intérieure » de la politique de retour se dévoile dans ce qu’elle a de plus contraignant.

Un an plus tard, encouragée par les conclusions du Conseil européen du 28 juin 2018 [10], la Commission passera à la vitesse encore supérieure en présentant, dès le 12 septembre, sa proposition de « refonte » de la directive « Retour » [11], identifiant en préambule les deux difficultés auxquelles se heurte toujours, selon elle, la politique de retour [12].

La première tiendrait à l’insuffisant développement des accords de coopération avec les pays d’origine, alors pourtant qu’ils permettent d’accroître les retours ou les réadmissions dans ces pays au moyen « d’arrangements juridiquement non contraignants ». L’appel à recourir beaucoup plus largement à ce type d’accords irait de pair avec la nécessité « de renforcer le recours à la politique des visas de l’UE en tant qu’outil permettant de faire progresser la coopération avec les pays tiers en matière de retour et de réadmission ». La Commission escompte ainsi « améliorer sensiblement l’effet de levier de l’UE dans ses relations avec les pays d’origine ». On ne saurait mieux dire que la politique européenne des visas n’est pas seulement un moyen de contrôle migratoire à distance : les marchandages auxquels elle donne lieu peuvent aussi s’avérer payants pour assurer le retour de celles et ceux qui, au péril de leur vie, contournent les barrières administratives qu’elle leur oppose.

La seconde difficulté, au cœur des préoccupations motivant la refonte de la directive, tient à trois obstacles que rencontreraient les États membres dans la mise en œuvre des décisions d’éloignement. D’une part, « des pratiques qui varient d’un État membre à l’autre » et notamment « l’absence de cohérence entre les définitions et interprétations du risque de fuite et du recours à la rétention », ces approches hétérogènes « donnant lieu à la fuite de migrants en situation irrégulière et à des mouvements secondaires » ; d’autre part, « le manque de coopération » de la part des personnes en instance d’éloignement. Enfin, le manque d’équipement des États membres, qui empêche les autorités compétentes « d’échanger rapidement les informations nécessaires en vue de procéder aux retours ».
Dimension coercitive

Pour lever ces difficultés, les efforts porteront plus particulièrement sur quatre dispositifs renforçant considérablement la dimension coercitive de la directive de 2008, dont trois sont entièrement nouveaux.

Il s’agit d’abord de soumettre les personnes en instance d’éloignement à une « obligation de coopérer » à la procédure. La formule révèle les faux semblants du dispositif : la collaboration de ces personnes à leur propre expulsion ne sera obtenue que sous la menace d’un ensemble de sanctions dissuasives. Elles devront fournir toutes les informations et documents justifiant de leur identité, de leurs lieux de résidence antérieurs, ainsi que de leur itinéraire de voyage et pays de transit, et « rester présentes et disponibles » tout au long de la procédure d’éloignement. Tout manquement à ces obligations pourra caractériser le « refus de coopérer » d’où se déduira un « risque de fuite », avec les conséquences qui s’y attacheront ipso facto. Il s’agira d’abord de la privation du délai de départ « volontaire » qui assortit en principe les décisions d’éloignement. Surtout, ce risque de fuite ouvrira la voie à un placement en rétention que l’administration ne sera pas tenue de justifier plus avant. L’alternative à la maigre carotte du départ volontaire sera donc le gros bâton de l’enfermement.

Assurer « un recours plus efficace à la rétention à l’appui de l’exécution des retours » (il faut comprendre : utiliser massivement la rétention) constitue précisément le deuxième moyen, pour la Commission, d’accroître significativement le nombre d’éloignements. C’est bien l’objectif vers lequel convergent toutes les modifications apportées à la directive de 2008 : caractère dorénavant non limitatif des motifs de placement en rétention énoncés dans la directive, élargissement des critères du risque de fuite justifiant la rétention, apparition d’un motif spécifique visant « les ressortissants qui constituent un danger pour l’ordre public, la sécurité publique ou la sécurité nationale », sorte de fourre-tout laissé à la discrétion des administrations. À quoi s’ajoute l’obligation faite aux États membres de prévoir une durée totale de rétention qui ne puisse être inférieure à 3 mois [13]. Cette évolution vers le « tout détention » est résumée dans la suppression d’un seul mot de l’exposé des motifs, révisé, de la directive : il n’est plus recommandé que le recours à la rétention soit « limité ». Il devra seulement rester « subordonné au respect du principe de proportionnalité en ce qui concerne les moyens utilisés et les objectifs poursuivis ».

