The European Union’s ‘New Pact of Asylum and Migration’ is inhumane and kills. A group of activists from different member states disturbed the voting of this New Pact in the European Parliament in spring 2024.
The new pact
‘Low risk’, ‘fast track’, ‘solidarity’ – euphemisms for easier deportations and less accommodation for asylum seekers. The New Pact of Asylum and Migration alters the exiting Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and heavily restricts the individual right to asylum in Europe.
With this pact, a new step in the asylum procedure is implemented – asylum seekers must go through a ‘screening’ procedure that decides on whether they will have an extended procedure, or a ‘fast track’ procedure based on where they are coming from. That means that not the individual history of suffered persecution is considered, but just a statistical calculation of ‘low’ risk in the country of origin leads to people being put in a fast-track procedure. More countries will be declared ‘safe’ and asylum seekers risk deportation to countries like Turkey and Tunisia, which signed migration deals with the EU. Furthermore, this Pact reforms the Dublin accords: member states now don’t have the obligation to accommodate asylum seekers, but can opt to, under the guise of ‘solidarity’, pay off their responsibility to other member states or provide operational support in border control.
Disturbing the voting
This pact stands as an example for the structural racism of the EU and the Council’s and parliament’s willingness to restrict human rights of the most vulnerable members of our society. This is why a group of activists penetrated the European Parliament and disturbed the voting procedure, to show that civil society in Europe is willing to stand in solidarity with asylum seekers.
Confronting the parliamentarians with their responsibility for abolishing the individual right to asylum in Europe, the group stood up from the audience balcony, shouted “VOTE NO”, their t-shirts showing the slogan “THIS PACT KILLS”. The paper planes they threw towards the parliamentarians listed the names of people that drowned in the Mediterranean. Some parliamentarians who have always been critical of the CEAS stood up and applauded, and the voting was disturbed for at least 3 minutes. For once, the protests against Europe’s migration pacts did not happen at the doors, but right inside one its core castles!
Follow up
Many international media such as the Guardian, the Brussels Times and the Le Monde published on the action. While the pact was adopted, the implementation needs time. The group plans to keep on watching closely the development of this implementation, that is often going unnoticed and unpublished.
With the support and solidarity from Het Actiefonds, the group will continue to show their solidarity with the people on the move who hope to find protection and a better life in Europe. Because freedom of movement, migration and asylum should be accessible to everyone.
On April 20, 2025, the Jezevky Group staged a striking banner drop in Prague, drawing attention to the damaging role of Airbnb in the erosion of affordable housing. Large banners bearing messages like “Fuck Capitalism” and “Fuck Airbnb” were unfurled beneath the Astronomical Clock and Letná metronome to the sounds of a brass quartet: a call for action coming from Prague’s most iconic locations.
Founded in 2021, the Jezevky Group has focused primarily on the housing crisis, rallying around three central demands: a substantial expansion of municipal and cooperative housing, stricter regulation and taxation of investment properties, and stronger protections for tenants. While some statistics suggest that Czechia ranks among the “best” in terms of housing, the growing presence of short-term rentals like Airbnb disproportionately benefits private individuals and large corporations—often to the detriment of local communities. Jezevky argues that such companies undermine the city’s livability and are not above using exploitative or inhumane tactics to pursue profit.
In response to this growing concern, the Jezevky Group launched a campaign to expose Airbnb’s role in the erosion of affordable housing for Prague’s residents. Combining online outreach with bold direct action, the group carried out a large-scale banner drop on April 20 at two of the city’s most iconic landmarks: the Prague Astronomical Clock and the Letná Metronome. Their aim was to call out the profiteers driving the housing crisis and turning the city into a place that is no longer able or willing to meet the basic needs of its ordinary residents.
The Action Fund is proud to have supported this initiative and stands firmly in the fight for affordable, accessible housing for all.
Photo Petr Zewlakk Vrabec
Not only do thousands of people disappear in Mexico every year, the monuments that commemorate them are also being structurally erased. Impacta Cine claims the public space in Mexican cities through film screenings and other creative events, to keep the memory of the disappeared alive and to increase legal pressure.
