More French Scare Stories

In another move designed to increase fear amongst Calaisiens, the local préfet Pierre de Bousquet has prohibited the local sale of petrol and gas canisters for the duration of the Camp. Clearly he thinks No Borders is a terrorist organisation. If so, then why isn't he arresting the camp organisers under the catch-all French Anti-Terrorist law of “criminal association in relation to a terrorist undertaking"? More likely he thinks that by denying campers gas to cook with he will starve them out of town. But then again, if they have no petrol to put in the vehicles they arrived in, how will they get away?

The No Border camp has nothing to do with the recent G20 or the anti-NATO camps at Strasbourg as de Bousquet has alleged. He talks about the history of violence at No Border Camps and I wonder where he's getting his history from. In 2007 there were 3 No Borders Camps (Ukraine, Gatwick and the Mexico-US border*) and there was no violence whatsoever at any of those. The Dikili Camp in Turkey in 2008 - totally peaceful again despite heavy-handed police tactics against the campers.

Maybe he's thinking of the Patras Camp last year. Yes, there was one incident where demonstrators clashed with riot police. And that was caused when the police got the bizarre idea into their head that a demonstration that has been publicly announced to be heading from the Camp site to the migrants camp (where conditions resemble a concentration camp, except in a concentration camp there are at least rudimentary medical facilities), was in fact heading to the port to hijack a ship to take the migrants to Italy. How stupid can you get?

They blocked the road to the port (the site of the migrants' camp) and there was a standoff with the march refusing to leave. Eventually the head of the port authority got the police to move aside and the march progressed peacefully to the camp to show its solidarity with the migrants. (Given the fact that any form of demonstration, whether it be a farmers' protest or student demonstration against grant cuts invariably end in a fight with the notorious Greek riot police, his was in fact an eminently peaceful event.)

This is exactly the sort of crass stupidity that the local authorities in Northern France are showing, creating a situation where their predictions of violence becomes more likely simply through their ramping up the levels of police repression.

De Bousquet says they "have intercepted messages in which the organisers have asked people to come with gas protections but also with tear gas bombs," and to "hire people who have experience of emergency medicine." Again lies. It is standard practice (and required under both French and UK law) in any public event to provide medical aid. The Climate Camp does it (and they hold peaceful events), even Glastonbury (which is on at the same time as the Calais Camp) does it.

And on the tear gas front, the messages he says the police have intercepted are clearly the ones that have gone out very recently on the camp organisational e-mail list (not a secret list but one open to everyone involved in any way in the organisation of the camp and which probably numbers nearly 100 members) asking for people with experience in treating tear gas victims to share their knowledge. This is an eminently sensible precaution since it became obvious that the police and prefecture are seeking confrontation whether the Camp is peaceful or not.

Ask the Jungle dwellers whether it matters whether they are engaged in violence or not as they endure being tear gassed as they sleep in their makeshift shelters during the daily early morning CRS riot police raids.

* There was an incident after the US Camp at the Mexico-US event had broken up where the US Border Patrol, without giving an order to disperse or other warning, brutally attacked those on the US side with point-blank rounds of pepper-spray pellets, batons, and swarm tactics, leaving several badly injured. (Link)

Sustained Media Campaign Against The Calais No Border Camp

The location for the Calais No Border Camp and the Camp programme have both been released. This is against the backdrop of a concerted media campaign to demonise No Borders activists as baby-eating monsters who, as one Daily Mail journalist fantasied, have "pledged to help illegal migrants 'tear down border controls and make for Britain'."

Why would we seek to make the situation of the migrants any more precarious that it already is, with their daily harassment and arrest by the French Police. It doesn't make any sense - then again almost all of the press coverage doesn't make any sense!

The mayor of Calais Natacha Bouchart clearly considers herself to be the anvil on which the solution the the migrant 'problem' in Calais will be forged. She has sought at every occasion to demonise the migrants, migrants support groups and of course les Rosbifs, who she considers to be the cause of the migrants gathering in her backyard to try and cross the Channel - never mind the fact that most are fleeing wars and persecution across the globe and do not wish to stay in France a minute longer than they have to because of the persecution they face there from the French police and politicians like Bouchart.