Manifestement convaincue par avance que ni la « coopération » des personnes, même contrainte, ni même un recours débridé à l’enfermement ne suffiront, la Commission œuvre également pour doter la politique de retour des technologies de surveillance de masse, en s’appuyant sur un double principe : garantir la traçabilité des personnes migrantes dans chaque État membre tout en élevant au niveau supranational l’architecture et la maîtrise des outils dédiés à leur contrôle. Chaque État membre devra créer un « système national de gestion des retours », autrement dit un fichier destiné à recueillir et traiter toutes les informations nominatives et personnelles « nécessaires à la mise en œuvre des dispositions de la directive ». Mais, au prétexte ambigu d’en « réduire de manière significative la charge administrative », ces systèmes nationaux devront être reliés non seulement au système d’information Schengen mais aussi à une « plateforme intégrée de gestion des retours » dont l’agence Frontex doit être dotée entre-temps. Si l’initiative des procédures d’éloignement reste une prérogative des États membres, l’Union apparaît bien décidée à en prendre la gestion en mains, quitte à s’affranchir des principes régissant la protection des données personnelles pourvu que l’efficacité de la politique de retour soit au rendez-vous.

L’accroissement significatif, à partir de l’année 2015, du nombre d’exilé·es qui se sont présenté·es aux frontières de l’Union motive un troisième dispositif, emblématique de l’obsession qui inspire le projet de directive révisée. L’objectif est d’« établir une nouvelle procédure pour le retour rapide des demandeurs d’une protection internationale déboutés à la suite d’une procédure d’asile à la frontière ». Le mécanisme proposé pour l’atteindre est brutal : la personne qui a été maintenue contre son gré à la frontière pendant l’examen de sa demande d’asile doit, après en avoir été déboutée, y être retenue jusqu’à son éloignement effectif et pendant une période maximale de 4 mois. Et pour garantir la rapidité de cet éloignement, il est prévu qu’aucun délai de départ volontaire ne soit accordé, que le délai de recours contre la décision d’éloignement fondée sur le rejet de la demande de protection ne pourra pas excéder 48 heures et que ce recours ne sera suspensif que dans certaines hypothèses et sous certaines conditions. Dans le monde idéal de la Commission, les hotspots et autres dispositifs de tri installés aux frontières de l’Union ne sont pas seulement le point d’arrivée de tous les exilé·es en quête de protection : ils doivent être également le point de départ de l’immense majorité à laquelle cette protection est refusée.

▻https://www.gisti.org/spip.php?article6434
#renvois #expulsions #migrations #asile #réfugiés #déboutés #sans-papiers #mots #terminologie #vocabulaire #euphémisme #retour_forcé #retour_volontaire #retours_volontaires #Plein_Droit

ping @_kg_ @rhoumour

Asylum Outsourced : McKinsey’s Secret Role in Europe’s Refugee Crisis

In 2016 and 2017, US management consultancy giant #McKinsey was at the heart of efforts in Europe to accelerate the processing of asylum applications on over-crowded Greek islands and salvage a controversial deal with Turkey, raising concerns over the outsourcing of public policy on refugees.

The language was more corporate boardroom than humanitarian crisis – promises of ‘targeted strategies’, ‘maximising productivity’ and a ‘streamlined end-to-end asylum process.’

But in 2016 this was precisely what the men and women of McKinsey&Company, the elite US management consultancy, were offering the European Union bureaucrats struggling to set in motion a pact with Turkey to stem the flow of asylum seekers to the continent’s shores.

