Amnesty Int'l moors refugee boat protest at Amsterdam EU meeting

Amnesty International protested against Europe's "shocking failure" in dealing with the refugee crisis in a boat at the Scheepvaart Museum in Amsterdam on Monday morning, where European Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs were meeting to discuss migration and security. The refugee crisis was one of the main points on the agenda, and is a key issue of the Dutch turn as EU president. The boat the human rights organization used for the protest was used by 282 Eritreans and Ethiopians to cross from Egypt to Europe in July 2013. The boat was manned by dozens of mannequins and carried a banner which read: "Leaders of Europe, it's not the polls you should worry about. It's the history books."

In addition to the boat protest, Amnesty also took out full page advertisements in several newspapers with the same statement. In the appeal published with the ads, Amnesty director Eduard Nazarksi calls on the EU leaders to take immediate action. "European leaders: Until now you have failed hopelessly.", the appeal reads. "You hired Turkey as a border guard to keep refugees out, by force if necessary. You call on the exhausted and unstable region to do much more, bur refuse to pull out your wallet. You talk concernedly about the bodies washed ashore on the beaches of Europe, without offering alternatives for a safe crossing. You leave millions of people in the cold." The appeal goes on to call for immediate action - finance for decent reception in the region, safe routes and generously take in people from the region.