#syrian refugees
This Man Legislates isn’t even a year old but it already has 102 posts documenting some of the most outrageous behavior from elected officials across the nation. I started this blog after years of frustration over legislators doing and saying things that should disqualify a person from holding an elected office, but somehow don’t. And I’m glad to see that it’s caught on. We’ve had more than 20K page views and nearly 10K notes!
Outrageous statements and actions will always garner some media attention, but no one seems to cover this broadly. These aren’t isolated incidents, and while I enjoy poking fun at terrible legislators, what I’m really trying to show is that these individuals are merely symptoms of a much bigger problem with our electoral system. My hope is that those who visit this blog come to laugh but leave outraged that our tax dollars pay their salaries.
Below are my top 10 favorite posts from 2015. Enjoy!
10: NH State Rep: Women Deserve Less Pay Then Men
“Men, by and large, make more because of some of the things that they do,” he said. “Their jobs are, by and large, riskier. They don’t mind working nights and weekends. They don’t mind working overtime or outdoors.”
9: Idaho Rep: ‘Slave Owners Were Good People Who Made Bad Decisions, Like Gays’
“Slave owners were very good Christians and good people,” he said, adding that he disagrees with slavery itself. “They weren’t terrible, rotten, horrible people. And that’s how I see gay people.”
8: New Hampshire Legislators Kill Fourth Graders’ Bill, Dreams In Front of Them
But the nine and ten-year-olds were in for a brutal lesson in realpolitik. At the start of the day, legislators turned and applauded to children for coming to the statehouse. When lawmakers began to consider the bill, however, Republican Rep. Warren Groen—who has devoted his career to combating abortionand marriage equality—took the floor to denounce the Red Tail Hawk. “It grasps [its prey] with its talons then uses its razor sharp beak to basically tear it apart limb by limb,” he explained as the children watched. “And I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood.”(Slate, emphasis mine)
It should be noted that Tony Dale is a Republican and a proud recipient of an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association!
“I actually called a gentleman, it was a couple months ago, he was so upset, he took his children to an animated movie … guess who the villain was? Evil Mr. Businessperson. It’s insidious. That propaganda starts very early,”
5: California Assemblywoman Shannon Grove: Abortion Causes Droughts
“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” she told the audience, presumably referring to HB 2, the omnibus Texas abortion bill that included a 20-week ban based on junk science. “It rained that night. Now God has His hold on California.”
4: Oklahoma Rep. Kevin Calvey Threatens to Set Himself on Fire over Abortion
He loudly said that if he were not a Christian, he would go across the street to the state Supreme Court building, douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire to “protest the evil in that building.”
“Scrolling through the conversation, however, Smith found more than sexually suggestive messages. He found an unsolicited picture of the public servant’s not-so-public parts.”(WaPo)
2:New Mexico State Rep. Ken Martinez: Rape Is Sometimes ‘Just Drunken College Sex’
Thanks Ken for being one of a small, but real, minority of Democrats who’ve made this tumblr. You are proof that horrible legislators are a bipartisan phenomenon!
1: Texas State Representative Matt Schaefer Wants Women to Carry Deceased Fetuses To Full Term
With 8,754 notes, this was our most popular post of 2015 by a wide margin. You might ask yourself, why would Matt Schaefer want to legislate this? Of course he has an answer.
Schaefer said that suffering is “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”
There you have it. Thanks so much for reading, supporting, and sharing this tumblr in 2015. Can’t wait to see what our favorite elected officials do next year!
Been a minute since I last posted, not because legislators have stopped doing and saying incredible dumb things but because life got busy and there was less time to document the madness. But I’m back! And wow is this one a doozy.
ViaThe Raw Story:
State Representative Tony Dale (R-Cedar Park) sent a letter to Governor Greg Abbott ® saying that current Texas laws, combined with how the federal government grants rights to refugees, would allow the newly arrived Syrians to arm themselves immediately.
Calling it a “security gap,” Dale explained under federal law a refugee is granted “special privileges” allowing them to get a drivers license to find work easier, which he believes would allow them to engage in terrorist activities.
“So they could get a job in the airport, for example and they could plant something on a plane like we saw in the Sinai Peninsula recently when the Russian airline was taken down, they could board a plane legally in the United States,” stated Dale.