In March of that year, the EU had agreed to pay Turkey six billion euros if it would take back asylum seekers who had reached Greece – many of them fleeing fighting in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan – and prevent others from trying to cross its borders.

The pact – which human rights groups said put at risk the very right to seek refuge – was deeply controversial, but so too is the previously unknown extent of McKinsey’s influence over its implementation, and the lengths some EU bodies went to conceal that role.

According to the findings of this investigation, months of ‘pro bono’ fieldwork by McKinsey fed, sometimes verbatim, into the highest levels of EU policy-making regarding how to make the pact work on the ground, and earned the consultancy a contract – awarded directly, without competition – worth almost one million euros to help enact that very same policy.

The bloc’s own internal procurement watchdog later deemed the contract “irregular”.

Questions have already been asked about McKinsey’s input in 2015 into German efforts to speed up its own turnover of asylum applications, with concerns expressed about rights being denied to those applying.

This investigation, based on documents sought since November 2017, sheds new light on the extent to which private management consultants shaped Europe’s handling of the crisis on the ground, and how bureaucrats tried to keep that role under wraps.

“If some companies develop programs which then turn into political decisions, this is a political issue of concern that should be examined carefully,” said German MEP Daniel Freund, a member of the European Parliament’s budget committee and a former Head of Advocacy for EU Integrity at Transparency International.

“Especially if the same companies have afterwards been awarded with follow-up contracts not following due procedures.”

Deal too important to fail

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The March 2016 deal was the culmination of an epic geopolitical thriller played out in Brussels, Ankara and a host of European capitals after more than 850,000 people – mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans – took to the Aegean by boat and dinghy from Turkey to Greece the previous year.

Turkey, which hosts some 3.5 million refugees from the nine-year-old war in neighbouring Syria, committed to take back all irregular asylum seekers who travelled across its territory in return for billions of euros in aid, EU visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens and revived negotiations on Turkish accession to the bloc. It also provided for the resettlement in Europe of one Syrian refugee from Turkey for each Syrian returned to Turkey from Greece.

The EU hailed it as a blueprint, but rights groups said it set a dangerous precedent, resting on the premise that Turkey is a ‘safe third country’ to which asylum seekers can be returned, despite a host of rights that it denies foreigners seeking protection.

The deal helped cut crossings over the Aegean, but it soon became clear that other parts were not delivering; the centrepiece was an accelerated border procedure for handling asylum applications within 15 days, including appeal. This wasn’t working, while new movement restrictions meant asylum seekers were stuck on Greek islands.

But for the EU, the deal was too important to be derailed.

“The directions from the European Commission, and those behind it, was that Greece had to implement the EU-Turkey deal full-stop, no matter the legal arguments or procedural issue you might raise,” said Marianna Tzeferakou, a lawyer who was part of a legal challenge to the notion that Turkey is a safe place to seek refuge.

“Someone gave an order that this deal will start being implemented. Ambiguity and regulatory arbitrage led to a collapse of procedural guarantees. It was a political decision and could not be allowed to fail.”

Enter McKinsey.

Action plans emerge simultaneously

Fresh from advising Germany on how to speed up the processing of asylum applications, the firm’s consultants were already on the ground doing research in Greece in the summer of 2016, according to two sources working with the Greek asylum service, GAS, at the time but who did not wish to be named.

Documents seen by BIRN show that the consultancy was already in “initial discussions” with an EU body called the ‘Structural Reform Support Service’, SRSS, which aids member states in designing and implementing structural reforms and was at the time headed by Dutchman Maarten Verwey. Verwey was simultaneously EU coordinator for the EU-Turkey deal and is now the EU’s director general of economic and financial affairs, though he also remains acting head of SRSS.

Asked for details of these ‘discussions’, Verwey responded that the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm – “does not hold any other documents” concerning the matter.

