It seems that the Loyalist racists have finally gotten their way and have driven the Roma out of Northern Ireland. Despite claims by the Police Service of Northern Ireland that the violence directed against the Romanian families wasn't sectarian, the latest round of Combat18 text and e-mails doing the rounds on the Loyalist estates prove different.
The Roma are a people that have survived centuries of persecution across Europe and have been subjected to numerous pogroms especially in Romania. That they have now chosen to return to a land where they have always been treated as second (if not third) class citizens, rather than remain in Belfast and continue to face the racist violence of recent months, says much about the state of Ulster society.
Following the fall of the Iron Curtain and the demise of the Communist governments that had largely kept the lid on the centuries-old endemic anti-Roma racism, an upsurge in racist persecution in the 80's and 90's drove large numbers of the Roma community into Western Europe. In the UK they faced widespread hostility and long waits for their asylum applications to be processed (s19D of the Race Relations Act 1976 specifically allowed discrimination against Roma in the asylum process that continued to exist until the 2000 Act was passed) but following Romania's accession to the EU in January 2007, they became European citizens and therefore had a legal right to remain.*
Many chose Northern Ireland and, with the sectarian troubles in the province, the right-wing bigots in the Loyalist groups had their hands too full hating the Fenians to bother with the Roma. But the end of the 'Troubles' put an end to that and the racists had to look for new more 'acceptable' targets. In 2004 there were estimated to be around 450 race hate crimes in the country. In the past 12 months this has risen to 1,000.
In April this year Poles were driven from their homes in Belfast in a series of coordinated attacks by Loyalist youths times to coincide with a Northern Ireland-Poland World Cup football match. This follows attacks against the Chinese and Slovak communities in the preceding years. Now it is the Roma and, with the electoral successes of the BNP and the growth of far-right splinter groups, it can only get worse.
*In Italy for example, the Roma have also come under increasing attack and the Berlusconi regime has introduced blatantly racist legislation, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of the Blackshirts.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Friday, 19 June 2009
Migrant Camps in Northern France Bulldozed
It seems that the French authorities are taking the (as they clearly see it) opportunity to up the ante further before the arrival of the No Border Camp in Calais next week by hitting the migrants camps around Calais hard. And maybe even get a bit of practice in before hand for the Camp itself?
At 9 a.m. on the 17th June the bulldozers went into the 'Jungles' at Loon-Plage and Teteghem near Dunkerque, destroying the makeshift homes built of pallets, old doors and tarpaulins, leaving more than a hundred people without even this meagre form of roof over their heads.
In one of the camps the police acted so quickly that the migrants didn't even have enough time to gather together what little they had by way of possessions and they had to leave clothes, money and their copies of the Koran amongst the rubble.
This action was swiftly denounced not only by the local support groups like Terre d'Errance* and MRAP** but also members of the Loon-Plage local council, who had helped finance the rebuilding of the camp after it had been bulldozed previously by the Border police during the severe cold in the middle of December last year.
This comes on top of the news from one unofficial police source that there are now around 1,500 - 1,600 CRS officers at the hotel Suithotel in Coquelles, just outside Calais, which is the semi-permanent CRS base. He bragged that they are going 'one-on-one with the No Border activists. This is total overkill. Clearly No Borders have hit a sensitive spot and every new response from the French state makes them look more and more desperate.
Now, in addition to the ban on sales of petrol and camping gas in the Calais area comes the banning of sales of alcohol - though we are sure that wont apply to les Flics, after all it's thirst work clubbing non-violent protesters. And that is what No Borders activist are, the police and press having still not come forward with any evidence from recent No Border camps despite being challenged to do so.
* Literally 'Land of the Wandering' - a humanitarian organisation that works at the various truck stops camps that exist all along the coast in Northern France and back inland towards Lille.
** Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples).
At 9 a.m. on the 17th June the bulldozers went into the 'Jungles' at Loon-Plage and Teteghem near Dunkerque, destroying the makeshift homes built of pallets, old doors and tarpaulins, leaving more than a hundred people without even this meagre form of roof over their heads.
In one of the camps the police acted so quickly that the migrants didn't even have enough time to gather together what little they had by way of possessions and they had to leave clothes, money and their copies of the Koran amongst the rubble.
This action was swiftly denounced not only by the local support groups like Terre d'Errance* and MRAP** but also members of the Loon-Plage local council, who had helped finance the rebuilding of the camp after it had been bulldozed previously by the Border police during the severe cold in the middle of December last year.
This comes on top of the news from one unofficial police source that there are now around 1,500 - 1,600 CRS officers at the hotel Suithotel in Coquelles, just outside Calais, which is the semi-permanent CRS base. He bragged that they are going 'one-on-one with the No Border activists. This is total overkill. Clearly No Borders have hit a sensitive spot and every new response from the French state makes them look more and more desperate.
Now, in addition to the ban on sales of petrol and camping gas in the Calais area comes the banning of sales of alcohol - though we are sure that wont apply to les Flics, after all it's thirst work clubbing non-violent protesters. And that is what No Borders activist are, the police and press having still not come forward with any evidence from recent No Border camps despite being challenged to do so.
* Literally 'Land of the Wandering' - a humanitarian organisation that works at the various truck stops camps that exist all along the coast in Northern France and back inland towards Lille.
** Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples).
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Yarl's Wood Hunger Strike Picket
An emergency picket of the SERCO (who run Yarl's Wood) office at 22 Hand Court, Camden, WC1V 6JF (near Holborn tube - Map) is being organised for tomorrow (Friday 19th June) at 12 noon in support of the hunger strikers. Please bring banners and instruments!
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.
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)
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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!
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."
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."
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