What is the first image that pops into your head when you hear the word “terrorist”? Does he have a bushy beard and a swarthy complexion? Is he Muslim?
Statistics do not prop up this stereotype. According to Europol, only 0.4% of “terrorist attacks” either carried out or thwarted in the EU between 2006 and 2008 could be attributed to “Islamists”. Most of the 500-per-year such incidents considered by the EU’s police office were the work of “separatist” groups in France and Spain. (The data was collated before the Basque organisation ETA announced a ceasefire in September last year).
If the problem is so confined to pockets of Europe, why do our politicians misrepresent it as a global threat? And why has it become synonymous with Islam, when most of its practitioners in this continent come from a Christian background?
More to the point, what is terrorism? It wasn’t until 2002 that the EU had a collective definition of the concept. Activities deemed as “terrorist” included those with the objective of “seriously intimidating a population” and “seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a society.”
While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – both supported by all or many EU governments – fulfil all those criteria, the definition had a condition attached. Actions by a state or its army could not be considered as terrorist, it said.
So the official position of the EU is that terrorism is violence by the powerless, not the powerful. Given that the EU’s aversion to violence is so selective, it can be no great surprise that the Union is not only unwilling to tackle the root causes of “terrorism” but is tacitly eager to sustain the problem.
In July 2010, the European Commission issued a paper celebrating the “main achievements” of its “counter-terrorism policy”. Several of the “achievements” listed have little to do with terrorism as it is defined by the EU. These included the introduction of the European arrest warrant, which largely facilitates extradition for offences of a non-political nature. Poland, the top user of the arrest warrant system, has even invoked it in cases of petty theft.
But there is a more sinister side to the story than an effort to claim credit where it is not due. The same paper intimates that the “war on terror” can yield new business opportunities for European firms through “public-private partnerships”. Moreover, it trumpets how €1.7 billion has been allocated to “security” projects between 2007 and 2013 under the EU’s “framework programme” for scientific research. As I document in my book Europe’s Alliance With Israel, many of these research grants involve surveillance equipment that is being tested in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. (Israel is the main foreign beneficiary of the Union’s research activities).
Later this week the Commission will take new steps to make sure we are all spied on. The EU’s executive is scheduled to approve new measures on the transfer of data for airline passengers flying into the Union. This will be the newest addition to a process initiated not in Europe but in Washington. Following the atrocities of 11 September 2011, George W Bush demanded that the EU hand over details about each person who travels to America.
Like lackeys, our governments and institutions are constantly repackaging the Passenger Name Record (PNR) dossier, despite how it was struck down by the European Court of Justice in 2006. The deficiencies in America’s data protection regime have not been remedied since then. Indeed, Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice commissioner, protested in December about “an apparent lack of interest on the US side to talk seriously about data protection”.
That tantrum aside, Reding has a track record of capitulating to Big Brother when the going gets tough. During 2010, she first expressed misgivings about the bulk transfer of bank account data for European citizens to the US, then gave her blessing to that transfer, after some minor concessions were granted. The concessions did nothing to address how America’s privacy legislation only offers protection against unlawful data processing to US citizens, not to foreigners.
Her colleague Cecilia Malmström, the home affairs commissioner, has a comparable reputation for flip-flopping. When she was a humble MEP in 2005, Malmström spoke eloquently of how liberty should not be sacrificed in the name of security. She opposed another law – it, too, demanded by Bush – forcing phone and internet companies to retain records on each call made or email sent by their customers. Developing extensive systems for such espionage “would be a very major encroachment on privacy, with a high risk of the systems being abused in many ways,” she said, adding: “The fact is that most of us, after all, are not criminals.”
Now that she has been promoted, Malmström has declared the exact same measures as “useful for fighting crime”. She has become so wedded to power that she tramples on the civil liberties she used to defend.
Privacy is recognised as a basic entitlement by the European Convention on Human Rights. This continent’s not-too-distant history should remind us how dangerous it is to deny that right. The former military dictatorship in Greece, for example, used to monitor the population’s political leanings by checking what newspapers they read.