Nevertheless, by September 2016, McKinsey had a pro bono proposal on the table for how it could help out, entitled ‘Supporting the European Commission through integrated refugee management.’ Verwey signed off on it in October.

Minutes of management board meetings of the European Asylum Support Office, EASO – the EU’s asylum agency – show McKinsey was tasked by the Commission to “analyse the situation on the Greek islands and come up with an action plan that would result in an elimination of the backlog” of asylum cases by April 2017.

A spokesperson for the Commission told BIRN: “McKinsey volunteered to work free of charge to improve the functioning of the Greek asylum and reception system.”

Over the next 12 weeks, according to other redacted documents, McKinsey worked with all the major actors involved – the SRSS, EASO, the EU border agency Frontex as well as Greek authorities.

At bi-weekly stakeholder meetings, McKinsey identified “bottlenecks” in the asylum process and began to outline a series of measures to reduce the backlog, some of which were already being tested in a “mini-pilot” on the Greek island of Chios.

At a first meeting in mid-October, McKinsey consultants told those present that “processing rates” of asylum cases by the EASO and the Greek asylum service, as well as appeals bodies, would need to significantly increase.

By December, McKinsey’s “action plan” was ready, involving “targeted strategies and recommendations” for each actor involved.

The same month, on December 8, Verwey released the EU’s own Joint Action Plan for implementing the EU-Turkey deal, which was endorsed by the EU’s heads of government on December 15.

There was no mention of any McKinsey involvement and when asked about the company’s role the Commission told BIRN the plan was “a document elaborated together between the Commission and the Greek authorities.”

However, buried in the EASO’s 2017 Annual Report is a reference to European Council endorsement of “the consultancy action plan” to clear the asylum backlog.

Indeed, the similarities between McKinsey’s plan and the EU’s Joint Action Plan are uncanny, particularly in terms of increasing detention capacity on the islands, “segmentation” of cases, ramping up numbers of EASO and GAS caseworkers and interpreters and Frontex escort officers, limiting the number of appeal steps in the asylum process and changing the way appeals are processed and opinions drafted.

In several instances, they are almost identical: where McKinsey recommends introducing “overarching segmentation by case types to increase speed and quality”, for example, the EU’s Joint Action Plan calls for “segmentation by case categories to increase speed and quality”.

Much of what McKinsey did for the SRSS remains redacted.

In June 2019, the Commission justified the non-disclosure on the basis that the information would pose a “risk” to “public security” as it could allegedly “be exploited by third parties (for example smuggling networks)”.

Full disclosure, it argued, would risk “seriously undermining the commercial interests” of McKinsey.

“While I understand that there could indeed be a private and public interest in the subject matter covered by the documents requested, I consider that such a public interest in transparency would not, in this case, outweigh the need to protect the commercial interests of the company concerned,” Martin Selmayr, then secretary-general of the European Commission, wrote.

SRSS rejected the suggestion that the fact that Verwey refused to fully disclose the McKinsey proposal he had signed off on in October 2016 represented a possible conflict of interest, according to internal documents obtained during this investigation.

Once Europe’s leaders had endorsed the Joint Action Plan, EASO was asked to “conclude a direct contract with McKinsey” to assist in its implementation, according to EASO management board minutes.

‘Political pressure’

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The contract, worth 992,000 euros, came with an attached ‘exception note’ signed on January 20, 2017, by EASO’s Executive Director at the time, Jose Carreira, and Joanna Darmanin, the agency’s then head of operations. The note stated that “due to the time constraints and the political pressure it was deemed necessary to proceed with the contract to be signed without following the necessary procurement procedure”.

The following year, an audit of EASO yearly accounts by the European Court of Auditors, ECA, which audits EU finances, found that “a single pre-selected economic operator” had been awarded work without the application of “any of the procurement procedures” laid down under EU regulations, designed to encourage transparency and competition.

“Therefore, the public procurement procedure and all related payments (992,000 euros) were irregular,” it said.

