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Refugee crisis in the country of anti-migrant sentiment stoked from above

Note from LeftEast editors. This article was originally published on March 25, 2022, on Mérce and was translated into English by Noémi Bíró as part of a cooperation between Eastern European leftist media platforms in ELMO (Eastern European Left Media Outlet). “Please give me five minutes to take a shower. I don’t feel very well. It’s always like […]

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Which Victims Count? The EU and Refugees from Ukraine

LeftEast is reprinting this important analysis by Monika Mokre on the contradictions of the EU’s refugee policy, in light of the current Russian aggression in Ukraine. The piece originally appeared on the Refugee Outreach and Research Network (ROR-n) website. It was at the end of the 1990s when the EU once again realized that it […]

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The War in Ukraine Seen on the Ground. Interview with Oksana Dutchak

Oksana Dutchak is a researcher based in Ukraine and an activist of E.A.S.T. – Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational. She tells about the current ever-changing situation in Ukraine and local attempts of self-organization to cope with the war. The question of how to create a transnational politics of peace has no easy answer. Continuing to mobilize […]

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And all walls shall fall? Humanitarian crisis on the EU’s frontier leaves asylum-seekers stranded, six dead

Popular among the anti-communist dissidents in Poland, Mury (English: Walls) was a protest song written by singer songwriter Jacek Kaczmarski in 1978 to the music composed by a Catalan, Lluís Llach. Mury/Walls was an anthem of those yearning for political freedom and civil liberties. “Pull the teeth of the bars from the walls! Tear off […]

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What does Europe want? An interview with Volt Co-President Reinier Van Lanschot

Over the last decade the European Union has been confronted with one crisis after the other. On the national level this situation prompted the creation of new political parties, which entered the scene abruptly. Notable examples include Podemos, founded in the wake of the indignados movement and two years into the European debt crisis; the […]

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Landmark Ruling Against Pushback Practices in Austria!

This month, a Moroccan complainant who was pushed back by the Austrian border police won a case against this illegal return practice with the support of a group of activists and lawyers. The case was brought before the administrative court in Styria. This is an important verdict that sets a precedent for future transnational struggles against violence and torture of people on the move across Europe. […]
In spite of these traumatizing experiences at the Austrian border, Ayoub N. stated after being informed about the verdict:  “After hearing that I won the case, I was very happy.I was confident that we would win the case, because it is a human case. It is a painful blow to the Austrian police.”

Push-Back Alarm Austria +43 1 345 1 444

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The Helpers of the Afghan Park

Text and photos by Szilárd Kalmár, translated by Arnold Velansits. First published in Mérce. In the spring of 2015, a wave of refugees reached Europe of a size that had not been seen before. The general public – including us – was not informed, or barely were, about this situation and only realized what we […]

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Letter to citizens of the EU from the “periphery”: Politics of the closed borders are bringing us closer to fascist rules

Note from LeftEast editors: This article has been reprinted from the Medium account of Are You Syrious. We, the human rights defenders and citizens from the countries relegated to the “periphery” of the European Union (EU) and the Schengen space, want to express our deepest concern for the current situation in which we can see […]

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A 50/50 Ball: The East versus the EU in the Refugee Relocation Game

Editorial note: The following piece originally appeared at Verfassungsblog | On Matters Constitutional. We carry it here with kind permission from the author. The soccer terminology of a 50/50 ball refers to a free ball contested by two opponents, usually after a badly behaved goal kick. Analogy that much resembles the ongoing political game between […]

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Radicalizing the Sanctuary Movement

In December of 2016, students organized several “sanctuary campuses” across the City University of New York (CUNY) system, one of the largest university systems in the U.S. Reeling from the victory of Donald Trump, activists organized sanctuary “safe spaces,” working with university administrators to ensure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigators would have limited […]