Description
As legal routes to seek asylum in the EU continue to be remarkably scarce, exclusive, racist and brutal, people on the move traverse the green border between Turkey and Bulgaria by their own means in order to exercise their rights. In response, Bulgarian border authorities execute violent manoeuvres to terrify and push-back racialised subjectivities using EU funded materials. Strategies of deterrence to people on the move are diverse and systematic, from pro-active methods - beatings, confiscation of personal belongings, unlawful transportation from Bulgarian border sites to Turkey - to passive approaches - rejection of emergency assistance and criminalization of those who are willing to provide such help.
In this context of state-terror, international volunteers and migrant solidarity networks are currently putting their effort in interrupting Bulgarian border-police violence. This paper will explore how a diverse group of volunteers and activists indirectly or directly affected by border police abuse are resisting border violence through direct action and radical presence. As attempts to prevent border violence through advocacy have been extensive over the years and non-the-less arguably ineffective, we will reflect on the strengths and limitations of these semi-structured interventions as well as in its conditions of possibility, articulated by the coming together of “international” activism and “migrant” solidarity.
