Press release of the Transborder Conference that took place in Istanbul 14-18.3.12 at the detention center of Edirne close to the Turkish/Greek border
The border is the problem!
The new Edirne Detention Centre
We are standing outside a new, luxurious building. But this building is not built for a social purpose.
On the contrary, it is a detention center, a prison for people who have committed no crime;
people who were arrested while crossing the borders. Migrants are all the more criminalized,
described and treated as a menace by the Governments and the authorities.
Within the last years travelling without papers has been raised as a major problem.
What we find a major problem, however, is that people are constrained from moving freely,
from choosing the place they want to live, from having rights in the countries they choose to settle.
We are here in the Turkish- Greek border, outside the new detention center of Edirne,
just a few kilometers from the detention centers of Evros, from the wall that is being built
on the Greek side of the border. We have also been in many similar places around the world:
in Lyubinetz in Bulgaria, in Patra’s port, in Calais in France, in Ceuta and Mellila, in Shousha
in Tunisia, in the Sahara detention centers, in Sinai passage, in Warsaw and in Brussells
just to name a few.
Places where the anti-migration policies are applied or designed and coordinated.
Against global inequalities and racism,
against repression and control policies,
against detention centers, walls and deportations.
We claim freedom of movement for a life with dignity,
we claim open borders and the right to settle.
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- The new Edirne Detention Centre
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- A young migrant draws attention to the severe infection at the hands of his friend
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- About 300 migrants were detained in Edirne in end of March
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- Also children are detained in Edirne
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- “freedom! freedom! freedom!”
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- “azadi! azadi! azadi!”
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- “hürriya! hürriya! hürriya!”
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- “özgürlük! özgürlük! özgürlük!”
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- From outside it looks maybe like a hotel, but from inside it is a prison!
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- “You think I was two months there, i think I was 62 days.”
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- Sinirsiz ulussus sürgünsüz bir dünya! No borders, no nations, stop deportations!
