Set Our Children Free

In September 2008, the UK government finally removed its immigration opt-out to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and committed to introducing a duty on the UK Border Agency equivalent to section 11 of the Children Act 2004, which requires it to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

Yet the government continue to imprison children for weeks on end, and at one detention centre (Yarl's Wood) over 40% of children detained are eventually released without being deported. In fact, on 27 December 2008, 40 children were in detention – 20 of them had been in detention for over two weeks despite 'implementing' the Convention in full.

At the weekend, the Welsh Refugee Council hit the headlines highlighting just this point, criticising the government's treatment of the children of asylum seekers in detention as 'abusive' and 'dehumanising' and claiming it continues to be in breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Mike Lewis, the chief executive of the WRC, was quoted as saying, "We're not talking about 15 year olds. We're talking about three and four year olds, babies even. We've got stories of children who haven't been fed all day in this process. They then go into these places [detention centres] where they could be there for months while their claims are sorted out. I don't think you could make it any more dehumanising really".

According to Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID), in a "Briefing Paper on Children and Immigration Detention" (Feb '09), every year around 2,000 children (the UK government refuses to release the exact numbers) are detained for the purposes of 'immigration control', under exactly the same conditions as adults. The government justifies their detention by arguing that they would abscond if released or that their removal from the country is imminent.

Yet "there is no evidence that families are systematically at risk of absconding if they are not detained. The education and health needs of children, friendship ties and the desire to be granted status in the UK all work against families ‘disappearing’."

The BID report goes on to list a number 'Key concerns about the detention of children':

• The impact of detention on a child’s physical and mental health
• Safeguards to keep children from harm in detention are not meaningful
• Decisions to detain are not subject to automatic judicial oversight
• Detention is not used as a last resort or for the shortest possible time
• The detention of children is not properly monitored.

As a sop to these concerns, shared by amongst others the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Children’s Commissioner for England, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, and in an attempt to postpone the inevitable, the government has been piloting so-called 'alternatives to detention for families' in Ashford, Kent (which ended in summer 2008) and Glasgow (to start spring 2009).

Already there are a number of reports about the adverse effects of this scheme on those families that were involved in the first pilot. As BID conclude in their report, "until these commitments lead the government to accept that the detention of children in itself is incompatible with the promotion of their welfare, we believe that the continued detention of children in the UK is contrary to these obligations."

1 In 9 People Can't Be Wrong?

Last Wednesday the Office of National Statistics released, as it does most days, a whole tranche of statistics - 22 in all to be exact. In amongst them was a news release entitled "Population by Country of Birth and Nationality from the Annual Population Survey". Now, the fact that the right wing press took up the statistic that roughly 12% (more than 1 in 9) of those resident in the UK being born in foreign countries is clearly uncomfortable for someone who clearly see's himself as Labour's very own Enoch, Powell that is. However, his lack of a clear grasp of the situation so obviously shows that he lacks the old Tory despot's intellectual credentials.

In the same report, the ONS also released figures for the estimated population resident in the UK by nationality (roughly 7% or 1 in 14), at the same time as making it perfectly clear the reasoning behind the ONS' own preference for the figures by country of birth: "It is possible that an individual’s nationality may change, but the respondent’s country of birth cannot change. This means that country of birth gives a more robust estimate of change over time." Perfectly clear as a far as we can see.

On top of that Woolas has made a number of other accusations against the ONS:

• about a press release running to 9 pages highlighting the 1 in 9 figure as the main finding (surely he can't be refering to the very same 8 page excel spreadsheet and 1 page of accompanying notes containing these figures but that nowhere highlights anything?);
• something about them "out of schedule, highlight(ing) the figure two weeks earlier because it was "topical"". (Where did they highlight this Phil? Please tell us.);
• and that the release was "at best, naive or, at worst, sinister."

Me thinks Phil Woolas doth protest too much.

Now it goes against the grain to say this, but you have to agree with what Andrew Green of the hated MigrationWatch said, “To imply that there is some sinister motive in simply telling the truth is astonishing” (most of the rest of what Green also had to say on the subject was of course complete twaddle). Maybe the reason that the ONS was 'highlighting' this Phil was because they were only set up on 1 April 2008 and that this was the first time they had released an analysis of this type? And that it's you that's the fool not them?

It just seems that every time Woolas opens his mouth, he appears to be saying that "it's everyone else that's the racist, not me". Get a grip Phil, these are statistics. It's you and the right wing tabloids that are putting them to sinister use, not the ONS.

But then again, he's right to be worried the implications as it's likely that he'll loose his seat at the next election if the BNP take away sufficient numbers of the 'traditional' Labour voters that voted for him last time round; even if he is, as on blog described him, "one of those delightful left-wing racists history throws up from time to time"?