The auditor’s report does not name McKinsey. But it does specify that the “irregular” contract concerned the EASO’s hiring of a consultancy for implementation of the action plan in Greece; the amount cited by the auditor exactly matches the one in the McKinsey contract, while a spokesman for the EASO indirectly confirmed the contracts concerned were one and the same.

When asked about the McKinsey contract, the spokesman, Anis Cassar, said: “EASO does not comment on specifics relating to individual contracts, particularly where the ECA is concerned. However, as you note, ECA found that the particular procurement procedure was irregular (not illegal).”

“The procurement was carried under [sic] exceptional procurement rules in the context of the pressing requests by the relevant EU Institutions and Member States,” said EASO spokesman Anis Cassar.

McKinsey’s deputy head of Global Media Relations, Graham Ackerman, said the company was unable to provide any further details.

“In line with our firm’s values and confidentiality policy, we do not publicly discuss our clients or details of our client service,” Ackerman told BIRN.

‘Evaluation, feedback, goal-setting’

It was not the first time questions had been asked of the EASO’s procurement record.

In October 2017, the EU’s fraud watchdog, OLAF, launched a probe into the agency (▻https://www.politico.eu/article/jose-carreira-olaf-anti-fraud-office-investigates-eu-asylum-agency-director), chiefly concerning irregularities identified in 2016. It contributed to the resignation in June 2018 of Carreira (▻https://www.politico.eu/article/jose-carreira-easo-under-investigation-director-of-eu-asylum-agency-steps-d), who co-signed the ‘exception note’ on the McKinsey contract. The investigation eventually uncovered wrongdoings ranging from breaches of procurement rules to staff harassment (▻https://www.politico.eu/article/watchdog-finds-misconduct-at-european-asylum-support-office-harassment), Politico reported in November 2018.

According to the EASO, the McKinsey contract was not part of OLAF’s investigation. OLAF said it could not comment.

McKinsey’s work went ahead, running from January until April 2017, the point by which the EU wanted the backlog of asylum cases “eliminated” and the burden on overcrowded Greek islands lifted.

Overseeing the project was a steering committee comprised of Verwey, Carreira, McKinsey staff and senior Greek and European Commission officials.

The details of McKinsey’s operation are contained in a report it submitted in May 2017.

The EASO initially refused to release the report, citing its “sensitive and restrictive nature”. Its disclosure, the agency said, would “undermine the protection of public security and international relations, as well as the commercial interests and intellectual property of McKinsey & Company.”

The response was signed by Carreira.

Only after a reporter on this story complained to the EU Ombudsman, did the EASO agree to disclose several sections of the report.

Running to over 1,500 pages, the disclosed material provides a unique insight into the role of a major private consultancy in what has traditionally been the realm of public policy – the right to asylum.

In the jargon of management consultancy, the driving logic of McKinsey’s intervention was “maximising productivity” – getting as many asylum cases processed as quickly as possible, whether they result in transfers to the Greek mainland, in the case of approved applications, or the deportation of “returnable migrants” to Turkey.

“Performance management systems” were introduced to encourage speed, while mechanisms were created to “monitor” the weekly “output” of committees hearing the appeals of rejected asylum seekers.

Time spent training caseworkers and interviewers before they were deployed was to be reduced, IT support for the Greek bureaucracy was stepped up and police were instructed to “detain migrants immediately after they are notified of returnable status,” i.e. as soon as their asylum applications were rejected.

Four employees of the Greek asylum agency at the time told BIRN that McKinsey had access to agency staff, but said the consultancy’s approach jarred with the reality of the situation on the ground.

Taking part in a “leadership training” course held by McKinsey, one former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told BIRN: “It felt so incompatible with the mentality of a public service operating in a camp for asylum seekers.”

The official said much of what McKinsey was proposing had already been considered and either implemented or rejected by GAS.

“The main ideas of how to organise our work had already been initiated by the HQ of GAS,” the official said. “The only thing McKinsey added were corporate methods of evaluation, feedback, setting goals, and initiatives that didn’t add anything meaningful.”

