On June 9, 2023, 32-year-old Dutch-Polish Mateusz was killed by disproportionate police violence. He was a psychiatric patient who keyed a car. Police came after him in as many as ten cars – he was on a bicycle. They tasered him, only to beat, kick and strangle him as he lay on the ground. Video footage showed the police officers getting up after a long time, while Mateusz remained motionless on the ground.
Mateusz was not the first to die from police brutality in the Netherlands. Remon Kalloe, Mitch Henriquez, Sammy Baker and many others preceded him. Yazan al Madani, for example, shot eight times at the age of 27 while in psychosis. Or Mitchel Winters, also in a confused state, and shot seven times at the age of 21 by three police officers. Akef Ibrahimi mentions all of them in his speech at Mateusz’s memorial service and comes to a conclusion: men from migrant backgrounds who exhibit confusing behavior are overrepresented in murder statistics from police brutality.
Commemoration
It was an emotional and powerful memorial on Rotterdam’s Coolsingel, with support from Het Actiefonds. In speeches by the father, a friend, the family’s lawyer, and the organizer Ibrahimi. It concluded with the laying of flowers and two minutes of silence.
The speeches called for justice and prosecution of the executioners who had killed Mateusz. On GoFundMe, people could donate money to the family to cover legal costs.Sadness, grief and dismay prevailed. As friend Claudia put it:
“Why did the police hit Mateusz so hard, why was a taser deployed on someone who had no weapons and above all was in a mentally unstable state, why couldn’t the police recognize a person with mental problems, after all they should have been trained for that?”
Prosecution
The officers involved in Mateusz’s death were already able to return to work as soon as last October, some even in the same position. Fortunately, it was announced last month that their eight officers will be prosecuted for Mateusz’s death. It is already something, although we will await the verdict to know if justice prevailed.
After all, incidents like these do not play out in a vacuum. In recent years, police have been given more and more space and means to use force to maintain order, such as the 2022 law authorizing the use of tasers. This expanding monopoly on violence goes hand in hand with legal irresponsibility when police action leads to deadly consequences.
The prosecution of Mateusz’s perpetrators is an exception: according to research by Control Alt Delete, the prosecution proceeds to prosecute in only one percent of reports. Between 2016 and 2019, only four officers were fined for excessive police brutality, and none were prosecuted for discrimination. For context, in 2019 alone, police reported 24 thousand cases of use of force, a number that has steadily risen to nearly 35 thousand in the following years.
Police brutality is a structural issue with obvious racial aspects. Het Actiefonds wants not only justice for the loved ones of Mateusz, but also a world in which police violence is no longer tolerated.
The Mekong River flows from China and is the lifeline for villages and towns in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. About 60 million people depend on the river for food and income. With China building a dam and Thai multinationals redirecting the water flow to grow sugar for the global market, the livelihoods of millions and people, animals and plants are under pressure.
Large dams have been disrupting local ecosystems ever since the first one was constructed on the Nile in 1902. These dams control or even end the flood and dry seasons of big rivers, manipulating water flow in such a way that arable land increases and valuable cash crops can be grown on the river banks. It is no surprise then, that nations that control dams control the lifeline of all living beings upstream.
China has been building 11 dams in the Mekong since 2012. These barrages, in turn, have major consequences on South Asian economies and ecosystems.
Since the construction of the dams, the water level of the Mekong has plummeted. In 2019, the water level upstream was lower than in the past 50 years. Add to this the effects of the climate crisis and you get a serious situation of persistent drought, flash floods and increasing poverty in the Mekong Delta. According to the Mekong River Commission, there are already 40 percent fewer fish in the river than a decade ago.
Thai sugar companies are taking the opportunity to buy up tracts of land in Thailand and Cambodia and grow large quantities of sugar on it. Backed up by foreign investors, these companies redirect large quantities of water in their irrigation system, thus turning the river banks in a monocultural wasteland for the global market.
