Per la libertà di movimento, per i diritti di cittadinanza

March Overthefortress, 25th-29th March 2016. From Italy to the Greek Macedonian Border

The solidarity campaign #overthefortress is promoting a group trip to Greece with the aim to bring concrete solidarity to the migrants locked in Idomeni. Departure from the port of Ancona on the 25th of March, return to Italy on the 29th of March.

Support the crowdfunding #overthefortress engita

Schedule

Friday_25th of March
h. 11.30 a.m. press conference at Molo Santa Maria, port of Ancona
h. 13.30 a.m. ferry’s departure

Saturday_26th of March Arrival in Greece
Idomeni, border between Greece and Macedonian Republic
Set up of point #overthefortress and distribution of the necessity goods collected.

Sunday_27th of March
Meetings with the Greek organizations, which support migrants (the program is in progress)

Monday_28th of March
h. 03.00 p.m. transfer to the Igoumenitsa Port

Tuesday_29th of March
h. 04.30 p.m. arrival to Ancona

Info: mail: [email protected] – Tel. 338.3933853 (ita) / 338.2921375 (eng)

Since some months the Solidarity Handover #overthefortress is reporting and supporting the journey to reach Europe of thousands men, women and children, giving an independent point of view. Given the always more dramatic imagines from the borders of the Fortress Europe and the shameful decisions of the European Governments, we decided to create a public and collective initiative to bring concrete and active solidarity from those people, that don’t want to get used to this situation. From the people that want to help.

We are organizing a massive group trip to give visibility and substance to the solidarity of the European citizens. This solidarity, thanks to the work of the many independent volunteers, had guarantee in these long and tragic months support and respect for the dignity of migrants.

We choose to start our trip from the Ancona port because this place represents one of the symbols of the pushback policies of the Italian government. From here, dozens of asylum seekers have been unlawfully pushback to Greece, without any chance to formalize their asylum request. Among them many were underage. Many other migrants died in this port trying to escape the control system.

We are aware that Greece is, on one hand, the scapegoat for the general failure of the European policies, and, on the other hand, a weak pawn in the European chess game. For this reason Greece can easily be used by the European Union as further barrier against refugees and asylum seekers. We have to consider also the outcomes of the summit “Managing migration together”, held among all the Balkans countries at the end of February.

At the end of the meeting it was proposed to support the Macedonian Republic through military equipment, means and funds to lock completely the southern border and the Gevgelija-Idomeni passage. This decision fits perfectly with the closure of the Austrian rout down to the Macedonian Republic. Obviously this will dump on Athens the task of locking the migrants direct to the Central and the Northern Europe.

We do not know yet if Greece will agree in becoming, with Turkey, the co-guardian of the continent. But we are sure that, as proven in the last months, even the borders considered impenetrable are intended to fall or to be bypassed. It is true that migration flows may be obstruct, slowed down, and indeed diverted, but it is true as well that it’s unrealistic to expect that the migration flows may be locked when the reasons for this epochal migration are still there, thus migrants have nothing to or very little to loose.

We will move massively and publicly to Greece because we think that, against the borders regime and its consequences on the thousands of migrants locked in Idomeni and in Athens, there is the need to spread the awareness and the involvement of all the Italian and international organizations and subjects, which are supportive of the migrants’ cause, in order to report together against an Europe that is not representing us.
During the march we want to coordinate with all the independent self-organized initiatives, which are active in the area. We consider pivotal to join the claim with practical aspects: the support for migrants and the contrast to the passeurs business. The passeurs and traffickers’ plague can be eradicated only by offering safe alternatives to reach the destination, such as a humanitarian channel.

For this reason we want to revamp the scopes of the #overthefortress campaign, calling everybody to join us to support the journey of migrants against the barriers of the Fortress Europe. In order to buy the necessity goods to distribute in the area we demand to put emphasis on our crowdfunding on Produzioni dal Basso [ ita ] [ eng ].

Campagna solidale #Overthefortress // Solidarity Campaign #Overthefortress from Progetto Melting Pot Europa on Vimeo.