Indeed, the backlog was proving hard to budge.

Throughout successive “progress updates”, McKinsey repeatedly warned the steering committee that productivity “levels are insufficient to reach target”. By its own admission, deportations never surpassed 50 a week during the period of its contract. The target was 340.

In its final May 2017 report, McKinsey touted its success in “reducing total process duration” of the asylum procedure to a mere 11 days, down from an average of 170 days in February 2017.

Yet thousands of asylum seekers remained trapped in overcrowded island camps for months on end.

While McKinsey claimed that the population of asylum seekers on the island was cut to 6,000 by April 2017, pending “data verification” by Greek authorities, Greek government figures put the number at 12,822, just around 1,500 fewer than in January when McKinsey got its contract.

The winter was harsh; organisations working with asylum seekers documented a series of accidents in which a number of people were harmed or killed, with insufficient or no investigation undertaken by Greek authorities (▻https://www.proasyl.de/en/news/greek-hotspots-deaths-not-to-be-forgotten).

McKinsey’s final report tallied 40 field visits and more than 200 meetings and workshops on the islands. It also, interestingly, counted 21 weekly steering committee meetings “since October 2016” – connecting McKinsey’s 2016 pro bono work and the 2017 period it worked under contract with the EASO. Indeed, in its “project summary”, McKinsey states it was “invited” to work on both the “development” and “implementation” of the action plan in Greece.

The Commission, however, in its response to this investigation, insisted it did not “pre-select” McKinsey for the 2017 work or ask EASO to sign a contract with the firm.

Smarting from military losses in Syria and political setbacks at home, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tore up the deal with the EU in late February this year, accusing Brussels of failing to fulfil its side of the bargain. But even before the deal’s collapse, 7,000 refugees and migrants reached Greek shores in the first two months of 2020, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

German link

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This was not the first time that the famed consultancy firm had left its mark on Europe’s handling of the crisis.

In what became a political scandal (▻https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/bamf-skandal-im-news-ticker-jetzt-muessen-sich-seehofer-und-cordt-den-fragen-d), the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, according to reports, paid McKinsey more than €45 million (▻https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/politik/Millionenzahlungen-Was-hat-McKinsey-beim-Bamf-gemacht-id512950) to help clear a backlog of more than 270,000 asylum applications and to shorten the asylum process.

German media reports said the sum included 3.9 million euros for “Integrated Refugee Management”, the same phrase McKinsey pitched to the EU in September 2016.

The parallels don’t end there.

Much like the contract McKinsey clinched with the EASO in January 2017, German media reports have revealed that more than half of the sum paid to the consultancy for its work in Germany was awarded outside of normal public procurement procedures on the grounds of “urgency”. Der Spiegel (▻https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/fluechtlinge-in-deutschland-mckinsey-erhielt-mehr-als-20-millionen-euro-a-11) reported that the firm also did hundreds of hours of pro bono work prior to clinching the contract. McKinsey denied that it worked for free in order to win future federal contracts.

Again, the details were classified as confidential.

Arne Semsrott, director of the German transparency NGO FragdenStaat, which investigated McKinsey’s work in Germany, said the lack of transparency in such cases was costing European taxpayers money and control.

Asked about German and EU efforts to keep the details of such outsourcing secret, Semsrott told BIRN: “The lack of transparency means the public spending more money on McKinsey and other consulting firms. And this lack of transparency also means that we have a lack of public control over what is actually happening.”

Sources familiar with the decision-making in Athens identified Solveigh Hieronimus, a McKinsey partner based in Munich, as the coordinator of the company’s team on the EASO contract in Greece. Hieronimus was central in pitching the company’s services to the German government, according to German media reports (▻https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-147594782.html).

Hieronimus did not respond to BIRN questions submitted by email.

Freund, the German MEP formerly of Transparency International, said McKinsey’s role in Greece was a cause for concern.

