27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Interrogating the Wave: Media Representations of African Migrant Youth · Kategorien: Medien, Mittelmeer, Video · Tags:

Youth Circulations

Interrogating the Wave: Media Representations of African Migrant Youth

Stephanie Maher [1]

“Images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status, a history that parallels and participates in the stories we tell ourselves about our own evolution” – (W. J. T. Mitchell 1984, 504)

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2006, Philippe Desmazes / Getty Images

Media representations are powerful. Not only do they embody the appealing veneer of journalistic impartiality, which seems to objectively reflect world in unadulterated ways, but also they help to generate public opinion and thus create consensus when crafting and mobilizing particular policy responses.

Such an image-policy nexus is exemplified in the hyper-mediatized phenomenon of clandestine migration out of West Africa during 2006 and 2007. While the Western route was effectively crippled by the implementation of border controls and surveillance technologies, the images we see today of boat migrants leaving North African shores bear a striking similarity to those circulated nearly a decade ago.

In order to highlight the productive relationship between image and policy, this photo essay explores some of the visual and rhetorical representations of West African boat migrants that circulated widely in the European and American press during what was called a “wave” of clandestine arrivals in the Canary Islands. I briefly explore the history of clandestine boat migration from Senegal to the Canary Islands before unpacking some of the strategies that image producers used to inform broader publics about the “threat of invasion” of poor African youth on European soil.[2] I conclude by examining some of the policies mobilized in response to the “wave” of clandestine arrivals and the contemporary phenomenon of boat migration to Europe.

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für UNHCR: New call for the EU on the Mediterranean and Syrians · Kategorien: Mittelmeerroute, Syrien · Tags: , , , , ,

As High Commissioner for Refugees, it breaks my heart to see Syrian families fleeing from a horrible war, forced to risk their lives again, on unsafe boats, to find protection in Europe. Since the start of 2015, over 370 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean – that’s one person drowning for every twenty who made it. But Italy’s Mare Nostrum operation has ended, and the EU’s Triton initiative is limited both in mandate and in resources. Europe must step up its capacity to save lives, with a robust search and rescue operation in the Central Mediterranean – or thousands more, including many, many Syrians, will perish.

To reduce the number of people getting on boats in the first place, more legal avenues are needed for Syrians to seek protection in third countries. Several States provide resettlement and humanitarian admission programmes, but the needs far exceed available spaces. We believe one-tenth of the Syrian refugees would require resettlement as the adequate solution for their protection situation. Flexible visa policies, expanded family reunification, academic scholarships and private sponsor schemes must complement these measures. Following the example of countries like Germany and Sweden, other States in Europe and the Gulf region should consider offering legal access with more opportunities, so as to alleviate some of the pressure on Syria’s neighbours and give more refugees an alternative way of reaching safety.

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Andalusien: 10 Boat-people aufgebracht · Kategorien: Marokko, Spanien · Tags:

El Dia

Rescatados diez subsaharianos, uno de ellos un bebé, en la costa de Tarifa

Cádiz, EFE

Salvamento Marítimo ha rescatado esta mañana a diez inmigrantes, ocho varones, una mujer y un bebé, que estaban a la deriva en una embarcación neumática a un kilómetro de la costa de Tarifa (Cádiz).

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Scharfer Protest gegen Frontex-Chef Klaus Rösler! – Video · Kategorien: Deutschland, Video · Tags:

Leftvision

Die Aktion am 25. Februar richtete sich gegen den Frontex-Chef, der auf dem Europäischen Polizeikongress auftrat.

Frontex koordiniert die Kontrolle der europäischen Außengrenzen. Der tausendfache Tod von Flüchtenden, besonders im Mittelmeer, ist Ergebnis
dieses Grenzregimes.

Dort und überall gilt: Flüchtende brauchen Schutz und Hilfe, keine Abwehr!