If our politicians want to interfere with privacy, they need solid reasons to do so. The “war on terror” is a lousy excuse.
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 30 January – 5 February 2011.
Showing posts with label Viviane Reding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Viviane Reding. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Monday, September 13, 2010
On the margins, then expelled: how France treats Roma
Lille, France
Broken bicycles and old suitcases mark the entrance to the makeshift camp. Ankle-deep in mud that is newly wet from a rain-shower, the visitor is taken by the hand by lively children to meet their parents. “Papers?”, a woman named Elena asks, proffering her identity card. It shows she is from Romania, a member state of the European Union, just like France. In four years time, Romanian citizens will be allowed to work and live wherever they wish in the EU; for now, Elena, her family and all Roma gypsies in France face the risk that they could be expelled from the country at any moment.
In the centre of Villeneuve d’Ascq, an economically depressed suburb of Lille, transparent panels display excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone has the right to a decent standard of living, one panel proclaims. No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property, says another.
It does not take long to find evidence of how these rights – officially regarded as fundamental by the United Nations – are being denied a short distance away. Lacking proper toilet facilities and running water, the children have to urinate on the edges of a car park. Meanwhile, the threat that the camp with its six caravans could be dismantled appears very real; bulldozers have been used to deprive other Romas of refuge nearby in recent weeks.
“We have many problems with the police,” a man called Vasir says, clearing out the boot of his car. “The police come here many times. We have no work, no money, nothing.”
The Lille region in northern France has been at the centre of efforts by the French government to drive Roma out of the country.
In July, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy gave an inflammatory speech, in which he blamed crime on foreigners and announced that Roma camps would not be “tolerated”. The first police operation against a Roma camp following that speech occurred in Lesquin, also near Lille. Forty-eight people and 14 caravans were “evacuated” – in the words of officialdom - during that move, kicking off a process that saw 1,000 Roma expelled from France in the month of August.
In another operation, nine adults and 12 children were forced out of their mobile homes one morning in the last week of August. The official reason given was that they were occupying private land.
The expulsions have not gone unchallenged. A Lille court has ruled twice recently against the national government’s policy that Roma camps can be considered a threat to public order. And some locals have taken to the streets of Lille, alleging that Sarkozy’s policy on Roma – coupled with his controversial efforts to cut the country’s social welfare system - are bringing shame to France.
The plight of the estimated 1,200 Roma in and around Lille has become the subject of squabbling between rival political parties, too. After Martine Aubry, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, spoke out about the expulsions, Sarkozy’s centre-right allies responded with claims of double standards. Aubry had requested that Roma be uprooted from camps earlier in the summer, when she was mayor of Lille, her rivals revealed.
Although a 2004 EU law forbids collective deportations from one of the Union’s member states to another, the Brussels authorities have been reluctant to take any action against France. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission’s president, made no reference to the French policy of expelling Roma – and similar practices in some other EU countries – when he made his first ever “State of the Union” speech Sep. 7. Barroso’s reticence came despite how he had met Sarkozy the previous day and despite how the treatment of the Roma had been discussed extensively between France and the European Commission over the previous few weeks.
Viviane Reding, Europe’s justice commissioner, has similarly declined to publicly say that France has contravened EU law, even though internal papers prepared by officials working under her direction suggest that it has. One such paper refutes French assertions that the deportations were voluntary and says that the granting of small sums of money to Roma deportees was not sufficient to ensure that France complied with EU rules on the free movement of people.
Because the European Parliament – the EU’s only directly-elected body – was on holidays in August, it was also silent about the deportations. Yet once it resumed business, the assembly approved a resolution against the French policy. Supported by 337 members of Parliament – with 245 against – the resolution rejected “any statements which link minorities and immigration with criminality and create discriminatory stereotypes”.
