Launched a European mobilization by associations, movements, committees, parties, activists, volunteers, activists with the instrument of the ECI, the European Citizens’ Initiative.
We are activists of Stop Border Violence, an Association formed in January last year, to promote an ECI (European Citizens’ Initiative) called Art. 4: Stop Torture and Inhuman Treatment at Europe’s Borders.
We ask the European Commission that the human rights enshrined in the founding Charter of the Union itself, be guaranteed to all and in particular, to the most fragile people, fleeing conflict, severe discrimination, climate change, namely migrants.
Fortress Europe is no longer just a figure of speech but a dramatic reality in which, in the face of the annual celebration of the World Human Rights Day (December 10) we witness increasingly frequent and systematic violations of human rights supplanted by cynicism, hostility, indifference and violence.
We think of the Cutro massacre and those that take place daily away from the spotlight and the press. By sea but not only. As we know by now, a journey can take several years for those young people who repeatedly attempt to cross the Balkans.
They call it the “GAME”-the game-almost as if to exorcise the fear of not making it, of being rejected for the umpteenth time, beaten, attacked by policemen’s dogs or dying of frostbite in the woods.
This is not the Europe envisioned, wanted by the founding fathers.
It is not the Europe of Erasmus and freedom of movement in which we let our children believe.
It is not the Europe we believed we had built in the past decades by taking for granted, once and for all, the rights on which it is founded.
We need each person to feel the responsibility for the future he or she faces. For this reason, our Association is conducting a signature collection campaign that will end next July (2024).
Only upon reaching at least 1million signatures, in 7 EU countries, will the European Commission invest the Parliament to legislate on the guarantee and full respect of the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, not only through repression but also with the prevention of acts of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of all individuals.
We call for protecting people by ensuring that their living conditions are dignified and respectful of the tragedies of which they are victims.
ICE is a valuable institutional tool that promotes bottom-up policy and empowers citizens, but to be effective, it needs to be known and disseminated.
It is clearly not about adding a few more signatures, but about sharing with us the dream of a PEACE that cannot be realized without JUSTICE.
There is no getting away from respecting the norms we gave ourselves in the aftermath of the darkest period in history (the 2 world wars), far from averted from reconfiguring itself as well as the, often evoked by Pope Francis, “third world war in pieces” warns us.