“It is not ideal if positions adopted by the [European] Council are in any way affected by outside businesses,” he told BIRN. “These decisions should be made by politicians based on legal analysis and competent independent advice.”

A reporter on this story again complained to the EU Ombudsman in July 2019 regarding the Commission’s refusal to disclose further details of its dealings with McKinsey.

In November, the Ombudsman told the Commission that “the substance of the funded project, especially the work packages and deliverable of the project[…] should be fully disclosed”, citing the principle that “the public has a right to be informed about the content of projects that are financed by public money.” The Ombudsman rejected the Commission’s argument that partial disclosure would undermine the commercial interests of McKinsey.

Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen responded that the Commission “respectfully disagrees” with the Ombudsman. The material concerned, she wrote, “contains sensitive information on the business strategies and the commercial relations of the company concerned.”

The president of the Commission has had dealings with McKinsey before; in February, von der Leyen testified before a special Bundestag committee concerning contracts worth tens of millions of euros that were awarded to external consultants, including McKinsey, during her time as German defence minister in 2013-2019.

In 2018, Germany’s Federal Audit Office said procedures for the award of some contracts had not been strictly lawful or cost-effective. Von der Leyen acknowledged irregularities had occurred but said that much had been done to fix the shortcomings (▻https://www.ft.com/content/4634a3ea-4e71-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5).

She was also questioned about her 2014 appointment of Katrin Suder, a McKinsey executive, as state secretary tasked with reforming the Bundeswehr’s system of procurement. Asked if Suder, who left the ministry in 2018, had influenced the process of awarding contracts, von der Leyen said she assumed not. Decisions like that were taken “way below my pay level,” she said.

In its report, Germany’s governing parties absolved von der Leyen of blame, Politico reported on June 9 (►https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-german-governing-parties-contracting-scandal).

The EU Ombudsman is yet to respond to the Commission’s refusal to grant further access to the McKinsey documents.

▻https://balkaninsight.com/2020/06/22/asylum-outsourced-mckinseys-secret-role-in-europes-refugee-crisis
#accord_UE-Turquie #asile #migrations #réfugiés #externalisation #privatisation #sous-traitance #Turquie #EU #UE #Union_européenne #Grèce #frontières #Allemagne #EASO #Structural_Reform_Support_Service (#SRSS) #Maarten_Verwey #Frontex #Chios #consultancy #Joint_Action_Plan #Martin_Selmayr #chronologie #Jose_Carreira #Joanna_Darmanin #privatisation #management #productivité #leadership_training #îles #Mer_Egée #Integrated_Refugee_Management #pro_bono #transparence #Solveigh_Hieronimus #Katrin_Suder

ping @_kg_ @karine4 @isskein @rhoumour @reka

#Return_migration from #North_Africa to #Sub-Saharan_Africa

#métaliste de #campagnes de #dissuasion à l’#émigration

Une analyse de ces campagnes par #Antoine_Pécoud
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/763546

"Campagnes de dissuasion massive", article de Antoine Pécoud et #Julia_Van_Dessel :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/912835

Un entretien avec des représentants de l’ODM (Suisse, maintenant SEM) et de l’OIM sur le lien entre cinéma et campagnes de dissuasion à la migration :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/763642

–---------------------

Le gouvernement chante contre l’immigration illégale (#USA/#Etats-Unis —> #Amérique_centrale) : (2014)

L’organisme de contrôle des frontières se sert des #radios centraméricaines pour diffuser anonymement des chansons censées dissuader la population d’immigrer vers les Etats-Unis.