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 13 September 2010
Broken bicycles and old suitcases mark the entrance to the makeshift camp. Ankle-deep in mud that is newly wet from a rain-shower, the visitor is taken by the hand by lively children to meet their parents. “Papers?”, a woman named Elena asks, proffering her identity card. It shows she is from Romania, a member state of the European Union, just like France. In four years time, Romanian citizens will be allowed to work and live wherever they wish in the EU; for now, Elena, her family and all Roma gypsies in France face the risk that they could be expelled from the country at any moment.
In the centre of Villeneuve d’Ascq, an economically depressed suburb of Lille, transparent panels display excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone has the right to a decent standard of living, one panel proclaims. No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property, says another.
It does not take long to find evidence of how these rights – officially regarded as fundamental by the United Nations – are being denied a short distance away. Lacking proper toilet facilities and running water, the children have to urinate on the edges of a car park. Meanwhile, the threat that the camp with its six caravans could be dismantled appears very real; bulldozers have been used to deprive other Romas of refuge nearby in recent weeks.
“We have many problems with the police,” a man called Vasir says, clearing out the boot of his car. “The police come here many times. We have no work, no money, nothing.”
The Lille region in northern France has been at the centre of efforts by the French government to drive Roma out of the country.
In July, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy gave an inflammatory speech, in which he blamed crime on foreigners and announced that Roma camps would not be “tolerated”. The first police operation against a Roma camp following that speech occurred in Lesquin, also near Lille. Forty-eight people and 14 caravans were “evacuated” – in the words of officialdom - during that move, kicking off a process that saw 1,000 Roma expelled from France in the month of August.
In another operation, nine adults and 12 children were forced out of their mobile homes one morning in the last week of August. The official reason given was that they were occupying private land.
The expulsions have not gone unchallenged. A Lille court has ruled twice recently against the national government’s policy that Roma camps can be considered a threat to public order. And some locals have taken to the streets of Lille, alleging that Sarkozy’s policy on Roma – coupled with his controversial efforts to cut the country’s social welfare system - are bringing shame to France.
The plight of the estimated 1,200 Roma in and around Lille has become the subject of squabbling between rival political parties, too. After Martine Aubry, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, spoke out about the expulsions, Sarkozy’s centre-right allies responded with claims of double standards. Aubry had requested that Roma be uprooted from camps earlier in the summer, when she was mayor of Lille, her rivals revealed.
Although a 2004 EU law forbids collective deportations from one of the Union’s member states to another, the Brussels authorities have been reluctant to take any action against France. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission’s president, made no reference to the French policy of expelling Roma – and similar practices in some other EU countries – when he made his first ever “State of the Union” speech Sep. 7. Barroso’s reticence came despite how he had met Sarkozy the previous day and despite how the treatment of the Roma had been discussed extensively between France and the European Commission over the previous few weeks.
Viviane Reding, Europe’s justice commissioner, has similarly declined to publicly say that France has contravened EU law, even though internal papers prepared by officials working under her direction suggest that it has. One such paper refutes French assertions that the deportations were voluntary and says that the granting of small sums of money to Roma deportees was not sufficient to ensure that France complied with EU rules on the free movement of people.
Because the European Parliament – the EU’s only directly-elected body – was on holidays in August, it was also silent about the deportations. Yet once it resumed business, the assembly approved a resolution against the French policy. Supported by 337 members of Parliament – with 245 against – the resolution rejected “any statements which link minorities and immigration with criminality and create discriminatory stereotypes”.
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 13 September 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Plight of Roma low priority for EU
Roma gypsies are routinely described as Europe’s largest ethnic minority. Numbering between 10 and 16 million, their combined population exceeds that of many European Union countries. Yet their numerical strength offers no compensation for the poverty, persecution and scapegoating that the Roma have to endure – or for how their welfare is accorded a low priority by the EU’s institutions.
That few Brussels officials pay much attention to the situation facing Roma has been exemplified in recent weeks as Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in France effectively declared a war against gypsies. When the Paris authorities announced in late July that it had authorised the systematic destruction of Roma camps and the large-scale expulsion of Roma to Bulgaria and Romania, the European Commission initially insisted that the surrounding matters concerned national EU governments only.
