Per la libertà di movimento, per i diritti di cittadinanza

For freedom of movement and the right to stay

European call to action for the 2nd of april 2005

2nd of april 2005 for freedom of movement and the right to stay

Last year a European Day of Action against detention centers and for the
legalization of undocumented migrants was launched during the European
Social Forum in Paris. A call was subscribed to by many different networks
and groups, and on the 31st of January 2004 demonstrations and actions
were held in more than forty European cities. It was an important day in
the development of a networking process among migrants’ struggles and
activists on a European level.

This year we want to make a step forward. We propose to all European
networks and social movements to join in the organization of a second day
of action, to be held on April 2nd 2005, centered upon the claim for
freedom of movement and the right to stay as an alternative to the
European constitutional process.

When we talk about the European constitutional process we think first of
all of its material dimension, that is of the way the integration process
has taken place concretely in the last years. A European citizenship is in
the making, and we must focus our analysis on the way the borders of this
citizenship are constructed and managed, both in their external and in
their internal dimension. Detention center for migrants have played and
continue to play a key role in this process. Although they have taken
different shapes in different countries, they are actually European
institutions, within a unified framework which promoted even an
externalization process of camps beyond the “external” borders of the EU –
from the Balkan to Libia and Morocco.

Camps are the dark symbol of a migration politics which is not simply
aimed at keeping refugees and migrants out of Europe, but rather at
promoting a process of selective inclusion, also through illegalization,
of the migrants. This process corresponds to the production of a hierarchy
of rights as well as of legal and political positions, that lies at the
core of the material transformations of citizenship in Europe and which is
far from regarding only the migrants. And it corresponds to a new model of
labor force management centered upon precarization and exploitation. The
migrants are the subjects who experience in advance life and labor
conditions that the whole workforce, certainly with different degrees, is
beginning to experience in Europe. But on the other hand, their practices
of mobility express a set of claims and demands which at the level of
everyday life point to a different Europe. That is why we want to bring
these interconnections and demands inside the Euro-May Day process and
therefore call for a strong participation to the 1st of May 2005.

Freedom of movement is in this sense no ideological or merely rhetorical
claim. We believe that freedom of movement encompasses different struggles
of migration taking place every day throughout Europe: struggles for
housing and legalization, struggles against racism and camps, struggles on
the workplace, the struggles of women to free themselves from the
patriarchal structure of their original but also of their arrival places.
The second day of action is intended to stress the importance of these
struggles and to provide a transnational framework for the deepening and
multiplication of their plurality. We invite all groups, networks and
social movements in Europe, not only the ones working on migration-related
issues, to join this call and to mobilize for April 2nd 2005. On the
second day of action we will emphasize the demands of the last year call.
Demonstrations, actions and struggles must take place everywhere in Europe
on that day!

Tavolo Migranti dei Social Forum Italiani; Indymedia
Estrecho/Madiaq/Spain; Act up/Paris/France; No One is Illegal/UK;
Volunteers from noborder London/Britain; Centro Social-Casa de Iniciativas
1.5 Malaga/Spain; Papiers per Thotom-Barcelona/Spain; Network for Social
Support to Immigrants and Refugees/ Greece; Network for Political and
Social Right/ Greece; Dost je!-Lublijana/Slowenia; Kanak Attak/Germany; No
one is Illegal-amplitude/Germany;Off-Limits/Hamburg/Germany; Association
for Legalisation/Germany; 9ème collectif de sans papiers (Paris);
Frassanito Network/Europe; Ya Basta! /Italy; TPO Bologna /Italy; L.S.O. AQ16 & infopoint Caffe babele – Reggio Emilia/Italy; Sportelli degli Invisibili – Rete del Precariato Sociale Venezia, Mestre, Padova, Treviso, Trieste, Monfalcone, Monselice, Gorizia, ASC Venezia /Italy;
Comitato M21 Treviso/Italy; SOS Casa Trieste/Italy, Razzismo Stop Padova Trieste Monfalcone/Italy; Associazione Difesa Lavoratori; Copyriot Padova; CSO Pedro Padova,/Italy; CSO Rivolta Marghera, CSO Rebelde Conegliano /Italy; CSO Morion Venezia /Italy;

a continously updated list of signatories of this call can be found at:
pajol.eu.org