No-go area
A "no-go area" or a "no-go zone" is an area in a town or region that is barricaded off to civil or military authorities by a force such as a paramilitary, or an area that is barred to certain individuals or groups. The term has also been used to refer to areas:
- Undergoing insurgency where the ruling authorities have lost control and are unable to enforce their sovereignty;
- That are inhabited by a parallel society which has its own laws and is controlled by violent non-state actors.
There has been controversy about the existence of no-go zones in various European countries, such as France and Sweden, as well as the United States. Some politicians and commentators have falsely claimed the existence of no-go zones in areas with large populations of Muslims and immigrants, where, they claim, national law has been displaced by sharia law or where there is lawlessness. Some have later recanted these statements, while others have faced press scrutiny for their allegations.
Historical no-go areas
Hong Kong
With no government enforcement from the British colonial government aside from a few raids by the Hong Kong Police, the Kowloon Walled City became a haven for crime and drugs. It was only during a 1959 trial for a murder that occurred within the Walled City that the Hong Kong government was ruled to have jurisdiction there. By this time, however, the Walled City was virtually ruled by the organised crime syndicates known as Triads. Beginning in the 1950s, Triad groups such as the 14K and Sun Yee On gained a stranglehold on the Walled City's countless brothels, gambling parlors, and opium dens. The Walled City had become such a haven for criminals that police would venture into it only in large groups.Mexico
Mozambique
During the Mozambican War of Independence, the Mozambique Liberation Front set up and defended no-go "liberated zones" in the north of the country.Northern Ireland
During the Troubles, the term was applied to urban areas in Northern Ireland where the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army could not operate openly. Between 1969 and 1972, Irish nationalist/republican neighborhoods in Belfast and Derry were sealed off with barricades by residents. The areas were policed by vigilantes and both Official and Provisional factions of the Irish Republican Army operated openly. The most notable no-go area was called Free Derry.The areas' existence was a challenge to the authority of the British government. On 31 July 1972, the British Army demolished the barricades and re-established control in Operation Motorman. It was the biggest British military operation since the Suez Crisis. Although the areas were no longer barricaded, they remained areas where the British security forces found it difficult to operate and were regularly attacked. As a result, they entered only in armored convoys and in certain circumstances, such as to launch house raids. Police presence in these areas remained contentious into the 2000s and the main republican political party, Sinn Féin, refused to support the police. In 2007, however, the party voted to support the new Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Pakistan
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas were in actuality no-go areas for the Pakistani authorities, where the Pakistani police could not enter. The situation was changed temporarily with the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, when the Pakistani government was supported by U.S. military forces. Currently FATA is no more a "no-go area" as it has been merged with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.Rhodesia
The term "no-go area" has a military origin and was first used in the context of the Bush War in Rhodesia. The war was fought in the 1960s and 1970s between the army of the predominantly white minority Rhodesian government and black nationalist groups.The initial military strategy of the government was to seal the borders to prevent assistance to the guerrillas from other countries. However, with the end of Portuguese colonial rule in Angola and Mozambique, and especially the arrival of some 500,000 Cuban armed forces and tens of thousands of Soviet troops, this became untenable and the white minority government adopted an alternative strategy. This involved defending only key economic areas, transport links, and the white civilian population. The government lost control of the rest of the country to the guerilla forces, but carried out counter-guerilla operations including "free-fire attacks" in the so-called "no-go areas," where white civilians were advised not to go.
Venezuela
In 2013, the Venezuelan government negotiated with large criminal gangs on how to prevent violence and agreed to set up demilitarized areas as "peace zones". The concept behind the zones was to provide gang members with economic resources and construction materials in exchange for the surrender of the gang's weapons, with the understanding that the resources would be used to repair local infrastructure. The Venezuelan government hoped that through this process, gang members would disarm and become law-abiding and productive members of society. In addition, the then-deputy Minister of the Interior reportedly agreed verbally to avoid police patrols within the zones, should the gangs agree to disarm. The plan backfired as the gang members used the money and resources given to them by the government in exchange for their weapons to acquire more powerful weapons and began committing yet more crimes and violence within the zones. According to InSight Crime, there are over a dozen mega-gangs in Venezuela, with some having up to 300 members.Alleged contemporary no-go areas
Belgium
In the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks, the Molenbeek municipality in Brussels was described in many media reports as a "no-go area", where gang violence and Islamic fundamentalism had fed on Molenbeek's marginalisation, despair and resentment of authority. In 2015 Belgium's home affairs minister said that the government did not "have control of the situation in Molenbeek" and that terrorists' links to this district were a "gigantic problem". Other academics, commentators, journalists and residents have contested the description of Molenbeek as a no-go zone.Brazil
Some slum areas in Brazil, most notably in Rio de Janeiro State, are controlled by gangs with automatic weapons. Police and investigative reporters have been tortured and killed there, such as Tim Lopes in 2002. Attempts at clearing up such areas have led to security crises in Rio as well as in the State of São Paulo. These organized crime organizations are known in Brazil as "Factions", the two largest are the PCC or "First Command of the Capital" in English from São Paulo, and the Comando Vermelho, "Red Command" in English, a faction from the Rio de Janeiro.France
It has been falsely claimed that France has Muslim-only no-go zones that are under sharia law.An early usage of the term regarding Europe was in a 2002 opinion piece by David Ignatius in The New York Times, where he wrote about France, "Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders." Ignatius said the violence resulting in the no-go zone had come about due to inequality and racism directed towards French people of colour. La Courneuve, a poverty-stricken municipality in the Paris region whose residents felt the authorities had neglected them due to racism - was described by police as a no-go zone for officers without reinforcements.
