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Articles by Mark Akkerman
Special Frontex: Twenty Years of Border Violence
Mark Akkerman (they/them) is a researcher at Stop Wapenhandel and for the Transnational Institute (TNI), working on arms trade, the arms industry, its lobby, border militarisation and EU funding and policies in these regards. Active with the international Abolish Frontex campaign and several groups in the peace, no border and anarchist movements. Polly Pallister-Wilkins is a political geographer and associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam.
EU Militarism and War Policies
EU Militarism and War Policies Middle East and North Africa Since the attacks of 7 October, the EU has provided political cover and material support for Israel.
Apoyo de Unión Europea a Israel la hace cómplice del genocidio
Han pasado nueve meses desde el inicio de la guerra genocida de Israel contra Gaza, que ha matado a más de 38.000 personas palestinas, herido a más de 86.000 y desplazado a más de 1,9 millones. A pesar de las frecuentes palabras de condena, los líderes europeos han hecho poco para detenerlo. Peor aún, muchos países europeos siguen apoyando a Israel económica y militarmente.
The EU’s support for Israel makes it complicit in genocide
It has been nine months since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, injured more than 86,000, and displaced more than 1.9 million. Despite frequent words of condemnation, European leaders have done little to stop it. Worse still, many European countries continue to stand by Israel economically and militarily. As the United States is considered the biggest backer of the Israeli war machine, it is easy to discount European support.
The arms industry shapes European policies way beyond the military
Not content with the European Defence Fund, the arms industry now demands unlimited access to sustainable finance, a move that would further threaten peace and the fight against climate change, writes Mark Akkerman and Laëtitia Sédou. Mark Akkerman is a researcher at Stop Wapenhandel, and Laëtitia Sédou works as an EU project officer at the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT).
Global Spending on Immigration Enforcement Is Higher than Ever and Rising
The United States has in recent years spent more money on immigration enforcement than at any other point in history. For fiscal year (FY) 2024, the Biden administration has asked Congress for nearly $25 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an increase of almost $800 million over the previous year and nearly equal to the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of Iceland.
Guerra ed effetti collaterali climatici /1
Come la spesa militare accelera la crisi climatica. [Premessa redazionale: il documento che segue è stato pubblicato poco prima dell’inizio della COP27 in Egitto, svoltasi fra il 6 e il 20 novembre 2022. Per questo si riferisce alla COP27 come ad un evento che deve ancora avvenire]. Mentre i negoziatori mondiali sul clima si riuniscono per il loro vertice annuale (COP27) in Egitto, è improbabile che le spese militari siano all’ordine del giorno ufficiale.
How the EU has used the war in Ukraine to expand its border regime
Frontex Expands In early 2022 Frontex launched ‘Joint Operation Terra 2022’, deploying officers from its newly established standing corps to dozens of border crossings across 12 EU member states. Once the war intensified across Ukraine, the presence of these border officials and the use of aerial surveillance equipment at the EU borders with Ukraine and Russia was expanded, particularly in Estonia, Romania and Slovakia.
Geweld tegen vrouwen en vrouwenhaat nog steeds ‘normaal’
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Border Security
In an era when countries and their populations are increasingly exposed to the opportunities and risks associated with the ever-expanding global movement of people, policymakers are rethinking approaches to border controls and border management.
Hef grensagentschap op
De afgelopen april opgestapte Frontex-directeur Fabrice Leggeri valt veel te verwijten aangaande de betrokkenheid van het agentschap bij pushbacks, geweld en andere mensenrechtenschendingen tegen vluchtelingen. Enig realisme kan hem echter niet ontzegd worden toen hij kort voor zijn aftreden stelde dat de opdracht die de EU Frontex meegeeft – het zoveel mogelijk stoppen van migranten aan de Europese buitengrenzen – niet samengaat met een nadruk op het respecteren van mensenrechten.
Global Climate Wall | Transnational Institute
Download the full report here and the executive summary here. The world’s wealthiest countries have chosen how they approach global climate action – by militarising their borders. As this report clearly shows, these countries – which are historically the most responsible for the climate crisis – spend more on arming their borders to keep migrants out than on tackling the crisis that forces people from their homes in the first place.
Combating the politics and practice of far-right influencers
This essay is an abridged chapter from “Post-Internet Far Right: Fascism in the age of the internet” (Dog Section Press, 2021). Photo: Masked far-right protester in Washington D.C., January 6, 2021. Johnny Silvercloud / Shutterstock.com Since the rise of the internet, and especially since the diffusion of the internet through all parts of everyday life, the far right has scattered, diversified and stuck itself back together.
It is time to end illegal pushbacks and abolish Frontex
It is time to end illegal pushbacks and abolish Frontex June 19, 2021 Borders & Beyond Two new campaigns aim to raise awareness about illegal pushbacks on Europe’s borders and call for the abolition of the EU’s border agency Frontex, respectively. Romanian patrol boat off the coast of Chios, Greece – June 2016.