Following the deportation of about 1,000 Roma by France during the month of August, the Commission has finally questioned the legality of these measures. In an unpublished paper, the EU’s executive arm cast doubts on assurances by Paris that all of the deportations were voluntary and therefore did not breach a 2004 law – known as the “free movement directive” – that forbids group deportations from one of the Union’s states to another.
According to the paper, the granting of lump sums ranging from 100 euros (129 dollars) for child deportees to 300 euros for adults “was not sufficient” to exempt France from the EU’s “free movement principles”.
“The response (from Brussels) has been very slow,” Sophie Kammerer from the European Network Against Racism said. “Although the measures were announced by the French at the end of July, the first press statement from Viviane Reding (the EU’s justice commissioner) wasn’t until the end of August. So almost a month passed with no reaction. Now, at least, the Commission is looking seriously into the matter.”
Kammerer noted that under EU law, deportation orders must be given in writing one month before they take effect and must allow for the possibility that they can be appealed. “Clearly, this was not respected,” she added. “The camps were dismantled one day and people were asked to leave the next day.”
So far, however, Reding has not given any indication of whether she would be willing to start legal proceedings against France. Her spokesman Matthew Newman took issue with suggestions that the Commission had dithered in reacting to the French announcement.
“The Commission has been deeply involved in Roma issues for years,” he said. “We give large sums of money to Roma integration. It is really quite surprising to hear people say we are not on top of this issue. If anything, we have been trying to raise attention to the discrimination faced by the Roma.”
France has struck a defiant tone in the contacts it has had with the EU authorities. Eric Besson, an immigration minister, insisted during a visit to Brussels last week that there have been no “collective deportations” but that some Roma have been required to leave France over their involvement in theft and “aggressive begging”. Besson claimed that France has been subject to “needless and scandalous accusations” over the measures it has taken.
The French offensive against Roma bears some similarities to an initiative unveiled by Italy in May 2008. The Italian “security package” provided for the dismantling of Roma camps and the automatic deportation of migrants who cannot prove that they have regular employment. Since then, thousands of Roma have been pushed out of Italy.
Europe’s more recent wave of attacks against Roma kicked off in July when the mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen urged the Danish national authorities to ensure that “criminal Roma” were arrested and expelled. More than 20 Roma were deported from Denmark soon afterwards.
Germany, Belgium, Britain and Sweden are among the other EU countries that have either taken action against the Roma or stated their intention to do so. Meanwhile, anti-Roma sentiment and the tendency to blame Roma for crime has been vigorously exploited by far-right politicians in many parts of Europe. The Hungarian extremist party Jobbik has called for Roma to be forced to live in segregated camps from the general population. In response to its call, the Hungarian Socialist Party said it hoped that Jobbik did not wish to have “concentration camps” erected.
And racism against Roma manifested itself in a particularly violent way in Slovakia in late August when a gunmen killed six members of a Roma family and another woman in Bratislava. Some human rights campaigners have linked the murders to the negative stereotyping of Roma by powerful European politicians.
Ivan Ivanov, director of the European Roma Information Office, the main group representing Roma in Brussels, said he had warned five years ago that his community was likely to come under attack from several EU governments. He urged the European Commission both to take robust action against France for contravening EU law and to draw up a comprehensive strategy for combating discrimination against Roma. Despite the Roma’s status as Europe’s largest ethnic minority, the Commission does not have a specific unit of officials dedicated to serving their interests. The Commission’s employment department, for example, has only one official tasked with handling issues affecting the Roma.
“The European institutions should not look at this on a case-by-case basis but should come up with a proper European approach, ” Ivanov said. “Roma are European citizens, so they should benefit from the same rights as any other European citizens.”