Many villages and communities can no longer stand the drying up of the Mekong. Representatives from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand united in SEVANA to fight Dam construction and sugar multinationals. Het Actiefonds has supported numerous of their actions over the years.
This time, SEVANA organized a four day festival in honor of the 14th of march, the International Day of Actions against Dams. About 40-60 people from the Hug Nam Khong Community Network (Love Mekong Community Network), alliances, and friends. held panel discussions on the current situation of the Mekong, including the energy trade and hydropower dams. The lively conversations also touched on transnational investments, land grabs, and state oppression. There were ceremonies too to call for the spirits of the Mekong, such as a boat action where people travelled to an island in the river to ask the spirits for protection and blessings for the Mekong River and for all life that depends on her.
Het Actiefonds is proud to support SEVADA. We need to fight Dams in order to defend our millions of human and non-human lives, and to preserve the ways of live of myriad smaller communities along the river.
In her first speech as Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni introduced a motto: Non disturbare chi vuole fare. Don’t disturb those who want to act. She meant it in the most neoliberal sense; do not tax corporations. But don’t get it twisted: Meloni is first and foremost a fascist politician. Since her election in 2022, fascism has become a legitimate form of governing in Italy since the election of Giorgia Meloni in 2022.
That is why we need a strong and united voice against the dangerous racist, sexist, and oppressive Italian government. Associazione Culturale Contrario is strongly convinced that most people in Italy, with or without citizenship, are not fascist. They want to encourage people who feel isolated, confused, afraid or disempowered, to rise up and fight for solidarity, social justice and to protect and build on Italy’s rich history of anti-fascism.
Contrario has organized a political campaign spanning the first 4 months of 2024 to mobilize and radicalize their neighborhood Centocelle in Rome. It was not an easy task, considering the continued crackdown on left-wing activism by Meloni’s government. The most famous example is, the anti-rave decree, which got a lot of attention from ravers, leftists and other movements. It is a blatant attempt to repress countercultural movements. Contrario campaigned against this decree as well as against other repressive laws, such as a new law that criminalizes radical left archives with the excuse of ‘ending the promotion of terrorism’. This is a blatant attempt to change history, and a direct threat to Contrario’s own archive.
Contrario campaigned for months with an antifascist ‘minifestival’, workshops in poster and sticker making in schools and in their own place in Centocelle, reusing and reinterpreting Meloni’s ‘don’t disturb those who want to act’ in a satirical and situationist way. They want to promote freedom of expression and assembly, freedom of movement for all, neighborhood activism, acts of solidarity, and non-violent direct actions. In short, a wide antifascist movement, full of humor and creativity. They used the stickers and posters together with banners and graffiti in actions across the country.
Throughout their campaign, they have met a lot of unknown residents of the neighborhood, inspiring confidence in future collaborations and solidarities to fight the fascist government. Het Actiefonds is proud to support Contrario. No pasarán!
Air pollution poses a serious threat to the environment and public health in Georgia. Despite this, environmental protection and air pollution are still not a priority. The civic movement Green Pole organizes protests and demonstrations to draw attention to the issue.
In 2019, Georgia ranked second in Europe in the number of victims of air pollution per 100,000 residents. Deaths from respiratory diseases, directly associated with air pollution, increased 589% in 2020. Research shows that the health effects also affect many young children.
Thanks support of Het Actiefonds, a protest took place in front of the city hall of Tbilisi, Georgia’s second most polluted city. Prior to this protest, people took to the streets of Tbilisi to hand out leaflets stating the right of every Georgian to live in a healthy environment – defined in Article 29 of the Constitution – and inviting people to join the protest. During an additional night action, images of the polluted city were projected onto the parliament building. Through an online campaign, as many people as possible were involved in the issue, including local “influencers” and journalists.
The group also started legal proceedings against a polluting factory in the municipality of Jighaura. The factory is expected to be closed as a result of the resistance, a process that is being closely monitored by the activists. After all, clean air is everyone’s right!
