Symbolic refugee graves are set up in front of the Bundestag during a protest in Berlin, Germany, June 21, 2015. (Reuters / Stringer)
Some 5,000 activists in Berlin rallied in front of Reichstag and dug at least one hundred graves to express their solidarity with asylum seekers, who have died trying to reach Europe after fleeing war and persecution in their home countries.
The rally was organized by the Center for Political Beauty; a group, which says it wants to “re-transform Europe into a continent of immigration.” The organization used the controversial slogan: “The Dead Are Coming,” while they have also made art works to spread their message.
The protest, which took place a day after UN World Refugee Day, gathered at least 5,000 people, according to police estimates. An officer told AFP that a “small number” of people were arrested for minor offences.
The activists, many of them dressed in black, carried improvised coffins, which apparently symbolize the caskets of asylum seekers who have died while trying to make their way to Europe.
“Everyone can see that we are peaceful and that we want to change something – to stop the dying [of migrants] in the Mediterranean Sea,” one of protestors told Der Tagesspiegel newspaper.
They also managed to dig about a hundred small ‘graves’ with wooden crosses inscribed with messages such as, “Borders Kill,” “Stop Deportations,” “Fortresses Fall” and the “EU kills.”
“They [the German authorities] must understand that the people dying in the Mediterranean Sea are just a part of our lives,” one of the demonstrators told RT.
Ruptly producer Belal Awad was pepper sprayed by police officers during the rally, RT’s video agency said on Twitter.
“I just popped my pepper spray cherry, I guess I was in their way,” Awad wrote on Facebook after the attack.
The European Union is struggling with the growing problems of migrants who are coming from war-stricken counties. The European Commission (EC) is planning to resettle about 40,000 people, which includes 24,000 from Italy and 16,000 from Greece in 23 EU member states over the next two years.
Earlier in June, Amnesty International said that governments around the world had effectively let thousands of people, who are fleeing wars in Africa and the Middle East, die by failing to provide them with basic human protection.
The total number of forcibly displaced people around the globe is now thought to be above 50 million.
The human rights group called on the whole of Europe to share the burden of dealing with the refugee crisis, saying that Brussels has “pushed them back into the sea rather than resettle them.”
