France: Collective manifesto: "Solidarity, more than ever an offense?

Collective manifesto marks start of new campaign against the "solidarity
offence" as government maintains border controls until July

Over 100 trade unions and local and national associations across France
have signed a new manifesto that calls for an end to the "solidarity
offence" and denounces the trials of "activists who are only helping
people in very precarious situations, victims of dangerous, violent and
even inhuman decisions," such as the farmer Cédric Herrou, who was
recently tried for aiding illegal arrivals after helping people cross
the border from Italy to France.

Amongst others, there are 13 people currently facing prosecution for
helping migrants cross the French-Italian border, which remains closed
and where French rail authorities (SNCF) have recently demanded that
their staff help identify "groups" of migrants on board trains,
something that many SNCF staff have denounced, stating that they refuse
to take part in a "hunt" for migrants.
The coordinators of the manifesto have announced a day of action on
Thursday 9 February, calling for: "Gatherings, speaking, forming human
chains to proclaim that we are all “delinquents” and in solidarity with
foreigners."

https://passeursdhospitalitesenglish.wordpress.com/2017/01/15/call-out-to-end-thesolidarity-offence-and-other-news/


Manifesto "Solidarity, more than ever an offense?"

Of course, solidarity has never been included in any code as an offense.
However, associative activists who are only helping people in very
precarious situations, victims of dangerous, violent and even inhuman
decisions, find themselves facing justice today.
With the introduction of a state of emergency, and in the context of the
so-called “migratory crisis”, there has been a resurgence of
prosecutions aimed at preventing the expression of solidarity with
migrants, refugees, Roma and undocumented migrants. It is the support
for all foreigners which tends to become suspect, the expression of the
contestation of the policies being carried out which is assimilated with
rebellion and the disturbance to public order.

The law makes it possible to prosecute those who help the
“sans-papiers”, but all sorts of other charges are now used to hinder
any citizen action that is opposed to the policies being implemented.
All these intimidations, prosecutions, and sometimes convictions, are in
fact what really constitute new forms of the “offence of solidarity”.

As early as 2009, associations for the defense of human rights and
support for foreigners denounced the fact that the offence of
“assistance for the entry, movement and residence of foreigners in an
irregular situation” which was intended to combat those who trade in the
trafficking and exploitation of foreigners, has allowed over time to
sanction the “helpers” of undocumented foreigners, even if not acting
for profit. If the penalties are not always applied, such a regulation
will of course have a dissuasive effect on those who refuse to submit to
policies hostile to foreigners.

The mobilization of the associations, at the time, resulted in several
successive reforms, including that of 31 December 2012 which was
presented as the “suppression” of the crime of solidarity. It is not so:
the redrafting of the texts merely specifies and increases the cases of
exemption from prosecution. In addition to assistance to parents,
assistance is granted which has only been aimed at “ensuring dignified
and decent living conditions abroad” or “preserving dignity or physical
integrity “. Despite this, people who have expressed their solidarity
with foreigners without a residence permit continue to be treated as
criminals – summoned by the police or gendarmerie, put in police
custody, searched, telephone tapping – even prosecuted and sometimes
punished with fines and imprisonment .

At the same time, prosecutions have been started on the basis of texts
not related to immigration.
Offenses of contempt, insult and defamation, rebellion or violence
against a law enforcement officer are used to defend the administration
and the police against those who criticize their practices;

The offense of “obstructing the movement of an aircraft”, which appears
in the Civil Aviation Code, makes it possible to suppress passengers
who, seeing persons tied up and gagged in an airplane, protest against
the violence of the evictions;
The regulations sanctioning the employment of a foreign worker without a
work permit have been of concern to people who host irregular migrants
who accept that their guests assist them in domestic work.

Today, the motives for prosecution are becoming ever more diverse. While
prosecutions for helping entry and stay have resumed, new charges are
used to condemn solidarity actions:

- Urban planning regulations have been invoked at Norrent-Fontes
(Pas-de-Calais) to demand the destruction of migrant shelters;
- Texts on hygiene or safety applicable to premises have served to
prevent accommodation being provided in St-Etienne;
- The absence of a seat belt and a seat for a girl in a truck resulted
in the conviction of a helper in Calais;
- The intrusion into particular zones, prohibited because of a state of
emergency, was used, in Calais also, to prevent citizen’s seeing;
- The offense of forgery and the use of forgery has been used to
intimidate people who wanted to attest the presence for more than 48
hours of people in a squat in Clichy; etc…

And, more and more, the mere fact of having wanted to witness police
operations, evictions of camps, raids, can lead to an arrest, under
cover of rebellion or violence against an agent.

These intimidation processes must stop. We affirm the legitimacy of
citizens’ right of scrutiny over the practices of the administration,
the justice or the police.

We want to encourage those who show solidarity with people in precarious
situations without worrying about whether or not they are in a regular
situation regarding their stay. We refuse that populations targeted by
xenophobic practices and policies are stopped from having support. The
future of the very principle of solidarity is at stake.

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