Statement regarding the self-organised march of migrants

As we already mentioned, the two main ways in which migrants are portrayed in mainstream media and the tabloid press is that there are either a threat to security or helpless victims who cannot speak and act for themselves. We reject these two forms of representation as well as any other for’m of ‘representation’ of migrants. ‘Migrants’ are not a homogenous group of people who can be ‘represented’ in a unifying way. The media’s reporting and unification of migrants is inadequate, wrong and degrading. The system of borders and migration politics, by means of restricting the freedom of movement, creates a group of people in the first place, which are referred to as ‘migrants’. However, this restriction is overcome by people every day, thereby regaining their humanity. Our interest lies in searching for and finding ways of solidarity which connect common struggles (…) Some of the reasons why people decided to start the protest march include a.o.: the encirclement of militarised borders, a literal hunting of people, and no alternative way of moving except for criminalised routes. People who are moving towards the border are stuck in Serbia for months, and the majority of them have experienced police violence on the Serbian-Hungarian as well as the Serbian-Croatian border. Many have been robbed of their possessions and pushed back to Serbia, sometimes 10 times or more often. Everyday we meet people with serious injuries resulting from electroshocks, police dog bites, hits to the head etc. The non-functional asylum system, and the problematic state of the camps, which have (over)reached their full capacity in the capital, have already been previously mentioned.

No Border Serbia in Statement regarding the self-organised march of migrants (FFM)