Migration

Migration as well as solidarity with people on the move are increasingly treated as criminal acts in Europe. Criminalisation can come in various forms and with very different scopes and it is important that activists and organisations are aware of the existing options for action and defence. In order to better enable targeted Human Rights Defenders to do so, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung published the toolkit In defence of defenders: A practical guide to legal means and advocacy tools for criminalised Human Rights Defenders in Europe, authored by members of the Border Violence Monitoring Network. You may watch the recording of the launch event and the expert discussion with panelists Brian J. Dooley, Senior Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Marta Gionco, Advocacy Officer Migration Policy at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), Hannah Neumann, Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA), Vice-Chair of the EP Subcommittee on Human Rights and David Yambio, Co-Founder and spokersperson of “Refugees in Libya” here. The event was hosted by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Brussels-European Union Office, the toolkit was presented by Elena Beck, Criminalisation Focal Point at the Border Violence Monitoring Network, and the discussion was moderated by our very own Neda Noraie-Kia, Head of Migration Policy Europe, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Thessaloniki.

The video is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

It is not only the reluctant states, it is not only the insufficient and fragmented EU migration policy. There are also many places in Europe that defend the refugees' rights and operate an active policy of welcome. These at least 700 cities and communities now form a vast network, as from the end of October 2021 they have come together through the "Moving Cities" website. Offering a comprehensive mapping of communities and their migration philosophies across Europe, "Moving Cities" is a platform that makes civil-society initiatives for a different kind of migration policy more visible and inspires other cities to follow the examples already in place. To mark the launch of the website, its creators - namely the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation and the Seebrücke organisation - held an online event on 21 October 2021, which you can watch in the video.

"Bridges" is about bringing together different people on relevant questions on migration and asylum in Europe. "Bridges" thereby seeks to connect people whose paths would not necessarily cross otherwise and thereby create a conversation on timely topics of mutual interest.

In our second "Bridges" session we welcome Mrs. Nazifa Yusufi Bek, who is an elected member of the Afghan parliament and co-founder of the so called "Parliament in Exile" - a group of female Afghan parliamentarians who had to flee their country and who currently are in Athens. Of the former 69 female MPs of the Afghan parliament around 25 are currently in exile in Greece. They have found a network to be able to better raise awareness for the situation of their fellow Afghan people back home and to jointly express their political proposals and positions towards the international community. Together with Dr. Hannah Neumann, member of European Parliament and the peace and human rights spokesperson of "The Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA)" as well as vice-chair of the Human Rights Committee (DROI) -who had recently come to visit the network in Athens- this session will introduce the "Parliament in Exile" and shed a light on the situation of Afghanistan's women, inside the country, in transit or in exile and hereby look into the EU's potential role to support these brave women.