Terre D'errance Update

On Saturday evening Terre D'errence called a meeting in Norrent-Fontes to show solidarity with their arrested member Monique Pouille. Monique was arrested on Wednesday apparently as part of an investigation into a network of 'people traffickers' operating at the truck stop at Saint-Hilaire-Cottes. [see 26 Feb post]

Present at the meeting were members and officials of Terre D'errance, C'SUR, La Belle Etoile and a number of the other migrant support groups that operate in the North West of France, local Green MEP Hélène Flautre and the mayors of Norrent-Fontes, Lillers and Isbergues. Strong statements of support for Monique and against the harassment of local humanitarian groups by the police were made.

Since her arrest, it has been discovered that the police had been monitoring the phones of the entire local Terre D’errance group, and as a result Terre D’errance has officially declared war on the government, police and judicial authorities. "I had always co-operated with the police and the RG [Renseignements Généraux - similar to the Special Branch], when they wanted information about the camp, but with the problems I have had, I have nothing to say to them!", as Monique stated at the meeting, raising loud applause.

[from: Lille newspaper Nord Éclair]

More Arrests In Northern France

Fifteen Eritrean migrants and a volunteer from Terre d'errance (loosely 'Earth Wandering'), an association helping migrants in the Northern France, were arrested on Wednesday 25th at Norrent-Fontes, near Béthune in NW France.

On the route to England, the truck stop at St Hilaire-Cottes on the A26 is a base for migrants trying to get across the Channel and it is regularly targeted by Border police for raids. Following the arrest of the 15 Eritreans at the Norrent-Fontes camp by Border police, the police went to the home of Monique Pouille, a Terre d’errance volunteer, who had regularly been helping migrants in the area. In their possession was a warrant for Monique's arrest for the "flagrant crime of assisting illegal immigrants", to quote the police. They also searched her house and took away 3 laptops belonging to migrants whose batteries she had been charging. All those arrested were taken to the detention centre at Coquelles near Calais.

Nan Suel, one of the managers at Terre D’errance in Norrent-Fontes, expressed his ‘surprise’ and ‘incomprehension’ . It’s the first time that a volunteer from the association has been arrested, though volunteers from other migrant support groups have recently been suffering increasing police harassment and a number have been arrested.

Later that afternoon, dozens of people from Steenvoorde, Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk and Norrent-Fontes gathered around the Border police facility at the detention centre to protest the arrests. Monique was finally released after 10 hours in police custody.

Terre D'errance blog
There is also a short film in English which features Monique on France 24 (though there is an annoyingly regular use of the term 'illegal' immigrant)

No Borders Sunday Roast 8th March

No Borders Brighton are holding a fund-raising vegan Sunday roast on Sunday 8th March at the Cowley Club. We will be serving from 2pm onwards and the event is open to 12 London Road Social Club members and their guests.

Solidarity Demonstration At The Italian Embassy Thursday 26th February

There will be a picket of the Italian Embassy in solidarity with the Lampedusa migrants on hunger strike and with the residents of Lampedusa struggling against the island being turned into one massive concentration camp for migrants. The picket is in response to the recent mass hunger strikes by the migrants against their deportation to Tunisia and against the inhumane treatement they have suffered. There have also been at least 11 recent suicide attempts and on 17th February riots broke out in the Lampedusa detention centre, resulting in half of it being destroyed by fire. The migrants were kept locked inside the burning centre by police and around 80 people (60 migrants and 20 police officers) were injured. Many also suffered from smoke inhalation but only a handful were allowed out to be traeted in the local medical centre.

The picket has been called by No Borders London and is supported by No Borders UK groups, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, SOAS Detainee Support Group, National Coalition of Anit-Deportation Campaigns, Campaign Against Immigration Controls and No One Is Illegal.

Thursday 26th February
from 4.30pm to 6.00pm

14 Kings Yard
London W1K 4EH

Meet at the corner with Davies Street
(nearest tube: Bond Street)

SOLIDARITY TO THE MIGRANTS AND THE RESIDENTS IN LAMPEDUSA -
FOR AN END TO DETENTION AND FORCED EXPULSIONS
NO ONE IS ILLEGAL! FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT FOR ALL.

For an up-to-date Lampedusa timeline see: Migreurop

No Borders Brighton Day School Saturday 7th March

No Borders Brighton are holding a Day School on Saturday 7th March at the Cowley Club, 12 London Road, Brighton.

Programme:

12-1.30 pm Workshop by a member of Medical Justice

1.30-2.30 pm Tasty vegan lunch (£2.50)

2.30 - 3.30 pm Talk by MJ of Brighton Voices in Exile community outreach project

3.30 - 5 pm Workshop on the situation in Calais since the closing of the Sangatte HCR centre in 2002 including the short film "No Comment" about the life of migrants in Calais. Follow up discussion comparing the current situation in France with that in the UK.

There will also be a photo exhibition of work by activist photographer Julie Rebouillat taken in Calais during the summer of 2008.