CEAS: Activists vow to take to streets

Human rights activists have vowed to keep taking to the streets and keep their voices loud against the New Migration and Asylum Pact approved by the MEPs yesterday, April 10, 2024 IN Brussels.

Seebrücke International,  an international movement that wants safe passages and an end of the criminalisation of civil sea rescue indicated this in its message condemning the approval.

It said: “With yesterday’s decision to tighten the Common European Asylum System, the EU has decided to further seal itself off and is knowingly accepting these deaths.

“As a result of this final decision in the European Parliament, refugees will not flee less frequently, but will have to choose increasingly dangerous routes because no safe routes are being created.

“We will continue to take to the streets & remain loud! The dismantling of human rights must not go unchallenged – it concerns us all! We demand an end to the European policy of sealing off borders and we demand freedom of movement for all people! Human rights are non-negotiable!”

Sea Watch International on its part said: “Yesterday, the individual right to asylum died with #CEAS. This decision is not only the most severe tightening of asylum laws at the EU level but also a breach of post-WWII human rights achievements. With this deal, human rights abuses at the European external borders are legalized.

“While politicians voted for #CEAS, people are drowning in the Mediterranean. Yesterday, a mother confirmed her 3 daughters’ deaths after their boat capsized near the Greek island of Chios because of a delayed search and rescue operation.”

Maurice Stierl, a Researcher at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, Osnabrück University, said “The EU Asylum and Migration Pact was agreed just now. Of course, migration will continue, it always does. And the implementation of this pact is more than questionable. Still, this is a dark day for all who struggle against racist border violence.”