On the matter of guns, Dale proposed amending Texas laws along the lines of liberal California that would provide refugees with certain rights — but make it harder for them to procure weapons.
It should be noted that Tony Dale is a Republican and a proud recipient of an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.
Important reminder that there is nothing feminist about war.
Please be careful out there. Black Lives Matter. Love and solidarity.
As middle easterners we’re really wondering about this.
It’s harder than ever to be brown or visibly Muslim in the West.
Important reminder that the evils of our governments does not represent the people who only want peace. The difference between you and I, my friend, is far smaller than the difference between our governments.
Please don’t let Hasankeyf be destroyed. 12,000 years of history, culture and life cannot be erased with bombs to build a dam designed to terrorize with water and resource wars. Please, urgently sign the petition HERE to put a stop to this dam. The dam is organised to start on the 10th of June.
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Yaman/يمان
Yaman is a young inventor. His greatest invention is an incredible machine which can turns tissues into incredible ones, an invention that helps him survive.
Teenage Syrian Refugee Champions Girls’ Education.
A Teenage Refugee Champions Girls’ Education
A passionate advocate for the education of girls and young women in Jordan’s refugee camps, Muzon has been hailed as Syria’s answer to Malala.
When Muzon’s family fled the war in Syria in early 2013, they briefly considered leaving her behind. The bright 14-year-old had been studying hard all year for her grade-nine school exams, which were just a month away, and her aunt urged the family to let her stay and continue her education.
In the end, her father decided the risks were too great, and so she fled with him and her siblings across the border to Jordan. “I knew she could make up for lost schooling, but if you lose your life there’s no way to make up for that,” Abu Mohammed, 45, told me when I met the family in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp.
Education has always played a big part in Muzon’s life. Both of her parents were teachers back in Syria’s southern Dara’a province, and her aunt and uncle were head teachers at local schools. “I didn’t need them to tell me that education is important. I always just felt it,” she explains. “Our house was built by an engineer. When I was sick I went to a doctor. Education is everything in life.”
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Syria’s Landmarks Restored in Miniature
In Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp a group of Syrian artists is working with basic tools and materials sourced from around the camp. They are using local stone, polystyrene and discarded wood, to build models and sculptures of iconic sites including Palmyra and the Krak des Chevaliers castle in Homs. “We chose this project to highlight what is happening in Syria, because many of these sites are under threat or have already been destroyed,” says project coordinator Ahmad Hariri, from Dara’a (third from left).
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Naleen holds her two-month-old son, Pulat, during the ferry journey from Lesvos to Athens. UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
The Long Journey
After explosions rock their home in Syria, a young family set out on a perilous journey in search of sanctuary in northern Europe.
As the outboard motor on the small Zodiac started cutting out, the waves battering its starboard side pushing it back towards Turkey, Dara Mohammed began to regret taking his family on this voyage.
Crammed with 40 people, the tiny vessel was fighting an angry sea on its course towards Europe.
The 29-year-old Syrian had paid the smuggler he found in Izmir US$2,500 to transport his family of four to what he hoped would be safety. The smuggler assured them all would go well.
But the night had turned the aquamarine waters of the Aegean black.
Dara pressed his two-year-old daughter, Lamar, to his chest and pulled his wife, Naleen, who was holding their baby son, Pulat, close.
Little Lamar kept silent, recognising the fear in her mother’s eyes as the small Zodiac struggled towards the Greek island of Lesvos. The two-year-old had seen this same fear before, when explosions shook their house in Syria. She saw it again as they fled for their lives soon afterwards, and she had seen it many times since.
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The Al Dayoub family relax in their new home. They are Bashar, Muhammed, Yousef, Abdel, Munther, Adham, Izdihar, Thuraya, Ameen, Samira and Ayman.
Safety Under One Roof
Young Thuraya and her eight brothers and sisters are given a new home and a warm welcome in Austria, far from the bombs and bullets that shattered their world.
In a small Austrian town an hour’s drive from Vienna, a tape recorder blares as the nine children of Ameen Al Dayoub and his wife Izdihar take turns to dance the Dabke. It is a happy Arab folk dance performed on joyous occasions. These days they have much to celebrate.