Outsourcing oppression
How Europe externalises migrant detention beyond its shores 14 April 2021 Policy briefing This report seeks to join the dots between Europe’s outsourcing of migrant detention to third countries and the notoriously poor conditions in those migrant detention centres. Europe calls the shots on migrant detention beyond its shores but is rarely held to account for the deeply oppressive consequences, including arbitrary detention, torture, forced disappearance, violence, sexual violence, and death.
Financing border wars
The border industry, its financiers and human rights Policy briefing This report seeks to explore and highlight the extent of today’s global border security industry, by focusing on the most important geographical markets—Australia, Europe, USA—listing the human rights violations and risks involved in each sector of the industry, profiling important corporate players and putting a spotlight on the key investors in each company. Download the full briefing here.
6 out of 10 people worldwide live in a country that has built border walls
Days after the drawn-out U.S. elections, a new report reveals that the wall sold by Trump as a supposed achievement of his administration is just one of more than 63 new border walls built along borders or in occupied territories worldwide. Today, 31 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we find ourselves in a world with more walls than ever.
COVID-19 and border politics
16 July 2020 Policy briefing This briefing takes a look at the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for refugees and migrants and its anticipated influence on the border security and control market. What are the direct effects on migrants and refugees who are already living in vulnerable situations? What does it mean for people crossing international borders, seeking asylum and transiting the deadly and treacherous migrant routes across regions, continents and seas?
The Business of Building Walls
Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe is once again known for its border walls. This time Europe is divided not so much by ideology as by perceived fear of refugees and migrants, some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Executive Summary Download Executive summary in English, French, Spanish. Full report here. Who killed the dream of a more open Europe? What gave rise to this new era of walls?
More Than A Wall
This report examines the role of the world’s largest arms (as well as a number of other security and IT) firms in shaping and profiting from the militarization of US borders. Through their campaign contributions, lobbying, constant engagement with government officials, and the revolving door between industry and government, these border security corporations and their government allies have formed powerful border–industrial complex that is a major impediment to a humane response to migration.
The Rise of Border Imperialism | ROAR Magazine
In 1891, the French economist Paul Leroy Beaulieu fiercely defended European colonialism in Africa, saying: “This state of the world implies for the civilized people a right of intervention … in the affairs of [barbarian tribes or savages].” Beaulieu’s defense came in the midst of the European carve-up of Africa cemented in the 1885 Berlin agreement.
Africa's Place in the Radical Imagination
How does a geographic area occupy both a physical existence and a figment of our imagination, now even further tangled in Wakanda fantasies? What is the cultural, political, affective, discursive space in which impression or illusion (or desire) takes primacy over materiality? Our leftist politics are as much an act of generating new futurities as they are destroying and remaking new structures and/or repurposing existing ones.
How the Security Industry Reaps the Rewards of E.U. Migration Control
At a time when European Union budgets are threatened by Brexit, Italian political instability and an unfinished economic crisis, the European Commission’s proposal for triple funding for borders, migration and asylum suggests an unusual consensus in favor of border security. The increase in funding gained considerable press attention, but the role of the European military and security industry in shaping these policies and then reaping the plentiful financial rewards remains largely underexposed.
Expanding the fortress
The policies, the profiteers and the people shaped by EU's border externalisation programme The EU has made migration control a central goal of its foreign relations, rapidly expanding border externalisation measures that require neighbouring countries to act as Europe's border guards.
[Opinion] Europe's solution to migration is to outsource it to Africa
The dramatic scenes of Syrian refugees walking in their tens of thousands across Eastern Europe three years ago are starting to seem a distant memory. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said that the EU can now celebrate "solid progress" having dramatically reduced irregular arrivals. However the commission's proposed budget on 2 May shows that migration has certainly not slipped down the priority list.
The deadly consequences of Europe’s border militarization
Refugees are using other, often more dangerous, routes, contributing to the increase in migrant deaths that we have seen in 2016. 2016 now holds the sad record of the highest recorded death toll for refugees on route to Europe. 4,900 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. This is 1,000 more than in 2015, despite the number of refugee arrivals in Europe going down by over 60%. At the same time, EU funding to tackle the refugee tragedy has increased.
Poland welcomes internet filtering
Until June 23 Poland was a green island on the European black sea of internet filtering. Once, back in 2010, the Polish government considered this popular yet ineffective form of preventing cybercrime. But as a result of eager public debate the then Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, was advised against introducing a list of ‘forbidden websites and services’.
Migration - follow the money
The EU must acknowledge its part in fuelling the drivers of migration and work to stop them, including the establishment of an embargo on arms sales to the Middle East and North Africa. Over 3,000 migrants have died at sea on their way to Europe this year, up from about 2,000 in the same period last year.
Border Wars
While tens of thousands of refugees have died fleeing terrible violence and hardship to get to Europe, not everyone has lost out. This report exposes the military and security companies that have profited from the tragedy, winning contracts to provide the equipment to border guards, the surveillance technology to monitor frontiers, and the IT infrastructure to track population movements.
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