Now the No Border Camp is her latest target of her ire. She has vehemently attacked No Borders in the local press. She has also chosen to turn Calais into a ghost town for the week of the Camp, cancelling the 1900 Parade festivities and inviting her constituents to flee town for the week - all blamed on No Borders. This is the last thing that we want to happen. We want to engage with the Calaisiens, not drive them into the surrounding hills.

She, the préfet of Pas-de-Calais Pierre de Bousquet de Florian and Jean-Philippe Joubert the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor, have sought to paint as dark a picture of the Camp participants as possible.

Bousquet de Florian has said that, "Whenever a No Border Camp was organized, there have been ultra-violent tendencies." At the Gatwick No Border Camp in 2007, attended by more than 300 people, there was only one arrest and that was of a journalist on the Saturday march of more than 500 people, and he was released without charge.

Jean-Philippe Joubert in turn said, "We don't know exactly what this group intend to do." Well maybe if the local authorities has sought to engage more with the organisers rather than be obstructive at every occasion* then maybe they would be more in the picture, Anyway, all they need to do is go to the Camp website where a full programme is laid out.

Bouchart has complained that all they have heard about the camp is an anonymous letter at the beginning of April announcing that we are coming. Yet the camp organisers have been meeting openly in Calais on a regular basis at the Maison Pour Tous, a fact that she has been well aware of. Almost all No Borders' attempts to interact with the local authorities have been rebuffed until the last few weeks when it became obvious that their strategy of ignoring No Borders and maybe we'd go away.

Well we wont. We will be there and we will be seeking to minimise any disruption to the local community. In fact we invite them to come to the Camp and see that we are not the baby-eating monsters depicted in the press. To join with us in a debate about how to reach a sensible, humane solution to the situation in Calais faced both by the migrants and the Calaisiens themselves.


*Philippe Blet, president of the Communauté d'agglomération du Calaisis has consistently been abusive and sought to obstruct negotiations between the Camp organisers and his Commune over the land issue at every turn. And even when the Camp organisers thought they had successfully negotiated a site with the sub-préfecture they found that it had 'mysteriously' been double booked!

Yarl's Wood Update

At 4pm today around 30-40 guards came and took away all the men involved in the sit in protest, as well as two women, who were naked. There was a struggle as they pulled the men away from the women. In the struggle, one of the women’s child (aged 19 months) fell from her back and an officer stepped on the child. Her husband was dragged away injured and bleeding. The women are continuing with their hunger strike.

Hunger Strikers Attacked At Yarl's Wood

Mothers and Fathers at the SERCO-run Yarl's Wood detention centre near Bedford are in the second day of a hunger strike against inadequate medical care, problems over food provision and the continued detention of children there. Since opening in 2001, the Bedfordshire detention centre has been plagued by hunger strikes, self-harm incidents, a suicide and riots. It was severely damaged by fire during disturbances in 2002.

The provision of health care at Yarl's Wood has been the subject of concern and criticism for many years. In 2006 a report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons found that "systems were inadequate and the healthcare service was not geared to meet the needs of those with serious health problems or ... detainees held for longer periods for whom prolonged and uncertain detention was itself likely to be detrimental to their well being." And that "the delivery of healthcare was undermined by a lack of needs assessment, weak audit and clinical governance systems, inadequate staff training in relation to trauma. Mental health care provision was also insufficient."

At that time Yarl's Wood was managed by GSL and health care was sub-contracted out to another private company, Veritas, who were not registered with the Healthcare Commission unlike all public sector health care providers. GSL subsequently lost their contract to run the detention centre to SERCO, with the health care to be provided by a subsidiary SERCO Health. Following the change over, health care provision was again criticised by the Prison's Inspector in 2008 as patchy and that there were no specialist health services for children.

In a report entitled The Arrest and Detention of Children Subject to Immigration Control, written by the Children's Commissioner for England Alan Aynsley-Green, one of the key findings was "substantial evidence that detention is harmful and damaging to children and young people" and that children held at Yarl's Wood regarded it as little more than a prison. Health care provision for minors was again criticised with "particular areas of concern are: the recording and availability of patient information; provision of follow-up care; delivery of immunisations; inadequacy of clinical care; poor care provided to children and adults with mental health needs; and consideration before removal of healthcare needs thereafter." Also criticised was the service to pregnant women.