Double disappeared
111,916 people are listed as missing in Mexico: the tip of the iceberg. This number only covers the number of officially registered disappearances, some of whom have been missing since the end of the 20th century. Disappearances, including forced disappearances (for which the state is responsible), are commonplace in Mexico. According to reports, almost 30 people are kidnapped or murdered every day without being reported. However, the real number of disappearances is impossible to determine – many families do not dare to report the disappearance of their loved ones for fear of violent consequences. The Mexican state points the finger at the big drug cartels and other organized crime, and at the border regime of the United States, but has a notorious part in these disappearances itself, and the Mexican army has a long history of corruption and collaboration with the cartels. Every so often, mass graves or secret prisons are discovered by volunteers, often already known to the state but deliberately kept under the radar. Also, these structural disappearances – which have a huge impact on the daily lives and well-being of people in Mexico and survivors in the diaspora – are rarely a topic during election campaigns; the problem is not addressed, the impact is not taken seriously.
Not only are people subjected to the random disappearances, but their memory is also violently removed from public space. In 2024 alone, at least five monuments erected by survivors will have disappeared, been banned or destroyed.
Impacta Cine: remembering and commemorating in public space
The Impacta Cine collective wants to honour the memory of the kidnapped people in public space through film screenings and meetings. Around the presidential elections in the summer of 2024, with the support of Het Actiefonds, they organised various events and reclaimed public space.
Actions
For example, they organised a Bordatón with around 100 people on the central Zócalo square in Mexico City, an embroidery marathon where dolls of disappeared people were decorated and displayed in large numbers on the square. They also projected various short films about the victims and relatives. In this way, they drew public attention to the lawsuit against the local government, which denies having removed the previous memorials.
They were present at the opening of the annual Festival de Arte para No Olvidarte – the art festival to remember – which is held in front of the house in the Narvarte neighborhood where five people were found murdered in 2015 in a still unsolved case. During the festival and afterwards in other places, they showed the film “In Broad Daylight – The Narvarte Case”, which extensively examines the investigation process into this case and exposes the corruption of the authorities. Impacta Cine also installed, together with others, a new memorial. After previous monuments repeatedly disappeared, they equipped the new plaque with a GPS tracer. Although the local authorities always deny any connection, after the monument quickly disappeared again, they were able to get an initial idea of who keeps removing the monuments.
Impacta Cine printed some 3,000 photographs of recent victims of state and cartel violence, which were hung at the Glorieta de lxs Desaparecidxs, in the presence of relatives of disappeared people – including the Honduran Mary Martínez, whose son Marco disappeared in Mexico in 2013, and who is part of a large movement of Latin American mothers and families who do not give up the search for their loved ones.
Impacata Cine will continue to fight against structural (forced) disappearances through the collaboration between the government, the cartels and the US border regime, and for a lasting memory of those who have disappeared. Everywhere, in public spaces, with creativity. And with the support and solidarity of Het Actiefonds!
The transition to renewable energy sounds like a noble goal, but unfortunately it is still too often realized at the expense of people who themselves contribute the least to climate change. Rempang Island in the Indonesian-administered Riau Archipelago is a case in point. The people and animals on the small island had to make way for a glass and solar panel factory that would be given the misleading name ‘Eco-City’. Supported by Het Actiefonds, WALHI – the largest environmental organization in Indonesia – carried out solidarity actions together with the Indigenous people of Rempang for truly green plans.
When the people of Rempang heard that they would be forced to leave the island, they immediately made it clear to the government that they could not agree to this. The authorities responded with a great show of force: more than 1,000 policemen and soldiers, equipped with weapons and vehicles, came ashore. The population immediately formed a blockade on the bridge that gives access to the island, but by brute force the units made their way through the crowd and eventually occupied Rempang.
Since then, a legal and social battle has erupted, putting the eviction plans off the table for now. But the National Strategic Project, of which Eco-City is a part, is still to be implemented. The activists we supported organized several actions, including a commemoration on the bridge where the army wreaked havoc on Sept. 7-11, 2023. Now the inhabitants laid flowers, rolled out banners and gave speeches emphasizing the right to Indigenous self-determination.
The events in Rempang show the importance of the energy transition being implemented from the bottom up, with local expertise. Instead, the protagonists are often foreign investors who could not care less about climate justice. Thanks to our donors, the Action Fund can continue to advocate for a different system, where saving the planet naturally goes hand in hand with social justice.
