35/The European Union’s Violence Against Asylum Seekers (with Jack Sapoch)

I spoke with Jack Sapoch, coordinator of No Name Kitchen's border violence reporting, itself part of the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN).

We spoke about the EU's policy of violence against asylum seekers on the so-called 'Balkan Route' and how BVMN partners have been trying to document it and support those being victimised by it.

BVMN works through a democratic and horizontal management, in which each NGOs (or partner) is involved in different areas and carries out several tasks:

• A group of NGOs which works on reporting (collecting pushback cases): No Name Kitchen, Collective Aid, Escuela con Alma, Re:Ports Sarajevo.
• A group of NGOs which dedicates its effort to the advocacy strategy: Are You Syrious, Centre for Peace Studies, Info Kolpa, Mobile Info Team, Mare Liberum.
• Rigardu, a German-based NGO which is responsible for the management and administrative coordination and forms the legal frame for the Network.

Topics covered also include: the role of the Croatian government and other governments on the so-called 'Balkan Route'; EU-funded/supported (re)borderisation processes which violates the rights of asylum seekers; lack of awareness by EU citizens of this Balkan Route; and how BVMN uses open-source investigations like that used by Bellingcat and Forensic Architecture to uncover these abuses.

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Music by Tarabeat. Photo from the BVMN website by artist Ena Jurov.