“In Homs, in Syria, before the war, we often danced the Dabke… then the whole family of 40 people lived in a three-story Arab house,” says 39-year-old Ameen. “Now we dance it because we are happy to have found a safe haven in Austria.”
Ameen has not forgotten the happy times in his former home where he worked as a school bus driver, but says sadly those times are over “once and for all.”
“Homs was a wonderful place. We never made a distinction between Alawites, Shiites, Sunnites or Christians,” he explains. “Every Thursday afternoon after work, my friends and I, together with the family, would go to the coast and sit in cafes on the beach. We didn’t even know what denomination our friends were. That kind of life in Syria has gone forever.”
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A volunteer battles the waves as a boatload of refugees arrives at the Greek island of Lesvos. UNHCR/Hereward Holland
Life Begins As One in a Million
After travelling from Lebanon in her mother’s womb, Samar Alzayadi can rightfully claim to be the millionth refugee or migrant to have arrived in Europe by sea in 2015.
Samar Alzayadi’s age is counted in hours. Yet she’s endured more than most people will in a lifetime. She also has the dubious distinction to have been born the millionth refugee or migrant to arrive in Europe by sea in 2015.
Lying in her hospital bed, Ahlam, Samar’s 30-year-old mother, relates the colourful prologue to her daughter’s short life.
Eleven days prior to her birth, Ahlam began her odyssey from Beirut, Lebanon, with her sights set on a new life in Germany, where she has relatives.
“I made the journey because I’ve seen a lot of bad things. I’ve had a lot of bad days and I decided to take the risk to make sure I don’t have any more,” she says.
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Your one good meal at a good restaurant is nearly equal to a month’s food supply for a hungry Syrian. (Rs 2280)
Make a donation now! Contact me here or here: 03216111557
All of us have wanted to do something about Syria, this is our chance to be of help to our Syrian brothers suffering with hunger and crisis. “Pakistan For Syria” in collaboration with the Human Relief Foundation and Radiance.All donations will go directly to Human Relief Fund and won’t be wasted during transition. They have their operations on the Syrian border and have been working there since 2003.
Allowing only the Christian Syrian refugees? Yea… That sure sounds like the Christian thing to do
18.03.2016 idomeni, greece. the european governments have chosen the path of barbarism, leaving all behind that they claim to stand for in the last 70 years. after the second world war the nations met 1948 in paris to pass a bill, the universal declaration of human rights.also this declaration is not written and passed as a international law treaty, it actually transformed into one. “the 1968 united nations international conference on human rights advised that the declaration “constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community” to all persons. there has been numberless breaches of the bill from country´s all over the world since it was launched from 48 nations in 1948, but the western world was always claiming that this is one of their fundamental roots. when you analyze the latest policy of the european union and it´s members, you have to come to the conclusion that these governments unlinked from these rules during the last year.
the new practice to “handle” the refugee crisis uses methods far beyond what is the substance of the declaration of human rights.
in greece and in the mediterranean sea, there is a actual military war mission ongoing, a mission that includes war ships, submarines, planes, drones, helicopters and thousands of military personal from the nato and frontex. the military is officially deployed to fight smugglers and human traffickers, therefore they also approved to use lethal force.
it is pure disinformation by the eu to call this a rescue mission. the mission is launched and created to stop the refugees from coming to europa.
big and small non-governmental organisations like amnesty international,human rights watch,doctors without borders and many more, recently issued press releases that are strongly contrary to the latest actions of how the eu is handling the refugee crisis, including the deal with turkey.
https://search.wikileaks.org/?q=eu+plan+for
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03.04.2016 idomeni, greece. refugees gather together to protest against the close border and the policy of the eu. some of them started a boycott against all kind of support, some keep silence, some even started a hunger strike. most of the ngo´s and volunteers told me that they have been told by a group of refugees that they have to stop to help and have been even threatened by some of the refugees. the situation is desperate for the refugees, so they try every way to improve their situation. right now the situation is still peaceful, but the tension is definitively rising.