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 6 September 2010
That few Brussels officials pay much attention to the situation facing Roma has been exemplified in recent weeks as Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in France effectively declared a war against gypsies. When the Paris authorities announced in late July that it had authorised the systematic destruction of Roma camps and the large-scale expulsion of Roma to Bulgaria and Romania, the European Commission initially insisted that the surrounding matters concerned national EU governments only.
Following the deportation of about 1,000 Roma by France during the month of August, the Commission has finally questioned the legality of these measures. In an unpublished paper, the EU’s executive arm cast doubts on assurances by Paris that all of the deportations were voluntary and therefore did not breach a 2004 law – known as the “free movement directive” – that forbids group deportations from one of the Union’s states to another.
According to the paper, the granting of lump sums ranging from 100 euros (129 dollars) for child deportees to 300 euros for adults “was not sufficient” to exempt France from the EU’s “free movement principles”.
“The response (from Brussels) has been very slow,” Sophie Kammerer from the European Network Against Racism said. “Although the measures were announced by the French at the end of July, the first press statement from Viviane Reding (the EU’s justice commissioner) wasn’t until the end of August. So almost a month passed with no reaction. Now, at least, the Commission is looking seriously into the matter.”
Kammerer noted that under EU law, deportation orders must be given in writing one month before they take effect and must allow for the possibility that they can be appealed. “Clearly, this was not respected,” she added. “The camps were dismantled one day and people were asked to leave the next day.”
So far, however, Reding has not given any indication of whether she would be willing to start legal proceedings against France. Her spokesman Matthew Newman took issue with suggestions that the Commission had dithered in reacting to the French announcement.
“The Commission has been deeply involved in Roma issues for years,” he said. “We give large sums of money to Roma integration. It is really quite surprising to hear people say we are not on top of this issue. If anything, we have been trying to raise attention to the discrimination faced by the Roma.”
France has struck a defiant tone in the contacts it has had with the EU authorities. Eric Besson, an immigration minister, insisted during a visit to Brussels last week that there have been no “collective deportations” but that some Roma have been required to leave France over their involvement in theft and “aggressive begging”. Besson claimed that France has been subject to “needless and scandalous accusations” over the measures it has taken.
The French offensive against Roma bears some similarities to an initiative unveiled by Italy in May 2008. The Italian “security package” provided for the dismantling of Roma camps and the automatic deportation of migrants who cannot prove that they have regular employment. Since then, thousands of Roma have been pushed out of Italy.
Europe’s more recent wave of attacks against Roma kicked off in July when the mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen urged the Danish national authorities to ensure that “criminal Roma” were arrested and expelled. More than 20 Roma were deported from Denmark soon afterwards.
Germany, Belgium, Britain and Sweden are among the other EU countries that have either taken action against the Roma or stated their intention to do so. Meanwhile, anti-Roma sentiment and the tendency to blame Roma for crime has been vigorously exploited by far-right politicians in many parts of Europe. The Hungarian extremist party Jobbik has called for Roma to be forced to live in segregated camps from the general population. In response to its call, the Hungarian Socialist Party said it hoped that Jobbik did not wish to have “concentration camps” erected.
And racism against Roma manifested itself in a particularly violent way in Slovakia in late August when a gunmen killed six members of a Roma family and another woman in Bratislava. Some human rights campaigners have linked the murders to the negative stereotyping of Roma by powerful European politicians.
Ivan Ivanov, director of the European Roma Information Office, the main group representing Roma in Brussels, said he had warned five years ago that his community was likely to come under attack from several EU governments. He urged the European Commission both to take robust action against France for contravening EU law and to draw up a comprehensive strategy for combating discrimination against Roma. Despite the Roma’s status as Europe’s largest ethnic minority, the Commission does not have a specific unit of officials dedicated to serving their interests. The Commission’s employment department, for example, has only one official tasked with handling issues affecting the Roma.
“The European institutions should not look at this on a case-by-case basis but should come up with a proper European approach, ” Ivanov said. “Roma are European citizens, so they should benefit from the same rights as any other European citizens.”
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 6 September 2010
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