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/276610

En #Guinée , l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations contrôle des frontières et les âmes :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/757474
#OIM #IOM #organisation_internationale_contre_les_migrations

Toujours l’OIM, mais en #Tunisie :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/732291

Et au #Cameroun , OIM, as usual :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/763640

Au #Sénégal, avec le soutien de l’ #Espagne (2007) :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/763670

Campagne #aware_migrants, financée par l’ #Italie :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/520420

Une campagne de l’ #Australie
►https://seenthis.net/messages/474986
#Etats-Unis #film
Il y a aussi la campagne #No_way :
▻https://seenthis.net/tag/no_way

Financée par l’#Allemagne, une campagne en #Afghanistan :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/464281#message588432
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/464281#message592615
►https://seenthis.net/messages/432534

Les campagnes de la #Suisse :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/385940
notamment dans les #Balkans mais aussi en #Afrique_de_l'Ouest (#Cameroun, #Nigeria)

Campagne des #Etats-Unis :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/269673#message274426
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/269673#message274440
#USA

Une campagne du #Danemark :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/385940#message397757

En #France :
Traversées de la #Manche par des migrants : les associations “révoltées” par une publicité du gouvernement
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/794698

Les campagnes de dissuasion au #Nigeria , ça vaut 40 mio d’euro...

https://seenthis.net/local/cache-vignettes/L570xH700/kM4CltWpng-00550-17945.png

Au #Mali :
TAMADENW logbook of a theatre show in Mali
►https://seenthis.net/messages/857432
#théâtre

Cyprus to launch SMS campaign to stem migrant arrivals
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/857683

#campagne #migrations #vidéos

ping @isskein @_kg_ @reka

#Return_migration from #North_Africa to #Mali

Pour désengorger nos amis de Framasoft, voici des services alternatifs pour dialogue en visio ou juste en audio à plusieurs :

►https://meet.webelys.com
►https://www.suricate.tv
▻https://jitsi.linux.it
▻https://calls.disroot.org
▻https://jitsi.riot.im
▻https://jitsi2.linux.it
▻https://meet.golem.de
▻https://meet.artifaille.fr
▻https://meet.tedomum.net
▻https://visio.colibris-outilslibres.org
►https://meet.jit.si
▻https://tico.chat/powercall
►https://talky.io
▻https://team.video
▻https://jumpch.at
▻https://www.gruveo.com
▻https://ensemble.scaleway.com

#jitsi

La Poudre : Épisode 59 - L’#IVG et la #loi

https://content.production.cdn.art19.com/images/ee/50/2f/98/ee502f98-e1b9-4f55-9088-9c75f94db2c2/8be965eede8f10837b0353d3405261f2f9f21319470b838710d0b165e00de7df88148e140b66304915b2471c464c74505d4ecdd7efb70d1fd4810ec7cb18b0e2.jpeg

►https://www.nouvellesecoutes.fr/la-poudre
#audio #podcast #abortion #rights #law #feminism #France

Juste Avant

Dans « Juste Avant », un documentaire en 7 épisodes, sortie le 1er décembre 2019, Ovidie questionne la façon dont on éduque une adolescente quand on est mère et féministe, à travers une série de conversations avec sa fille de 14 ans. Les échanges mère-fille s’entrecroisent avec les témoignages des proches et les réflexions sur sa propre construction.

http://www.nouvellesecoutes.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/DSC_9458-1-600x600.jpeg

Juste Avant (7/7) - Epilogue

Juste Avant (6/7) - Sois belle et bats-toi !

Juste Avant (5/7) - Toi, moi, et notre petit matriarcat

Juste Avant (4/7) - Le temps de la capote à 1 franc

Juste Avant (3/7) - « Tu sais ce que c’est le consentement ? »

Juste Avant (2/7) - La maman ou la putain

Juste Avant (1/7) - Moi à ton âge

►http://www.nouvellesecoutes.fr/podcasts/intime-politique

#maculinity #paternalistic #nightmare #digital_penetration #consent #college #high_school #social_network #Instagram #Snapchat #pressure #toxic_relationship #rape #post_MeToo #safe_place #sexuality #equality #contraception #STI #AIDS #HIV #school #abortion #condom #morning-after_pill #practical_knowledge #theoretical_knowledge #political_reflexion #distance #third_party #vaccination #pregnant #youth #traumatism #mariage #couple #tradition #divorce #matriarchy #co_parent #food #internet #beauty #weight_watchers #epilation #awareness #body