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02.04.2016 idomeni, greece. the frustration in the camp is growing fast. the word is out that from today on a huge group of refugees will try to shut down all kind of support like food and medical attention, to protest against the situation they face. they know well that the border is closed, that there is no real way to claim for asylum in greece right now, about the deal with the turkish government. so they are willing to take desperate measures to enforce their claims. yesterday a 14 year old boy had to been stopped in idomeni as he planned to set himself on fire. several refugees are in a hunger strike. the first photo in this set show´s a 15 day´s year old baby. she was born in the camp.
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02.04.2016 camp at eko gas station near polikastro /greece. when i arrived there around 16 o´clock, the highway was blockaded by the refugees. as it turned out the police shut down the medical tent in the camp a few hours before. the medical tent have been adopted by scm a few day´s ago, providing all the official papers to do medical treatments. word is that the police shut down the medical tent to increase the pressure on the refugees to move to the official camps, but the refugees know well about the bad conditions in this camps, the lack of food supply, bad army tents, lack of medical attention etc, so they refuse to relocate to the camps. in this camp there are several cases of refugees that need serious and regular medical treatment, so the closing of the medical tent is life threatening for them. the refugees blockaded the highway for hours, i left before it was open again.
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31-03-2016 camp at eko gas station near polikastro /greece. this place is called the eko camp. it is located on a highway gas station. around 3000 refugees live here in tents, about 25 km away from idomeni. several small ngo´s and private volunteers trying to help with medical attention, food distribution, cloth tents etc. there is even a tent with a little school by spanish volunteer´s. even if it is better than to be in the mud and dust of idomeni, the situation is bad. a lot of family´s live here. the kids play on the roads, even on the highway sometime.
this serious looking afghan girl is maybe 4-5 years old. i saw her several times during my visits on eko station and it was very rare that i saw her smiling. most of the time she had that serious look of a person, who seen and experienced to much.
to be frank, the european union and it´s members handle the situation now like a defensive-war in greece and other country´s in europa. military was alway´s the worst option to handle humanitarian crisis.
all hot spot camps and official camp facilities, including distributions are now under the control of frontex, greek military and other military forces. on the greek islands are fbi, interpol, greek, turkish frontex and other european police that have granted police and further rights. it is almost martial law installed. the official camps are detention center now, but you can even call it concentration camps. from the refugees coming after the 20th of april the military and frontex are ordered to take away the personal belongings, as well as the mobil phones. the big ngo´s like unhcr and doctors without borders withdraw their activities in the camps, publishing statements that they are not willing and able to work in prisons. you have to think about this for a moment. these organisations work all around the globe in almost all kind of crisis and in europa they have to stop the mission because of the political implanted conditions.
the smaller ngo´s where kicked out the camp some weeks before. private volunteers and journalist are generally not allowed to enter the camps. so almost no independent information can leak out of the camps.
since some time the refugees are ordered to claim for asylum via skype and as far as i know this process is mandatory now. this is kind of impossible if you don´t have a computer or smartphone and i actually never heard of one refugee that had a successful attempt to get through this way. that implies that there is no way right now to claim for asylum in greece for these refugees, a clear violation of the geneva convention for refugees and simply diabolic.
when volunteers try to pass supply´s and informations of what kind ever through the fences, the police comes within minutes and stop them. on the other hand the military/frontex hired subcontractors to deliver food. first of all the food is not enough. camps with baby´s and mothers need special food for the baby´s, because a lot of the mothers can´t breastfeed the baby´s anymore, but this supply is not ordered as well as most of the medical goods you need for ten thousands of people. there are several cases of subcontractors delivering bad quality, old, fungal affected food. in pireaus harbor, where a few thousand refugees live in tents now, near the space where the ferry from lesbos is landing, there was a wide spreading food poisoning because of this. these people are vulnerable, live under worst sanitary conditions and you fucking give them rotten food, seriously?
camps like pikpa are ordered to close. pikpa is a wonderful and special place on lesbos. it is a former municipal owned camping space for local kids, a summer camp. it was empty for years. now there is a refugee camp for the refugees that need special support and protection. children and grown ups with traumata, psychological problems, disability´s, ones who recover from wounds and medical conditions. it is a space of peace and care for people who are in real need for it. pikpa is running without state money and all the volunteers are working without payment. it is a real treat, a manifestation of humanitarian values, values that that europa blab about quiet a lot during the last six decades, a shiny example of civil service with almost no coast for the public authorities. there are several places like pikpa in greece. all face the same threat, closing without any plan for creating something equivalent from the government. instead all these special cases are planed to be moved to the official camps as well, all the new cases are going their already.
