(source: http://no-racism.net/article/4196)
In the recent years, Serbia has turned from a country of transit for undocumented migrants into a country where migrants are stuck for increasingly longer periods of time. Under the pressure of approaching the EU membership, Serbia has developed its independent asylum system and reinforced border controls and deportation mechanism on the border with Macedonia. It has also obediently cooperated with the EU’s efforts to keep migrants out of EU — it has signed the readmission agreement with the EU and developed the cooperation with Frontex, the EU agency for the management and operational cooperation on the external borders of the EU.
The result of this is the increased repression of migrants in Serbia. Hundreds of undocumented migrants living in make-shift jungles close to the Schengen border with Hungary (especially in Subotica) are daily persecuted by the police and fear violence, arrest, detention and deportation. Since the creation of asylum system in 2008, nobody has gotten the refugee status and in recent times, the asylum seekers open centers often do not have space to house all asylum seekers. What is additionally worrying are the racist protests and mobilizations against the presence of asylum seekers open centers in their locality — and as of yet a complete lack of migrant solidarity mobilizations, and a relative lack of a discourse, critical of the repressive EU policies and their externalization in Serbia.
That’s why one of the focuses of the ZAF – the Zrenjanin Antifascist Festival – this year will be the resistance against the border system in the Serbian context and the critique of the EU migration politics.
The Zrenjanin Antifascist Festival (ZAF) will be held on 5th and 6th of October 2012 in the Cultural Center of Zrenjanin (Zrenjanin, Serbia – :: zaf.anarhija.org)
We see ZAF mainly as an opportunity to confirm local and strengthen Balkan anti-authoritarian relations. Although the festival is largely oriented towards the Balkans, ZAF is open for all anti-authoritarians interested in cooperation based on solidarity and mutual aid.
One focus will be the resistance against the border system, this segment will start on Friday 5th of October with a getting-to-know-each-other meeting, open for everybody who is interested in getting involved in no border struggles in Serbia. During the second day of the festival (6th of October), as a part of the program of ZAF, there will be a discussion about the EU migration policy in Serbia and the possibilities of resistance. On Sunday the 7th of October there will be an organizing meeting in which results of the days before discussion about posibilities of resistance can be intensified and the planning to put ideas into practice will proceed.