In 2010, Raphaël Stainville of French newspaper Le Figaro called certain neighborhoods of the southern city Perpignan "veritable lawless zones", saying they had become too dangerous to travel in at night. He added that the same was true in parts of Béziers and Nîmes. In 2012,, the mayor of the French city Amiens, in the wake of several riots, called the northern part of his city a lawless zone, where one could no longer order a pizza or call for a doctor. The head of a local association said institutional violence had contributed to the tensions resulting in the no-go zone. In 2014, Fabrice Balanche, a scholar of the Middle East, labelled the northern city of Roubaix, as well as parts of Marseille, "mini-Islamic states", saying that the authority of the state is completely absent there. In 2005 France's domestic intelligence network, the Renseignements Generaux, identified 150 "no-go zones" around the country where police would not enter without reinforcements. Christopher Dickey, writing in Newsweek, said the situation had arisen due to racism towards immigrants. The New Republic said no-go zones had developed in France due to a failure to integrate immigrants from France's former colonies, claiming the country had not allowed people of colour to share in the 'blessings of liberty, equality and fraternity'.
In January 2015, after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, various American media, including the news cable channels Fox News and CNN, described the existence of no-go zones across Europe and in France in particular. Both networks were criticized for these statements, and anchors on both networks later apologized for the mistaken characterizations. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said that she intended to sue Fox News for its statements.
In 2016 Sevran, a Paris commune near Charles de Gaulle airport, in which the origins of the majority of the residents are from outside France and claimed by journalist David Chazan to be a predominantly Muslim area, was alleged by women's rights campaigners to be a no-go zone for women, where women are unofficially banned from public spaces by men. Others, including other women's rights campaigners, disputed this.
Germany
A sociology paper published in 2009 said that right-wing extremists had been discussing the creation of no-go areas in Western Europe since the 1980s. It described attempts to create "national liberated zones" in Germany: "'no-go-areas', which are areas dominated by neo-Nazis," attributing their appeal in the former DDR to "the unmet promises of modernisation and the poor socio-cultural conditions that offer no perspectives to young people". Whether or not Germany actually had no-go zones was disputed: the paper concluded "according to... state officials, the police and other relevant institutions, does not actually exist... by contrast, the national press in Germany, various civic associations, and also experts acknowledge and give examples of the existence of no-go areas."In a February 2018 interview, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that there are no-go areas in Germany, saying, "There are such areas and one has to call them by their name and do something about them." This came in the context of arguing for a zero-tolerance policy in German policing.
Kenya
In Kenya, the ongoing conflict in Somalia, where the terrorist organization al-Shabaab controls territory, has severely affected the security situation even on the Kenyan side of the border. There have been terrorist attacks and kidnappings in Kenya followed by a Kenyan intervention, Operation Linda Nchi, and police crackdowns. These have affected counties bordering Somalia and in Nairobi, the suburb of Eastleigh, which is inhabited mostly by Somalis. Already in 2004, Eastleigh was described as a no-go zone for Kenyan authorities after dark.Israel and Palestine
The Israeli Defence Forces maintains a border zone on the Gaza strip and declares "no-go zones", where they may use lethal force to enforce the security exclusion zone. An IDF spokesman said that "residents of the Gaza Strip are required not to come any closer than 300 meters from the security fence", although there is some allowance for farmers to approach up to 100 meters if they do so on foot only. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the no-go zones include about 30% of the arable land in the Gaza strip, and a small number of residents farm in the exclusion zones despite the risk of military action. Unlike a legal border zone, the no-go zone is declared unilaterally in occupied territory, without acknowledgement or cooperation of Palestinian authorities, and as such can be considered a disputed no-go zone. It is considered unlawful by the Swedish organization Diakonia.South Africa
The term "no-go zone" has been informally applied to high-crime neighborhoods in South African cities. In South Africa, the apartheid policy created segregated neighborhoods where whites risked being removed or victimized in black-only neighborhoods and vice versa. Because of the bantustan system, many urban inhabitants lived in the city illegally per apartheid laws. For example, in Cape Town, Cape Flats was a neighborhood where many of those evicted were relocated. It became a "no-go area" as it was controlled by criminal gangs. However, many of these areas have experienced significant gentrification; for example, Woodstock in Cape Town has experience significant urban renewal and cannot be described as a no-go zone anymore. In 2010, a housing complex comprising a number of city blocks in Atlantis, Western Cape were described as a "no-go zone for police conducting raids", and ambulances could not enter without police escort. In 2014, the situation had improved, and after convictions of several gang members, a police official said that "legislation concerning organised crime was beginning to work". In 2018, a gang war in Parkwood, Cape Town was reported to turn the area into a "no-go zone", although a minister visited the area to ensure policing continues.United States
Some American political figures, including Tony Perkins and Jim Newberger, have falsely claimed that some communities within the United States are either governed by Sharia law or are Muslim-controlled no-go zones.In June 2020, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was established as a "No Cop Co-op."