The Senegalese association Boza Fii organized a three day long action called PUSH BACK FRONTEX, to educate and protest against Frontex and EU’s deadly border externalization policy.
Frontex is the most infamous agency in the EU responsible for the externalisation of border controls, as it plays a key role in the criminalization and repression of migration. The EU invests heavily in the agency: in 2020 Frontex’s annual budget was 364 million euros. In 2023, the budget more than doubled: 845 million euros. With this money, Frontex was able to develop a fleet of planes and drones that monitor and control the central Mediterranean from above.
Last year, Frontex claimed that by the end of the year they would be able to fully monitor the central Mediterranean 24 hours a day using satellite imagery and drone operations, which are already partly operational. According to Frontex, these satellites and drones are used to save lives in the Mediterranean, because they can detect boats in distress and warn the relevant authorities in due time to rescue migrants. However, migrants and activists have noticed that Frontex collaborates with the Libyan coast guard to smuggle migrants heading for Europe back to Libya. Far from helping to save lives in the Mediterranean Sea, Frontex’s surveillance has the primary and sole goal of intercepting people at sea so that they never reach EU shores. When migrants hear a drone buzzing around their ship, they can count on the Libyan coast guard intercepting them and dragging them back within a few hours.
Frontex knows all too well what fate awaits these people once they return to Libya: systematic and widespread abuse in detention by Libyan authorities and smugglers. At least that’s what Human Rights Watch concludes after extensive research on Frontex’s aerial patrol. No surprise then that Senegalese activists have not welcomed the negotiations between Senegal and the EU on the expansion of Frontex activities in Senegalese waters. They understand that the European border security agency will not save lives and will only increase the number of forced deaths in the Atlantic, and serve the perpetuation of Europe’s racist mobility regime.
For this reason, the association Boza Fii has decided to organize a yearly 72h event called ‘PUSH BACK FRONTEX’, until Frontex will be abolished. Boza Fii supports voluntary remigrants and deported migrants in their land of origin, where they often lack any official assistance. Boza Fii is very critical of the possibility of Frontex activities in their country. The European commissioner of internal affairs Yiva Johansson has claimed that the deployment of Frontex in Dakar will help to control “human trafficking activities” from the Sahel to the Canary Islands. It is not the first time a European power has taken away the sovereignty of an African country under the guise of combating human rights violations.
A European commission document on Senegal, published on June 7, 2022 and in the hands of Boza Fii, does little to dispel any qualms. It reportedly states that increasing cooperation between Senegal and Frontex should include allowing Frontex officers to carry and use weapons, with full immunity from Senegalese law. “It is clearly the colonial police returning to Africa” Boza Fii concluded during a speech at PUSH BACK FRONTEX, which took place from the 10th to the 12th of August 2023.
On the first day, they opened the event with a press conference with local Senegalese journalists on the deployment of Frontex in their country (Afrique-Frontex-AFIC). Afterwards, they held a “CommemorAction” for those who died at sea, to remember each and every one of the victims of Europe’s border regime and fight against the borders that killed them, but also to promote the right to identity and dignity for all deaths, and the right of their families to know. The also screened a video on migrants’ rights violation by Frontex. The second day was characterized by workshops and roundtable discussions on deportations and forced returns, visa policies and border externalization (Frontex deployment in West Africa). The last day, Boza Fii organized a 3h march in Dakar to demand freedom of movement for all.
Het Actiefonds is proud to support Boza Fii! The EU does everything it can to render migrant deaths in the Mediterranean and Atlantic invisible, or at the very least not their responsibility. Het Actiefonds has already written extensively on Europe’s anti-migration policy, of which the EU-Turkey deal (2016) and the Tunisia deal (2023) are two of the most famous examples. The work of organizations such as Boza Fii is essential to understand how European border security spills over into new imperial fantasies.