do we really wan´t to treat refugees, humans of all age, baby´s and small children like the british treated the boers in 1900 in south africa? because this is exactly what our governments implants right now. without the constant help of ten thousands of greek and international private volunteers working to prevent an absolut humanitarian disaster, we would face hundreds, if not thousands of dead refugees on european soil within a few month, because of the conditions they live in.
the european plan is to send them back in “safe third country´s”. safe country´s like turkey, that has a president that want to shape the state as he need it. a state where you face long term prison time if you dare to criticize the president, an islamist who dreams of a new ottoman empire. a man who managed to become the richest dude in turkey by corruption. a country in wich the border troups shoot to kill on incoming refugees, beat them up and sink their boats when they are leaving. a safe country where unattended teenager girls from syria are sold into marriage and refugee kids sold as working slaves. to a state that has not even fully signed the geneva convention nor has a working asylum system. where judges and police forces that try to uncover crimes of the government are thrown into prison, as well as journalist who dare to write about these scandals. a state that fights a brutal war against one if its minority´s, the kurdish, while it supports directly the al-nusra front and other hardcore pro-kalifat combat groups. if this is what you call a safe country, you can also call the caldera of an active volcano a safe substratum for your retirement house.
if we allow our government to treat humans in need of protection this way, because they are not from our region, the very same government will soon have no problem to use the very same kind of actions to the citizen of their own country´s as well. not only betray we all of the values that we claimed to have, but destroy the very fundament of the european union.
the nationalist movement in europa is stronger then it ever was before, since the second world war. two and a half generations after the second world war, the people don´t fear war enough anymore here in europa. they don´t remember what it is like. they just know about it from the media. the war´s we fought have been fought far away from us, mostly.
now the same healing promises are made by the same kind of narcissistic psychopath, using some group of humans to blame all bad on (refugees/muslim/terrorist), to instal repressive states. a lot of people resonate to this, because they live in society´s that offers not much of a future for them or their children. 30-40%, in some country´s even more, of our european populations are poor, undereducated, with no real chance to get better. new laws and technology create the consistently surveillance and screening of all the citizen in all our country´s. these are for sure not signs for freedom. these are signs for dictatorship.
check your history books.
it is our responsibility as citizen to take care of this, or we have to face the same consequences like our ancestors 80 years ago. in that case i can promise you a lot of no fun time.
neal mcqueen
ps.
doing all this, helping people in need with such a large number of people from all over the world, is quiet uplifting, fun, exhausting, intense, happy and sad. almost all of the volunteers come back to their homes as changed personality´s. the experience changes your perception. a lot of the volunteers i talked to during the last six month, told me about this moment when the situation only enable them to function. all of them describe this moment as a no ego experience. this is something that let you grow as a person, as a being. it teaches you humility and can create a inner peace that you will not find in our modern bubble existence.