The main conclusion of the report was that the UK should end the practice of detaining children in immigration prisons in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet the practice continues, as does the criticisms of heath care provision at the detention centre. In yesterday's Daily Mail (of all places!) an article blew the story of the latest protests inside Yarl's Wood, with numerous detainees willing to go on the record with their complaints: a mass outbreak of a virus amongst the children; an epileptic woman who suffers multiple seizures (up to 6 a day) who only has a 14 year old son to look after her who was accused of 'faking it' by staff; pregnant women, some with complications, detained with a total disregard of their well-being; the list goes on. (See also)

One woman was even forced to dial 999 when her five-month old son's temperature shot up and the medical staff at the centre ignored her requests for medical care. "He was really sick and he'd never been in that condition before. I tried telling the staff, and the staff were calling the health care but no one was coming."

On top of that today, during a sit in protest SERCO guards attacked some of the protesters. This was was witnessed over the phone by a migrant support worker who was at the time talking to the wife of Solomom Ojeheonmon, who was quoted in the Mail article. She was unable to re-establish contact with those inside Yarl's Wood, but subsequent communication with the detention centre by Solomom's MP has elicited the admission that force may have been use when "guards removed some of the male ringleaders."

SOAS Anti-union Busting Occupation

Yesterday morning the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) director's office occupied by students and supporters in protest against detention of 9 University cleaners, who had recently won living wage representation in a dawn raid on Friday (June 12).

Five have already been deported, and the others could face deportation within days. One has had a suspected heart attack and was denied access to medical assistance and even water. One was over 6 months pregnant. Many have families who have no idea of their whereabouts.

The cleaners won the London Living Wage and trade union representation after a successful “Justice for Cleaners” campaign that united workers of all backgrounds and student activists. Many believe the raid is managers’ “revenge” for the campaign.

Immigration officers were called in by cleaning contractor ISS, even though it has employed many of the cleaners for years. Cleaning staff were told to attend an ‘emergency staff meeting’ at 6.30am on Friday.

This was used as a false pretext to lure the cleaners into a closed space from which the immigration officers were hiding to arrest them.

More than 40 officers were dressed in full riot gear and aggressively undertook interrogations and then escorted them to the detention centre. Neither legal representation nor union support were present due to the secrecy surrounding the action. Many were unable to communicate let alone fully understand what was taking place due to the denial of interpreters.

SOAS management were complicit in the immigration raid by enabling the officers to hide in the meeting room beforehand and giving no warning to them.

The cleaners were interviewed one by one. They were allowed no legal or trade union representation, or even a translator (many are native Spanish speakers).

The cleaners are members of the Unison union at SOAS. They recently went out on strike (Thursday 28 May) to protest the sacking of cleaner and union activist Jose Stalin Bermudez.

The occupation has issued a list of demands to SOAS management:

1. We call on the directorate to request the secretary of state to immediately release the detainees and to prevent the deportation of the three cleaners who are still in detention in the UK.
2. For the directorate to release a public statement condemning what has happened to the SOAS cleaners and calling for their immediate release and return.
3. To campaign for the return of the cleaners who have already been deported.
4. To bring all contract staff in house. SOAS should not use contractors, ISS or others.
5. To keep immigration officers from entering campus under ANY circumstances or other forms of collaboration with immigration or police. Universities are for education not for state violence and oppression.
6. A year's wage as reparations for all detained and deported staff.
7. To hold accountable SOAS managers who were complicit in facilitating the raid and detention of the cleaners, refusing to aid a sick worker and a pregnant woman.
8. To reinstate Jose Stalin Bermudez, the SOAS UNISON branch chair.
9. To respect the right to organise in Trade Unions unimpeded.
10. To provide space and resources for a public meeting to build support for the SOAS 9 and other migrants, in education and beyond, affected by immigration control and racism.
11. Amnesty for all those involved.

One of the detained cleaners stated, “We’re honest people not animals. We are just here to earn an honest living for our families. SOAS management are being unfair.”

The same tactic has been widely used against undocumented migrants in low paid jobs. The fact is that the private sector companies that bid for sub-contracting tenders in the service sector rely on employing people on minimum wages (and even below that if they can get away with it, as they often do) at unsociable hours. And the people that tend to go for these are undocumented workers who can get no other work. The companies know this and employ them specifically because they are marginalised and vulnerable; ripe for exploitation as they cannot stick up for their rights. And when they dare to do just that, these companies feel no qualms about turning the workers into the UKBA, just as the cleaning contractor ISS did with tube cleaners in their employ when they went on strike, with the result that key activists were deported. This is the use of immigration law for union busting.