The global debt system enforces neocolonial oppression and exploitation in the Global South. The IMF and The World Bank play a central role in this system. If we want the Global South to be free from neocolonial oppression, have sovereignty in its own borders and stop the climate crisis and ecological destruction, we must enforce a complete cancellation of the the Global South’s debt.
Through debt the Global North enforces its own political agenda in the Global South, i.e. extraction of cheap materials and fossil fuels and keeping refugees at bay. Through the servicing of debt, the Global South lacks the resources for a social and ecologically just transition needed to address among others the climate crisis and for other social policies and climate protection measures. According to Debt Justice, 54 countries are now facing a debt crisis. But instead of agreeing to cancel some of the debt, The World Bank and the IMF use debt as political leverage.
On October 12th, International Day of Indigenous Resistance, Debt for Climate Germany managed to place two concrete blocks in front of the Ministry of Finance in Berlin. The larger of the two weighed over a tonne and symbolized the colonial and climate debt of the Global North towards the South, whereas the smaller and lighter one symbolized the financial debt of the South towards the North. Passers-by and the press were able to follow the gradual removal of the two blocks by the police over the next few hours. The incomparably ‘heavier’ weight of the Global North’s mountain of debt in relation to the Global South’s became concretely visible when the police struggled a lot more to remove the heavier block from the site.
The following day, Debt for Climate held two disruptive actions at the two branches of the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in Bonn and Berlin. They specifically called out Svenja Schulze, who represents Germany in the World Bank, which was meeting with the IMF in Marrakech at the time of the action. In Berlin, they managed to climb onto the canopy of the ministry building and do a banner drop from there. At the same time, activists on the ground tampered with the ministry’s fence and wrapped it with barbed wire to symbolize “Fortress Europe” and the European Union’s policy of sealing off refugees from the Global South. They demanded debt cancellation and an end to the deadly EU refugee policy. A second banner drop on the ministry in Bonn did not go as planned, but they managed to unroll the banner elsewhere on the premises. The actions were accompanied with press releases and information events detailing how the Global North tramples on the sovereignty of the Global South through debt.
Het Actiefonds is proud to support Debt for Climate Germany.
The government of Uganda has recently drafted and tabled a new bill targeting LGBTQ individuals and organizations, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023. It seeks to criminalize homosexuality as well as its promotion and financing. Ever since the introduction of this bill, violence against LGBTQ people through state actors, religious leaders and cultural leaders has skyrocketed.
If the bill is accepted, landlords that rent houses to LGBTQIA+ people will face jail time. This is going to leave many LGBTQIA+ persons homeless, putting them into an even more dangerous situation than before. Also, any NGO’s and organizations that inform about LGBTQIA+ topics or offer care risk big fines for ‘promoting’ homosexuality.
The recent campaign against LGBTQIA+ people has not deterred some of taking action. In a rural area of eastern Uganda, dozens of activists came together to march for equal rights. With their Let me be me campaign, they aim to change the current narrative being spread by the government of Uganda. They want to bring into light the institutionalized and structural violations committed by the government and its actors in repressing the freedoms of assembly, association and expression of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics persons and organizations in Uganda.
That their demonstration proved successful can already be deduced from the fact that media companies and service providers were threatened to withhold from broadcasting or reporting on the action, lest they be accused of ‘spreading’ homosexuality. YouTube videos uploaded to certain blog channels were deleted with directives from the Ugandan Police.
Het Actiefonds is proud to support these activists in their struggle for equal human rights for all gender identities and expressions.
Alarm Phone is a volunteer-run emergency helpline available day and night for people who are forced to cross the Mediterranean Sea by boat. The collective notifies European coast guards of life-threatening situations, but in the majority of cases there is no response. The Action Fund supported an action in which 1338 of these mostly unanswered emails were read out on the square in front of the European Parliament in Brussels.