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20.03.2016 port of mytilini, lesbos/greece. this is the last ferry loaded with refugees from the camps in lesbos for this day. there are still hundreds of syrian in kara tepe, about 700 pakistanis in the olive grove and a few other cases. about the main camp moria we have no confirmed information, since all the ngo´s are expelled from the hotspots now. there was a ferry leaving lesbos today around noon with about 2000 refugees heading to the islands in the south to pick up more refugees and then to go to kavala in the north of greece. i don´t have the exact number but the guess is around 4000 refugees arrived 20.30 o´clock in kavala harbor. they will be brought to several camps in the area. the refugees have to go on the ferry´s to pireaus and kavala, because the eu want to clear all camps on the islands for the new coming refugees, so they can be separated from the ones that comes from the 20.03.2016 on. these one will be handled on the new rules, that are part of the new deal with turkey. the deal implants the plan to deport all incoming refugees back to turkey and for every refugee coming the eu will accept an approved asylum seeker from turkey. this deal is bullshit on many levels and is breaking a lot if european laws, as well as the geneva convention of human rights, which strictly forbid mass deportation. the deal use not the term of mass deportation but use a cover up term which means the very same. this goes along with the fact that turkey is actually not approved as a “safe third country”, so any kind of extraction of migrants and refugees to turkey would be illegal. apart from that it creates other issues. when the plan is to accept refugees from turkey for every “returned” refugee, and only then, and this is done to discourage the refugees from coming “illegal” to europa, the refugees actually knows that there will be a huge need to have them come on boats to greece so even if they are returned other will have the chance to enter. this is dividing and rule at the malicious level. with no people coming to “illegal” to eu, the eu don´t have to accept “approved” refugees from turkey. think about this for a while. if you want to know more about the legal issues of this deal, here is a good read: http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.gr
in some of the photos you can see laura jansenfrommovement on the ground from holland. the last weeks she was part of a team helping the refugees directly in the harbor, providing food and clothes, helping to organize the boarding procedure, negotiate with the police forces to keep them calm and give an incredible amount of love and care to the refugees before they leave into a unknown future. she and a lot of other volunteers from ngo´s like movement on the ground,team humanity, proactivia/open arms,lifeguards hellas, starfish foundation,northern lights aid,scm and more are working over the limits around the clock to make this transition as endurable as possible. again i can not point out enough my deepest respect and admiration for these volunteers and their work. one more detail in the end: the refugees actually have to pay the ferry tickets themeselves.
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17.03.2016 idomeni, greece. this is shaharzad hassan, an eight year old girl from aleppo, syria. in the last weeks she became kind of famous because of her drawings of her traumatic memory´s. since the press loves this kind of story´s she was in the news all over world. now she is running around the camp with her dad, showing the drawings to all media people they meet. it was kind of an strange encounter, i did not really wanted to take the photos, but then i realized that i would put her in shame if i don´t react and did a bunch of photos with her. the one she is holding up is called “living in a camp” and show an impression of idomeni. especially the syrian refugees that i met have a strong dignity, it seems always a little bit harder for them to accept help, an invitation, a present. shaharzad was super sweet in the end, also i could sense that she actually don´t really feel comfortable showing of like that, on the other side proud that she is able to reach attention with her art. her drawings are strong images, but what really got me was the way she looked at me. the eyes of a kid that had seen far too much in her young life. i was thinking of giving her father a litte something, but instead i gave her a lolly and she gave me a big smile back.
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18.19.03.2016 idomeni, greece. on the first three day´s of my time in idomeni the officials where passing the information to the ngo´s and refugees that the camp will be closed soon. if the refugees would not be willing to move away they would use force. now they still hand out flyers in 3 languages saying that the border is closed for good and the refugees should move to the other camps, but because the other camps are actually almost filled up, now there was a change of plans and the authority´s announced that they will try to approve the conditions. what we saw so far is a bunch of new containers for the police positioned in a way that it creates a bottle neck in the middle of the camp. i had a talk about this with a skilled crisis manager from the usa and he told me that this is one of the worst ideas to place them like that he could think of. apart from that it is like in autumn on lesbos, 100% of the support is done by ngo´s and private volunteers. a lot of the groups that have been on lesbos for the last 5-6 month went to idomeni with some of their people to help. the german red cross announced that they will build a huge medical tent in a cooperation with another red cross unit from, i hope i remember this right, denmark. this medicine tent will have the ability to even do surgery´s.
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18.-19.03.2016 idomeni, lesbos/greece. the 4 ½ day´s i spend in the camp have been brutal intense. i met so many beautiful souls, saw horrifying conditions, hopeful and lost eyes, have been told dozens of unique story´s, experienced the pride of people who lost everything and now stay for weeks under the worst condition you can not even imagine, but still being able to stay humble. it was simply heartbreaking. on the other side it gives me even more drive to continue this journey, to tell the story´s behind this disaster and about the complete failure of the european politics. when i think of all this strong people, there is no other way to stay strong too, for them, for us, trying to inspire, trying to change minds, trying to explain, trying to help, trying to shine light into the darkness. there is no way i will give up, we need this change. if we fail, our society will fail in entirety. we will fall back into the darkest time of human existence, so there is no other way than to continue. we are the 98%, if we unite, nothing and no one can stop us! talk to each other! spread love and kindness! laugh and learn from our differences! make your life a contribution to all beings!
