call english: NoLager goes Euromayday: 1st of May 2005 in Hamburg

For global freedom of movement/equal rights for all

The global universe of camps is becoming more and more complex and hard to survey: In the Australian and Libyan deserts, at the borders of the European Union in Malta and Hungary, in the woods of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and in the Swiss Alps, everywhere refugees and undocumented migrants are increasingly interned in camps. Many of these camps are prisons or internment camps in the meanest literal sense. Others, while they are open, bar their inmates from participation in social life by isolating them in the middle of nowhere. In addition, the inhabitants are subjected to racist special laws aiming to curtail their freedom of movement. According to the exclusively German Residenzpflicht law, for example, refugees are not allowed to leave their Landkreis (county) of residence unless they acquire an official permit while their asylum cases are pending, which some do for years.
The many differences between them notwithstanding, all camps the world over have one thing in common: Life in these camps is extremely precarious, i.e. characterized by insecurity, uncertainty and danger. The camps’ inmates usually have no way of knowing how long they will have to stay – whtether it will be 2 months, or rather 2 years or even 5 or more years, which, sadly, is not exceptional in Germany. Above all, however, the inmates don’t know what awaits them at the end of their term: deportation (or, alternatively, what is cynically termed "voluntary return"), being more or less forced into illegality or, as the lucky exception from the rule, the possibility to move into a place of their own. Meanwhile, the camp inmates permanently have to put up with with controls, oppressive measures, and discrimination. Work permits are very hard to get, and are issued for very short periods only. Many inmates, therefore, work in irregular jobs for very low wages, which means additional exploitation, violence, etc. Apart from this, life in the camps is characterized by spatial confinement, lack of privacy and monotonous, empty routines. Women also have to cope with sexist discrimination, violence and exploitation, not least by the employees of the – usually private – firms that run the camps.

People are put in camps for (at least) two reasons: First, in order to separate and isolate those who have to live in them from the rest of the population, because the less integrated and the more stigmatized they are ('The people from the camp'), the easier deportations can be carried out - without considerable resistance from outside. Second, in order to drive those who are put in open camps into illegality, or to deter newly-arrived refugees and migrants from even applying for asylum and force them to go underground from the beginning of their stay. For it is not like the rich industrialized nations do not want refugees and migrants, they just don‘t want to pay for them. An irregular and therefore cheap, flexible and non-unionized labor pool of some size is very welcome: Be it as farm hands, in catering, on construction sites or in the cleaning buisiness, in the brothels or in the private households of the middle classes.

Depite all the pressure of the ruling system of camps - there is resistance within and outside the camps. The nationwide NoLager-network is part of this resistance. Here, refugees and non-refugees are equally involved. Under the slogan 'Break isolation', we go particularily to so-called "jungle homes". We demand: Close down all camps - here and everywhere! For all people have the right to live wherever they want to and for how long they want to. This means to reject all racist special laws like the Residenzpflicht-law or the system of coupons for refugees (Gutscheine) - as well as all other forms of discrimination, violence and exploitation.

Freshly peped up: www.nolager.de with informations on the global camp system, documentation of nolager-fights and new calls and appeals