| Geert Lovink on Mon, 18 Oct 1999 05:04:28 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> Report from countersummit against Fortress-Europe - Tampere, Finland (fwd) |
From: [email protected] Press Release Sunday 17.10.1999 For pictures and more text: http://www.contrast.org/borders About eight hundred conserned citizens protested yesterday against the development of Euro-Fortress in Tampere, Finland. The event, coinciding with the extra summit of the European Union, wanted to bring about a clear message: "Against Euro-Fortress and for European solidarity and freedom of movement". The demonstration was part of the international Counter-Summit held in Tampere this weekend, which aimed at creating more co-operation between non-governmental grassroot organisations in Europe. There were participants from at least twelve countries, including representatives from solidarity-, human rights-, and immigrant organisations. During the Counter-Summit also other events were organised: On Friday there was a "Rock Against Racism" -concert, Saturday started with workshops about the aspects of militarisation, immigration and social welfare in the European Union. On Sunday the workshops continued. The demonstration went well and was actually quite big in Finnish scale, �cause here the political culture is not very encouraging for demonstrating. The implemented plan was to march from the center of Tampere to as close to the building of the EU-Summit as possible, which - as could be foreseen - was not really close at all. The manifestation was accompanied by a van with a sound system playing politically oriented music and making shouting slogans in an organized way easier. The general atmosphere at the place was also very encouraging. Both, the protestors and the police acted well, and bigger conflicts were avoided. During the demonstration one protestor was arrested. Police claimed he had kicked the police car leading the march. Also in the end of the protest one demonstrator was arrested for trying to improve one of the EU-flags that can these days be seen all over Finland in almost all possible locations. Sunday's newspapers told that police had also arrested two skinheads looking for confrontation with the demonstrators. In the manifestation the concept of Fortress-Europe was visualised with chickenwire fence. In the end of the demonstration the fence was opened in front of the mass of demonstrators and people broke free, some of them burning fake passports and identity cards. This was meant to symbolize counter-summits aim to "cut the Euro-fence" (in finnish language fence means also net) by our counter-net. With the Counter-Summit grassroot organizations expressed their concern for creation of a world where the capital moves freely while immigration and emmigration of people is more and more restricted. The politics made by EU-memberstates in Tampere EU-Summit can be clearly seen as a step toward a closed Fortress-Europe, into which immigrants and refugees from non-union countries are not welcome. By fighting the "illegal immigration" EU is actually making immigration more and more difficult for everyone. The demonstrators wanted to show that they don�t accept deportations, internation camps and other inhumane and discriminating measures directed towards immigrants. The demonstration was also against the increased control-systems within European Union, which are heavily targeted against immigrants and radical grassroot movements. Increased power and new measures quaranteed to police form a serious threat to democrazy. Tampere Counter-Summit e-mail: [email protected] ---- Multimedia material available >From a separate media-section of the website you'll find up-to-date reports, images and shortly some audio material and summary of the video (mini-DV) footage shot from the events. All the material is available for non-profit information distribution without a charge, as long as the source is mentioned. Other outlets are expected to pay standard freelancer rates of the medium conserned. Get in touch or check the website for further details; WWW: http://www.contrast.org/borders/media e-mail: [email protected] phone: +358-40-5677 188 # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]