“We kindly request you to stop killing.” That was the name of the creative action that took 48 hours, during which activists continuously sounded one more cry for help after another. Behind the countless coordinates, passenger numbers, timestamps and bureaucratic language is a great sadness and anger, which was all the more palpable as the action came to an end and the messages became increasingly topical. Since 2014, Alarm Phone has received over 5,000 calls from boats in distress, which it then converts into standardized reports to the responsible authorities.
So did the eventually capsized boat off the coast of Greece, in which hundreds of people – including many children – drowned. Alarm Phone had contacted Greek authorities well in advance, but a rescue effort barely got underway. Several survivors even report that the Greek Coast Guard caused the shipwreck itself, by trying to divert the vessel to other waters with a rope. In many cases, Alarm Phone can reconstruct exactly how the EU’s position in the heavily guarded area led to casualties.
Not providing a safe escape route and even actively pushing back boats is a conscious and political choice, in line with migration management agreements such as the Tunisia deal. Fortunately, the data collected by Alarm Phone is increasingly being picked up by journalists and massive protests occurred in Greece, which we subsequently supported. With a monthly contribution to Het Actiefonds or by making a larger donation to our action groups, you are bringing the end of this racial nightmare a little closer.
Poland is home to some of Europe’s last old-growth forests. These forests contain much valuable life and are essential to our understanding of complex ecosystems. Dziki Ruch Oporu is a small group of activists pressuring the Polish government and logging companies to protect and leave these old-growth forests alone.
According to EU legislation, 10 percent of Europe’s land must be protected from agriculture and other activities by 2030, but protected natural areas in Poland unfortunately exist only on paper. Logging and even commercial hunting, meanwhile, threaten to wipe these last ancient forests off the map. Only 1 percent of Poland is now a National Park, only half of which is protected area. By comparison, even the Netherlands has about 15 percent of protected natural areas.
In the summer of 2022, DRO occupied the Borecka Forest to stop the logging. This was not without danger. They were besieged by 20 masked men, sent at them by the logging company. The activists had secured themselves in the trees with ropes, which the men tried to cut through. DRO was not deterred by this. In response, they barricaded the entrance to a local National Parks headquarters.
In the winter, they first occupied the Romincka Forest near Kaliningrad to block logging machines, and just after that the Bukowa Forest in northwest Poland. In the future, the activists will also hold blockades and occupations in other strategic locations so that the General Environmental Protection Agency and the Ministry of Environment and Climate can no longer ignore them.
The mounting pressure is beginning to bear some fruit. Several political parties have recently promised to protect 20 percent of the most vulnerable areas from logging and commercial hunting. But in a right-wing country like Poland, the election promises of left-wing parties are not nearly enough. DRO’s actions are much needed to protect Europe’s few small remaining old-growth forests from profiteering. Het Actiefonds proudly supports them!
As long as the Dutch state remains complicit in the destruction of our environment, Extinction Rebellion will take direct action. This weekend, the organization is once again blocking the A12, with more people than ever before.
Not 5, not 17, but 37.5 billion. That’s how much subsidy goes to the fossil industry every year, according to the latest calculations. If the state chose to end these subsidies, the Dutch 2030 climate goals would be met overnight! What is holding the government back?
We can wait a long time for an answer, but we have long since run out of time. Extinction Rebellion has decided to nudge politicians in the right direction. As long as the cabinet is blocking necessary reforms, the action group will also block and disrupt the country. Starting with the traffic on the A12, this Saturday. As many as ten thousand people are expected on the highway, so many that it may take all weekend or all week to clear the road again.
Het Actiefonds has been contributing to Extinction Rebellion’s actions for some time now. At the last blockade on May 27, when organizers were preventively taken off their beds, we supported the solidarity demonstration that drew 15 thousand people. The destruction of our environment has already claimed many lives – it has to stop now.
Therefore, now is the time to end these subsidies. Maybe you are planning to join the blockade of the A12 this Saturday, September 9, or the solidarity demonstration in The Hague where speakers like Clarice Gargard and Chautuileo Tranamil will talk about the colonial and capitalist roots of the current climate disruption. Keep it in the ground!
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