Unrest at Brook House IRC

A disturbance broke out last night just after 10:30pm at Brook House detention centre at Gatwick Airport. Up to 30 detainees were believed to be involved in setting a fire in an exercise area and causing other minor damaged. The cause of their grievances is not known at present. Police and Fire crews were in attendance and it is believed Prison service 'Tornado' teams were also involved in restoring order. A second fire is also believed to have been started when one of the detainees setting fire to his bedding this (Saturday) afternoon.

Brook House is a purpose-built Category B Prison Service standard building designed to hold up to 426 male detainees prior to their deportation. It is run by G4S, who also manage HMP Parc (and a further 3 IRCs and £ prisons under the guise of its subsidiary GSL) and was opened in March this year as part of a planned large-scale extension to the detention estate over the next couple of years.

Colnbrook IRC Heavily Criticised

The Colnbrook high security detention centre near Heathrow run by SERCO has been heavily criticised by the Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers in a new inspection report.

Anne Owers is quoted as saying, "Overall, we found little improvement at Colnbrook since our last visit. Indeed, there was evidence of the centre taking inappropriate steps to manage some of the challenges it faces; in particular, there were examples of separation being misused and the vulnerable persons unit was not fit for purpose.

"A significant number of complaints, including allegations of staff bullying, were not adequately investigated and replies lacked detail." And that "staff and managers readily admitted that Colnbrook was struggling to cope."

The full announced inspection took place last November and followed a similar critical report the previous year.

Amongst the criticisms were:

• Between 80% and 90% of the immigration removal centre (IRC) population were former prisoners. More than a third in our survey reported spending more than four hours in an escort van. Vehicles often arrived late. There were a significant number of night-time journeys, and only 32% of respondents reported that they had been treated well by escort staff, against an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) comparator of 50%.

• Only 37% of survey respondents said that they had been well treated by reception staff, which compared poorly with the IRC comparator of 59%.

• Only 30% of the detainees surveyed said that they felt safe on their first night.

• Overall, there was a relatively poor standard of staff-detainee relationships and, whilst 52% of detainees saying that most staff treated them with respect, similar to the figure at the previous inspection, the figure was significantly lower than the IRC comparator of 70%.

• 49% of detainees said that they had been victimised by another detainee or group of detainees, which was significantly worse than the 30% comparator and also significantly worse than the 40% figure reported at the previous inspection. Thirty-four per cent said that they had felt threatened or intimidated by a member of staff, which was significantly worse than the 23% comparator. In line with the centre’s internal survey, our survey indicated a reluctance to report bullying. Only 48% of detainees who said that they had been victimised by detainees or staff said that they had reported it. This was significantly worse than the 63% comparator in the previous survey.

• Colnbrook's control and restraint (C&R) was heavily criticised for being oppressive: There was insufficient de-escalation of use of force incidents, and the monitoring of these incidents was inadequate. Kept too long in isolation after incident de-escalated. Complaints were inadequately investigated. The standard of replies was poor, many were not answered within the prescribed timescale and the standard of replies was insufficiently monitored.

• Rule 40 (removal from association in the interests of security or safety) was regularly used as punishment. The Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme used as system of punishment rather than as the system of reward as it was designed to be.

• The unit for vulnerable detainees was an oppressive and degrading environment. It offered no privacy and was an oppressive and degrading environment. Arrangements for the support of potentially suicidal or self-harming detainees were inadequate, with poor documentation, and some inappropriate separation of vulnerable detainees. Use of force had increased and was not always well managed.

• The Short term Holding Facility (STHF) had a restricted regime and detainees were locked up for 23 hours a day, with little access to information. Despite previous inspectorate recommendations, it continued to hold women in wholly inappropriate conditions, some of them extremely distressed, or co-located with male ex-prisoners.

• Restraints used during all visits to outside medical or dental facilities irrespective of likelihood of flight posed by detainee.

• There was relatively poor access to expert legal advice, with just over half of detainees surveyed indicating that they had a solicitor, which was significantly worse than the IRC comparator of 61%.

• Bail applications were heard through the on-site video suite but UKBA summaries arrived by post - often late, only in English and limited ability to challenge court's assumptions.