After two years of campaigning in Poland’s old growth forests, ten of the most important areas were finally excluded from commercial logging in 2024! However, Dziki Ruch Oporu (Wild Resistance) continued to campaign for these forests to also become protected nature reserves.
European goals, Polish reality
The European Union requires member states to strictly protect at least 10% of their land area by 2030 as part of the Biodiversity Strategy. In Poland, only 1% is protected. In valuable forests there is plenty of logging: including trees with nests of protected birds, or close to the habitat of bears.
With the support of Het Actiefonds, Wild Resistance already organised forest occupations in 2022 and 2023. These left a big impression on the political opposition of that time – so much that protecting Poland’s primeval forests became a central theme in the 2024 election campaigns.
After the elections, a new coalition came to power that made forest protection a central theme in their policy. The new climate and environment minister announced that ten forests would be excluded from logging for the time being.
Forest occupations in Bukowa and Ślęża
While this is a first step in the right direction, it is a measure that is easily reversible, and the logging lobby in Poland remains powerful. Until the most important old growth forests have become protected nature reserves with clear management plans, Wild Resistance will continue to campaing. In 2024, with the support of Het Actiefonds, they organised three major actions.
First, they occupied the Bukowa Forest, in one of the country’s last natural forests. Major Polish TV stations reported, and politicians from five left-wing parties came to show support. Together with people from local towns, Wild Resistance activists scratched all the markings of trees that were to be cut down – a small but effective gesture that was replicated in several places in Poland.
The second action took place on Ślęża Mountain – a place of spiritual and ecological value for many Poles. There, with a forest occupation, they demanded the extension of the existing nature reserve, which currently covers only the top of the mountain, to the entire mountain and all its forests. This action also received a lot of media attention and led to the creation of a local working group that is now campaigning for the recognition as a nature reserve of the whole mountain, and for recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Blockade at the ministry
For the third action, the group went to the policymakers themselves: together with two other collectives, they blocked the Ministry of Climate and Environment in Warsaw. Using concrete barrels, chains and U-locks, they barred the entrance and demanded a halt to logging in all old growth forests. They also dropped a 20-metre-long banner from a Warsaw bridge for thousands to see.
Direct action works!
The fact that forest management is now such a central issue in Polish politics is because of bottom-up actions. The climate and environment minister has made a direct link between the continuing forest occupations and the proposed new plans for protecting Poland’s forests. These are the result of continual pressure, resistance and solidarity! Het Actiefonds is very proud to have supported these actions and remains in solidarity with all groups working for forest and biodiversity protection!
On March 1 2024, the feminist collective Útera Casa Feminista organized an educational demonstration in Pereira, Colombia, to denounce the institutions that continue to obstruct access to safe and dignified abortion. This action responded to ongoing violations of reproductive rights in the city, despite the Court’s 2022 ruling that decriminalized abortion up to 24 weeks. In their movement, Útera Casa Feminista took to the streets to inform and empower the community.
Back in September 2023, Útera Casa Feminista — a feminist organization advocating for women’s rights supported by The Action Fund — held a sit-in outside one of the largest and most prominent hospitals in Pereira, Columbia. The protest aimed to denounce the persistent institutional barriers to abortion in the city. Despite having come to agreements with certain institutions, safe and dignified abortions remain inaccessible. Women, transmasculine, and non-binary people continue to face violations of their reproductive rights. This is why, on the second anniversary of the 2022 C-055 ruling — which decriminalized abortion up to the 24th week and recognized the barriers to accessing safe procedures — Útera Casa Feminista focused its campaigns on increasing public awareness and challenging the stigma surrounding abortion.
To challenge the institutionalism surrounding abortion access, Útera Casa Feminista has taken reproductive rights education to the streets, bringing crucial knowledge about the right to safe abortion directly to the people. On March 1 2024, they organized a powerful street demonstration, offering accessible information about the 2022 Court ruling C-055 and the broader right to safe and dignified abortion. The campaign was a success: it meaningfully engaged the local community in the park where it was held, and provided vital support services related to sexual and reproductive rights. The initiative was especially well-received by women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals involved in sex work.
Following this demonstration, Útera Casa Feminista aims to expand its educational efforts within healthcare institutions — particularly those that have been subject to criticism — in order to drive structural changes that ensure dignified abortion care.
The Action Fund is proud to have supported this initiative and remains committed to the fight for safe, accessible, and dignified abortion services for all.