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Stoppt die Einführung des neuen Asylunrechtsgesetzes! · Kategorien: Deutschland · Tags:

[Artikel als pdf-Datei]

Aufruf des Antirassistischen Netzwerk Sachsen-Anhalt

Am 19. September 2014 wurde mit dem Gesetz zur Neubestimmung der Balkanstaaten (Serbien, Bosnien-Herzigowina, Mazedonien) als sogenannte „sichere Herkunftsländer“ ein weiterer Schritt zur Entrechtung von Geflüchteten getan.

Die Große Koalition brachte Anfang diesen Jahres den Entwurf der neuen Asylgesetzgebung vor. Damit ist der Weg geebnet für eine weitere Gesetzesverschärfung und somit eine Ausweitung von repressiven Maßnahmen gegen Geflüchtete und Asylsuchende. Am 3. Dezember 2014 wurde das Gesetz bereits vom Kabinett verabschiedet. Im März 2015 findet die erste Lesung im Bundestag statt. Im Juni 2015 soll es dann in Kraft treten. Es ist das alte Spiel: Zuckerbrot und Peitsche! Es gibt ein paar Zugeständnisse für Menschen mit Duldungsstatus und gleichzeitig sollen Abschiebehaft, Einreise-und Aufenthaltsverbot sowie Ausweisungen zur gängigen Praxis werden.

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für HRW fordert Einsatz grosser Passagierschiffe für Seenotrettung · Kategorien: Italien, Libyen, Mittelmeer · Tags: ,

Human Rights Watch

The EU Stands By as Thousands of Migrants Drown in the Mediterranean

par Benjamin Ward

On the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa stands a graveyard filled with simple wooden crosses. We don’t know the names and stories of those buried there, except that they perished at sea trying to reach Europe, fleeing conflict in Syria, human-rights abuses in Somalia and Eritrea, poverty in West Africa.

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Libyen Boat-people vor Abfahrt gefoltert – Video · Kategorien: Italien, Libyen, Video · Tags: ,

Rai News

Le vittime sono quasi tutti siriani

Libia, video choc del Telegraph: rifugiati torturati e picchiati prima di partire per l’Europa

Il filmato ripreso da un adolescente siriano, minacciato di morte più volte. Il giovane è poi arrivato a Lampedusa

27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Libyen, Lampedusa: 184 Boat-people gerettet · Kategorien: Italien, Libyen · Tags: , ,

Iceland Review

February 24 the Icelandic Frontex Patrol boat TYR rescued184 migrants  in two rubber dinghiesin the north of the Libyan coast. 100 other migrants were rescued by an Italian patrol vessel and brought to the TYR. 284 passengers = 163 men, 20 women (some of them pregnant) and one child. The Tyr is going to Augusta, Sicily, now.

The TYR and the Icelandic surveillance aoeroplane Dash 8 are working for Triton.

The TYR rescued in December 2014 400 migrants, in January 2015 450 migrants

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27. Februar 2015 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Mittelmeer 2014: 40.000 Boat-people von Handelsschiffen gerettet · Kategorien: Italien, Libyen · Tags: , ,

Migrantes online

Migranti: „nel 2014 salvate 40mila persone dai mercantili“

Milano – Nel 2014 sono state più di 40mila le persone soccorse in mare dai mercantili. Che non vogliono risarcimenti per i soccorsi.

“È la legge del mare. Quello che non vogliono è, una volta salvati i migranti, attendere 4 giorni prima di ripartire”. Lo ha spiegato ieri l’ammiraglio Felicio Angrisano, comandante generale delle capitanerie di porto, in un’audizione davanti alla Commissione diritti umani del Senato sulle attività di salvataggio nel Canale di Sicilia. Dove la situazione è drammatica. Angrisano ha ribadito la necessità di mettere in campo il massimo sforzo di fronte ad un fenomeno “eccezionale”. Per il comandante, “nessun paese civile può tirarsi indietro” davanti all’emergenza immigrazione, la comunità internazionale e l’Ue devono prendere atto di trovarsi di fronte a una nuova nazione, quella dei migranti, composta da persone indebolite che devono vedere riconosciuti i propri diritti”.

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