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THE WAR AGAINST THE KURDISH PEOPLE
18.03.2016 idomeni, greece. this refugee in idomeni is a kurd from aleppo, syria. i met him in the dawn of the day in the end of the trainstation where the camp ends. he was there with a group of dozen other kurdish young men, all from syria, most of them from the same neighborhood in aleppo. they all told me pretty much the same story, that they have not been part of one of the groups that are fighting, but during the last years they had to fight to defend their neighborhood. the kurdish people in turkey, syria and irak are under pressure from almost all other groups, turkey bombs and fight them everywhere, including massexecutions of civilians in southeast of turkey. the official syrian military, together with russia, the syrian isis and other dschihadist groups, are fighting against them in syria. in irak they have a semi autonom area, but also face fighting with turkey, the irak isis and other groups. since the kurdish have established a kind of modernist society in this region, including an equalisation of man and woman the exceed most of the western society´s, they are our natural ally in this region. did you know that they have always a man and a woman deciding together in important positions? nevertheless we let them down, sign a deal with turkey that europa will not interfere with their almost genocide war against the kurds. if europa will really grant the turkish people a visa free travel to the eu, we will face a new massive influx of kurdish people who will claim for asylum in europa.
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19.03.2016 idomeni, greece. today strong wind was blowing away dozens, if not hundreds, of tents in the area. it was a mixture of horror, laughter and for some kids even fun. the last two photos are taken within 1 minute. two members of team humanity let one broken tent fly and in the very next moment their own big tent was blown away, leaving a sleeping member of the team pretty astonished behind on now open air ground.
somehow it was a good allegory for what was happening the same time on the greek islands, refugees hopes where blown away.
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18.03.2016 idomeni, greece. panayotis kouroublis is the greek minister of interior. he visited the idomeni camp on this day and later told the press that it look like the concentration camps of the nazi´s. you have to know that he is actually blind. in some parts i have to agree on his comparison, because the general conditions are really bad and the police on spot is no help at all, but actually the military run hotspots would be much more comparable to that, not because of the sanitation situation but because of the lack of rights, the treatment from the guards, the fact that these camps are actually official detention camps, the rigid rules etc. a lot of them are old military camps or even military detention camps like moria on lesbos. press is not aloud anymore there, thats always a bad sign. since today there where rumors that during the next 2 days lesbos will be “evacuated”. this term means that all refugees on the island will be forced on ferry´s to turkey and deported to there, refusing their human rights to claim for asylum. i predict major protest from most of the ngo´s and volunteers in mytilini and the camps, especially around the harbor to stop this illegal action if this is true. other sources say that the route for deportation will be from athens, not from the islands.
update - on the 19th of march the authorities started to clear all the camps on lesbos, bringing the refugees to the harbor to ship them with 3 ferry´s to kavala in the north of greece. we are not sure where they will go from there. according to the official statement of the eu only refugees that come after the 19th of march will directly deported back to turkey. so my guess right now is that they cleared the camps on lesbos to seperate the “old” cases from the “new”.
amnesty international stated that: it as a “historic blow to human rights”, saying Europe was turning its back on refugees.
“Guarantees to scrupulously respect international law are incompatible with the touted return to Turkey of all irregular migrants”.
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17-18.03.2016 idomeni, greece. idomeni by night is one thing first, a smell. since the refugees have to burn all they find to get some warmth, they do burn a lot of plastic and the smoke is everywhere. all the people who stay here a few hours start to cough and this is not because everyone catch some of the spreading diseases. there is actually a distribution for firewood but it is by far not enough. during the day´s you can see them wandering the wider area around to find additional wood. i only felt not save when the group of young refugees start to march around and chant slogans to fire themeself up for fighting, but apart from that, even in the worst parts of the camp, i never felt that danger to my own safety, which is quiet remarkable in this kind of situation.