Lexhybos, a centuries old forest in the municipality of Sittard-Geleen in Dutch Limburg, is under threat of logging to make way for industry and power supply. Lexhybos blijft Bos (Lexhybos remains forest), a group of activists and residents, joined forces with the Graetheide Committee to take to the streets and hold a mini forest occupation as a preview.
Important nature reserve under threat
The green woodpecker, badger, alpine newt, tubeworm, flatworm, European quail, alongside neighbours of the forest walking their dog – these are just some of the earthlings that feel at home in Graetheide, the green heart of Sittard-Geleen. For years, various nature and neighbourhood organisations have been calling for the whole area to be protected. In the municipality’s new proposal for the Omgevingsvisie (Area Environment Plan) 2040, however, the Lexhy forest, which is a large part of Graetheide, was not included as a protected nature area, even though it is part of the Natuurnetwerk Limburg, the plan that marks the local nature reserves on a provincial level, and has a high ecological value as a corridor for migrating animal species.
The municipality’s plan even states that parts of the Lexhy forest may be cut down in to make way for the expansion of the Chemelot campus, the petrochemical industrial and research site adjacent to the Graetheide. In addition, other parts of the forest be turned into a new high-voltage power plant, which would mainly supply power to the Chemelot industrial site, as the current one is obsolete. That new power plant could replace the old one on the same site or be built on the Chemelot territory itself. The Lexhy forest would not be the first forest in Sittard-Geleen to be cut down for the expansion of polluting industry: in 2022, part of the Sterre forest was cut down for the expansion of a car factory. In times of ecological, biodiversity and nitrogen crisis, this offensive and irresponsible – nature conservation should not give way for economic interests!
Mini forest occupation
That is why Lexhybos blijft Bos organised a successful demonstration and banner drop in March 2025 during the public participation evening on the new Omgevingsvisie 2040, which did not go unnoticed by the participants of the evening. They were the talk-of-the-town for days to come. In addition, they held a mini forest occupation, and gave climbing training to local residents. In doing so, they gave a preview and a warning of what lies ahead if the forest were to be cut down. Although the Area Environmental Plan unfortunately remained unchanged, the neighbours of the Lexhy forest are now ready to protect their forest at the time when the destruction of the nature reserve is set in motion.
Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this pre-taste of forest occupation, and remains in solidarity with other forest occupations in the Netherlands and worldwide, and with everyone taking action against large-scale natural destruction!
In 2019, the Dolfinarium in Harderwijk was informed that its zoo license needed to be stricter. This revision was aimed at addressing animal suffering and undesirable behavior. However, since then, the zoo has repeatedly violated these conditions. As a result, the animal rights organization Bite Back has filed an enforcement petition, demanding immediate action.
In 2019, the Zoo Review Committee visited the Dolfinarium in Harderwijk and determined that its zoo license needed to be strengthened, particularly due to concerns about undesirable and harmful animal behavior. Despite these findings, animal rights organization Bite Back captured video footage in 2023 and 2024 showing that this behavior continues to be encouraged. Given the repeated violations of the 2019 agreements, the organization is calling for immediate enforcement.
In response, Bite Back has filed an enforcement petition as part of their broader Dolphinarium-Free campaign. This campaign includes monthly protests both at the zoo and at businesses that collaborate with the Dolfinarium. Through this petition and ongoing protests, the organization aims to reduce the unnatural behavior imposed on the animals and to continue challenging the Dolfinarium.
The campaign has already resulted in over fifty news articles that further discredit the Dolfinarium. Additionally, several companies, including NS, have severed ties with the zoo due to concerns over animal welfare violations. Bite Back is determined to expand the reach of this successful campaign in the coming year.
The Action Fund is proud to support Bite Back’s enforcement petition and the fight for improved animal welfare and stronger animal rights.
Frontex’ human rights violations and cooperation with the arms industry span from Palestine to Senegal. Missing voices in Dakar calls for an abolishment of the border control agency at Frontex’ 20th anniversary.
Frontex, disappearances and Palestine
Since 2014, hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared on their way to Europe. Frontex, the EU’s infamous border agency, and its cooperation with violent militias and authoritarian governments, are responsible for most of these disappearances. Since its inception, Frontex has become the best-funded and deadliest agency in the European Union. With a massive increase in its budget, it has established a fleet of drones and planes to monitor the Mediterranean, the Sahara, and the Atlantic without providing direct assistance in maritime emergencies.
