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It was planned for some time: While many people are trying to escape at Izmir and Bodrum via boat for quite a long time people found new hope, after hearing the good news of thousands welcomed to Europe. Especially the warlike areas at the borders with Syria and Iraq and the pogrom that happened against Kurdish civilians and hundreds of HDP offices, while Kurdish shops were destroyed the hope for many migrants to find a peaceful life in Turkey dwindled. The group called out for a protest via Social Networks and informed Media and humanitarian organizations about it.

The first sentence reads as follows:

Because of the death of too many of our brothers and the fatal risks they have to take to cross the border from Turkey to Greece in order to make a better life for themselves, we are planning to gather at the border around Edirne on 15th of September 2015 and claim for our right to cross it safely.

Undoubtedly, the unlicensed protest should turn an eye on the situation of the refugees in Turkey. It was planned as a peacefully demonstration of thousands by holding signs. Already on Monday night hundreds of refugees left their cities to Edirne. Many tried to walk at the border to Greece at Pazarkule and 250 people were able to reach Edirne by foot and reached at the bus terminal. There they staged a sit-in. Police and Gendarmerie blocked many others from entering the city. Some were convinced to return to Istanbul. More than 1000 people entered again the city of Edirne, but were blocked from going to the border with buses. More than 600 people are blocked until now at the bus station since today, some of them have started a hunger-strike.  

At the bus station of Istanbul hundreds of people got, as well, stuck at the bus station of Istanbul and the police locked the area with barricades and a bulldozer. Until now, the refugees are not allowed to buy tickets from the companies and media is not allowed to enter the scene. During the day Angela Merkel, the german chancellor phoned with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey. In the press release of the German government from Wednesday it is mentioned that they talked about working closer together, tackling the „refugee crisis“ and the „combat against the criminality of the smugglers“. This sounds surrealistic in respect thereof another statement of the press release from the protest:

It’s important to believe that our cause is right and the concerned agencies should take the responsibility to work with migrants. Therefore, we prepared a petition that we all invite you to sign and support.

The protest of the revolting people at the Istanbul bus station is targeting especially Turkey, by presenting Turkish flags and holding signs with slogans addressing Germany’s chancellor. Other signs are thematizing the problems migrants have in Turkey and stating that people don’t want to drown anymore, as today again more than 20 people drowned at the coast in Bodrum and even in the Istanbul quarter of Aksaray, the selling of swimming vests became quite a business.

The protest of migrants, fleeing from broken homes and searching for a new existence got this time more attention than the exodus of more than 30 buses, that tried to move through the turkish-bulgarian border in June 2015. And during the new occupation of the bus stations in Istanbul and Edirne, the migrants stated that they will not yield until their claim of passing the border peacefully is fulfilled. And winter is coming soon, so no doubt the people that are claiming for their rights to move free and got into the limbo of a political and humanitarian crisis, are trying their luck during the long summer of migration, because they have nothing to lose.

Anmerkung: Dieser Artikel wurde am 17. September 2015 auf bordermonitoring.eu veröffentlicht. Aktuelle Infos gibt es auf Twitter unter dem hashtag #crossingnomore. Regelmässig berichten Mathias Fiedler und Valerio Cataldi.