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17.03.2016 idomeni, greece. i was watching this young syrian boy playing alone on the rails for some minutes. he was entirely in his own world, playing several roles. then he spotted me and came to me, making signs that he wants me to take photos of him, smiling with his beautiful soft eyes. as you can see a part of his head is burned badly. it was one of these barrel bombs of the assad regime that created the fire that did this to him.
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17.03.2016 idomeni,greece. the situation in the camp is so bad, tensions rise between the refugee groups. young syrians and afghans had several clashes, some minor, like on this photo, but also big fights involving hundreds of people. yesterday night it reached a new peak and it was for a very sad reason. when i was in the middle of the camp yesterday, i saw a man running in my direction. i lifted up the camera to take a photo but when he passed by and i saw all the details i did not take the photo. he carried his daughter and was in panic. her pants down to the feet, the shirt pulled up, naked, with wide open eyes, saggy in his arms. i thought she was dead or at least passed out. it is a picture i will never forget, stronger then anything i actually have taken here and i am very happy that i did not pull the trigger to take it. the syrian say that a afghan tried to rape the girl, but was interrupted, i don´t have any confirmation for it from other sources. she actually was in a deep shock. later in the afternoon, the sun went down already, i witnessed a group of young syrians chanting and powering themselves up to more anger. that was the moment i left the scenery. today i talked to a lot of refugees and volunteers and the picture of what happen after i left is like that: some older syrians, who stay in tends on the rails, told the young guys to not attack their afghan and pakistani neighbours, because “they are good people”. the group of syrians then went to the front of the camp, wich is a “new” part and as crowded as the fields on the other side of the rails. there is one area where mostly afghan stay in tends and that is where they went. they put fire to some of the tends, a few burned down, between 80 to 100 hundred people clashed, fistfighting, throwing bottles and stones. a few of the afghans where beaten up badly and one german volunteer, who was on the scene with a camera, was beaten up so bad that he ended up in the hospital. the refugees also took his camera. wrong time in the wrong place. today there was still a lot of tension in the camp and i believe that this will rise more and more because of the hopeless situation. when you have a lot of young desperate guys in a situation like this, you always have this kind of aggression, in every community, so they turn on each other. that is the base of the divide and rule idea. when you talk with these people, afghan, syrian, irakis, pakistanis, kurdish etc one to one, you meet very gentle and friendly folks, almost all of them. it is this situation they are stucked in, that is fucking them up and don´t forget, most of them coming from warzones.
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IDOMENI I
16.03.2016 idomeni, lesbos/greece. these are my first impression of the camp during the day time. as you can see, the conditions are a plain desaster. still people, especially kids find their way´s to cope with it, which always amaze me. rumors about the future of the camp is that i will be closed soon and if the refugees will not go by choice the authority´s will use force.
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16.03.2016 idomeni, greece. today i went to idomeni to stay for some day´s. wanted to go there for a longer while, but because of some finance struggle i had to postpone it several times. my first impression is of a desaster area. worst conditions i have experience so far since the crisis started. yes, there are several ngo´s giving food, medical attention etc, but the whole camp is a mudfield, people camp and live beside the trainrails as well, food is obvious an issue as well as really bad healthconditions, diseases are spreading. the refugee collect wood from all the area around, but still they have to burn plastic everywhere, it smells like hell. riot police from athens is on the spot, the real bad guys. this young boy from syria was holding his bread like a precious treasure for quiet a while. he came to me and give the biggest smile you can imagine.
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Join me in signing UNHCR’s With Refugees petition.
In which John meets with Syrian refugees Mufak, Nada, and their five kids in Amman, Jordan, and then a few months later shortly after the family’s resettlement in Rockford, Illinois.
Thanks first to Mufak, Nada, their children, and their relatives for being so generous both in Amman and in the United States. Thanks also to Rosianna (http://youtube.com/rosianna), who joined me on both trips and captured much of the footage, and to UNHCR, the UN’s Refugee Agency, for introducing me to the family and providing translators.
And thanks to Mark Olsen for his excellent graphic detailing the vetting process refugees go through before being accepted for resettlement in the U.S. You can learn more about that process here: http://refugees.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Security-Check-Steps.pdf
Syrian refugees are NOT inherently dangerous people. They’re regular ol’ human beings who got caught in the middle of a complicated, bloody, frightening civil war. I explain more in the video above.
