The migration policy movement Solidarity Across Borders as well as more than a hundred other groups and organizations had called to come and march (illustrative image).Keystone
Hundreds of demonstrators in Bern are demanding respect for migration and asylum rights under the slogan “Between us, no borders”.
More than a thousand people gathered in Bern on Saturday to demonstrate in favor of the right to migration and asylum. The slogan of the rally was: “There are no boundaries between us.”
The migration policy movement Solidarity Across Borders as well as more than a hundred other groups and organizations had called to come and march. More than 1,000 demonstrators, according to a Keystone-ATS journalist on site, 3,000 according to the organizers, gathered at the beginning of the afternoon. They then walked through the old town of Bern to the Federal Palace.
The field of asylum and migration is marked by exclusion and deprivation of rights, the participants criticized. Many people who live here are reduced to their migration history and excluded in racist ways, they say.
Protesters called for change. “We are all part of an open and diverse society,” the appeal emphasized. “We do not allow ourselves to be divided.” And the demonstrators demand rights and freedoms: freedom of movement rather than borders, rights and dignity rather than illegality, social rights rather than precariousness and participation rather than exclusion.
An Eritrean national provisionally admitted and supported by Alliance F declared in particular, quoted in the organizers’ press release, that “our greatest wish is to lead a dignified life. But instead, we experience daily boundaries that keep us small. And to demand freedom to travel and family reunification, unlimited access to work and training, psychosocial support as well as the abolition of discriminatory bureaucracy.
“As a woman who can work, who has diplomas, who speaks a Swiss national language and who is above all motivated to build a new life, why should I not have the chance to continue living, to share my knowledge and rebuild my life?
Layla from the #StopDublinCroatia campaign
The #StopDublinCroatia campaign is fighting against deportations to Croatia, “an inhumane practice,” according to Layla, also cited in the press release from Solidarity Across Borders and more than a hundred other organizations. (chl/ats)
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