Several surveillance technologies used by Frontex are Israeli-made. In 2020, the agency bought a drone fleet worth 100 million euros from Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, companies that are know to use the occupied Palestinian territories and its people as a testing and developing ground. Both companies are pillars of Israel’s Occupation Force and are complicit in today’s genocide in Gaza. Additionally, as recent as 2024, Frontex listed BeeSense, another Israeli drone manufacturing company with deep connections to the IOF, as a viable partner for EU member states to buy equipment from.
Frontex is thus not only responsible for the death and disappearance of hundreds of thousands of people at Europe’s externalized borders, it also contributes to the ongoing offensives in Gaza and the West Bank and the current genocide on Palestinians through platforming and cooperating with the Israeli arms industry.
This complicity in surveillance and repression connects the suffering of migrants and Palestinians. Frontex’s actions, including illegal pushbacks and abusive detentions, worsen systemic oppressions and violate human rights, in the Mediterranean, the Sahara, the Atlantic and Palestine.
The Missing Voices group
Frontex’ operations are not limited to Europe’s geographical borders. Since June 2022, the agency is active on Senegalese soil and waters, in cooperation with the Senegalese government. The Missing Voices (REER) group was founded in October 2023 after more than 7,000 people went missing on the Atlantic route, departing from Senegal or Mauritania. The group aims to build an online database allowing the families of the missing to connect, share their stories, and draw attention to the often-overlooked consequences of these disappearances.
“20 Years of Frontex: An Anniversary Marked by a Tragic Record.”
On December 7th 2024, marking the 20th anniversary of Frontex, the Missing Voices group organised a major protest in front of the European Union Delegation embassy in Dakar to denounce the severe injustices committed by this agency and to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people. The event shed light on the history of Frontex, its relationships with the arm industry and its connection with Israeli companies and their role in surveillance systems used both against migrants and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hosting a range of speakers and testimonials, the event also expanded upon Frontex’ and the EU’s influence on Senegalese citizens and sovereignty, exposing the complicity of African government in human rights violations by implementing European migration policies on African soil. Read more (in French) on Senegals current migration policies here.
During the event, police disrupted the gathering and ordered its end. The founder of the Missing Voices group, Ibrahima Konate, was arrested after refusing to dismantle the authorized event. His 2 weeks detention is a worrying sign of the deterioration of Senegalese democracy and the right to free speech.
Despite Kanote’s arrestation, the event was a success, addressing and explaining the link between the repression and genocide in Palestine, Frontex’ violent operations and Europe’s neocolonial migration policy enforcements in African states. Missing Voices group will continue to organize events and actions addressing these issues and calling for the abolition of Frontex! The goal is to demand that Frontex be held accountable, ceases supporting practices that contribute to the oppression of vulnerable populations, and be abolished permanently.
Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this event and will continue to support Missing Voices group and any organization fighting Frontex, the arms industry, the genocide in Palestine. Don’t push back migrants, push back Frontex!
On March 20, 2025, XR Rutshuru, a non-violent direct action youth movement from North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, organized a peaceful march in Kinshasa to protest the government’s decision to auction off 27 oil and three gas blocks in one of the world’s last intact forests—Virunga National Park and its vital peatlands.
Just months after the UN Climate Conference COP26 and the signing of a $500 million agreement to protect Congo’s rainforest, the DRC government announced plans to auction 27 oil blocks and three gas blocks. These extraction sites encroach on Virunga National Park, a biodiversity hotspot home to countless plant and animal species, as well as local communities and Indigenous peoples. This decision poses a devastating threat to local communities, biodiversity, and the global climate, as three of these blocks overlap one of the world’s largest carbon sinks.
In response, XR Rutshuru started to build awareness and mobilize local communities and Indigenous peoples living around Virunga National Park – people whose lives and livelihoods depend on these threatened ecosystems. As part of this effort, they organized a peaceful march in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, demanding the cancellation of the oil and gas tenders, accountability from major polluters for the loss and damage caused by their industries, and increased investment in renewable energy.
During the demonstration, activists held signs with resonant messages: Climate Justice Now! Free Congo! Fossil-Free Virunga!
The Action Fund is proud to have supported this movement and remains committed to the fight for climate justice.
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