Media Reports

Tensions continue to rise in Greek islands, where an estimated 8,400 refugees and migrants are left waiting.

Following a period without any reported incidents of push-backs since January 2016, and decreased numbers of emergency calls from the Aegean Sea which is clearly related to decreased border crossings as a consequence of the EU-Turkey deal from March 20, the Alarm Phone documented a push-back operation on June 11, 2016.

Yesterday, 15th of June, 60-80 refugees were arrested on Lesvos. They were grabbed from the streets, even if their asylum process is running or they had a white card to stay on Lesvos. The detained persons were brought directly to the ferry at Mytilini harbour, then they were deported to Athens by boat. During the transfer they had to stay handcuffed. When arriving at Athens they were brought to prison and/or detention centers. We have varified information that they are facing the options of leaving the country by plane or being detained in prison for 6 months. It seems like others are accused of human trafficing. Though the information situation is diffuse right now, it seems like the detentions are arbitrary and do not only defy human rights but also positiv legal standards.

European migration commentator Apostolis Fotiadis probes the legality of the European Asylum Support Office’s decision to limit access to asylum proceedings as part of new security measures on the Greek islands.

The U.N. refugee agency said on Monday it expects 248,000 refugees and migrants to arrive in Europe via the Eastern Mediterranean this year, far lower than the "up to 1 million" it foresaw at the start of the year.

The legal justification for the EU-Turkey refugee deal has been challenged in the European Court of Justice by three asylum seekers. Their argument, that Turkey is not a safe place for refugees, is backed by human rights groups.

Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world.

The European Union said on Monday a Syrian asylum seeker's successful appeal against deportation to Turkey proved the bloc's deal with Ankara to limit migration was legal, while rights groups said the ruling exposed its "fundamental flaws".

No violence reported as Greek authorities order 8,000 residents of Europe’s largest informal refugee camp to leave

Decision by Greek asylum service to overturn deportation order throws EU-Turkey migration deal into chaos

The vast majority of people (80%) would welcome refugees with open arms, with many even prepared to take them into their own homes, according to a global survey commissioned by Amnesty International.

Whatsapp has become the most popular way to share maps and information, because it's encrypted.

A report by multinational law enforcement agencies said 90 percent of the migrants reaching the European Union were helped by smugglers.

Frances Stonor Saunders’s piece in this issue was delivered as the second of this year’s LRB Winter Lectures at the British Museum.

Refugees who reach Hungary via Serbia can only request asylum in transit zones at the border. They wait for weeks without shelter, adequate food or hygienic conditions to be let in. Balint Bardi reports from Röszke.

EU law enforcement agency will also work to dismantle illegal refugee smuggling networks.

Since Macedonia has sealed border to migrants in early March, more than 11,000 have been sent back to Greece

• Anadolu Agency

Photos by Gregorio Borgia At Greece's blockaded border with Macedonia, 10,000 people who arrived hoping to start new lives farther west and north in Europe are settling instead into lives in limbo, sleeping in tents in mud and rain as they wait to find out what happens next. They fled war and poverty in places…

Avramopoulos, possible EU legal action on relocations, 'Disappointed by slowness and lack of political will', , Politics, Ansa

Φουσκωτές βάρκες από την Ερυθραία και τη Σομαλία   της Φράνσις Στόνορ Σόντερς μετάφραση: Δάφνη Λάππα Διαβατήρια κάποιας μορφής υπήρχαν από πολύ παλιά, ωστόσο μέχρι τον Β΄ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο η χρήση τους δεν ήταν καθόλου συστηματική. Πριν τον πόλεμο, μας λέει ο Στέφαν Τσβάιχ, «ο καθένας μπορούσε να ταξιδέψει χωρίς έλεγχο [...], τα σύνορα ήταν…

European commission proposes ‘solidarity contributions’ by states that do not take in refugees, to support those that do

Police tear gas Moria detention camp after unaccompanied children become involved in ethnic fighting.

Ever since Marx and Engels proclaimed in The Communist Manifesto that the workers have no country, it has been an elementary and defining premise of Marxist politics that we are internationalists1.  There has never been a more clear proof that Stalinism involved a radical betrayal of Marxism, furthermore, than the devious and self-serving proposition that it was possible to build “socialism in one country”.  Indeed, the prominence of the word “international” in the name of this journal is meant to confirm its commitment to a specifically Marxist socialist politics while also emphatically distinguishing itself from the wretched counter-revolutionary legacy of Stalinism.  It is instructive to take this fundamental internationalist perspective of any genuinely Marxist politics as a starting point for any Marxian reflection on questions of migration and borders.  After all, we are left to wrestle with a very meaningful and consequential paradox:  the workers have no country, and yet we live in a world of supposedly separate and distinct “countries,”  – a world partitioned into “national” states.

Brussels also warns about missed targets on relocation of refugees.