Something we found at the Daily Mash. Not to everyone's taste but we found it amusing:
The government is to cut the number of immigrants applying for UK citizenship by teaching them how to read the Daily Mail, it has been confirmed.
Ministers believe that using the newspaper as the main teaching resource in English language classes should persuade more than 90% of applicants to go straight back home.
The plan, described by BNP leader Nick Griffin as a 'stroke of genius', will see each new immigrant handed 10 copies of the Daily Mail, a box of high-strength paracetamol and a bucket.
Rahman Ahmed, a carpenter from a small village in northern Bangladesh who signed up to the pilot programme, revealed it took him just 90 seconds to realise he had made a 'terrible, terrible mistake'.
Standing at the the check-in queue at Heathrow airport, he said: "It not just fact that you all obviously hate me - I prepared for that - it that so many of you seem fascinated with fatness or thinness of stupid, talentless women.
"Then I notice how you all in constant panic about whether or not to eat tomatoes. Some days they are best thing ever, other days they kill you. I am thinking 'this is not product of healthy brain'."
He added: "And I afraid I simply cannot live in country where people like Jan Moir are not fed to ravenous leopards in front of large, happy crowd."
Ahmed's friend and fellow student Khaled Assani said: "After five minutes I have to look up my Bengali-English dictionary for phrase 'demented fascist'. I go home now. Leave me be."
Meanwhile officials insist the newspaper's attitude to women should be particularly effective in persuading the wives and fiancées of immigrants to attempt to swim back to the country of their birth if they cannot afford the air fare.
A Home Office spokesman said: "To women from muslim countries, the Daily Mail should makes Islamic fundamentalism seem like a Germaine Greer seminar on the power of the vagina."
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
When Deportation Is Welcome?
You might remember back in March our story 'Shock Horror: UKBA Refuse To Lock People Up!' about two Indian nationals who had been sleeping rough on the suburban streets of Leicester throughout the recent harsh winter, surviving on the handouts of locals. Sarbjit Singh and Ashok Masah were destitute, having lost their passports and all other forms of identity and consequently were being refused entry back into India even if they could have afforded the airfare. The UK Borders Agency were also refusing to become involved and it took a (less than supportive) campaign by the local Leicester Mercury and the subsequent involvement of local MP Keith Vaz to set the bureaucratic wheels in motion.
Now the 2 men have finally been detained by the UKBA, which is apparently good news for Mr Singh as the Indian High Commission at long last have arranged a passport for him. However, for Mr Masah things appear to be less rosy as he evidently remains intent on continuing to refuse to communicate, let alone cooperate, with the authorities. It not even known whether he wished to return to India or not. Consequently the Indian government will not issue him with travel documents and he will remain in immigration limbo, banged up in a detention centre somewhere in England.
Now the 2 men have finally been detained by the UKBA, which is apparently good news for Mr Singh as the Indian High Commission at long last have arranged a passport for him. However, for Mr Masah things appear to be less rosy as he evidently remains intent on continuing to refuse to communicate, let alone cooperate, with the authorities. It not even known whether he wished to return to India or not. Consequently the Indian government will not issue him with travel documents and he will remain in immigration limbo, banged up in a detention centre somewhere in England.
Two Days Of Action Against Racist Press
Autonomous, decentralised actions and protests against racist press across the UK.
2nd – 3rd July 2010
Sick of being lied to?
Border controls, detention centres, surveillance cameras, anti-terrorist laws, restrictions on movement, militarisation and never-ending wars… Britain in 2010 is a fortress state much like George Orwell’s 1984. One difference is that the Ministry of Propaganda is now privatised. The mainstream/corporate media manufacture a culture of hatred and fear: fear of migrants, fear of strangers, fear of difference, fear thy neighbour, fear each other. And they do so by twisting facts and recycling politicians’ lies: Migrants are the cause of unemployment and inflation; Muslims are a threat to democracy; Gypsies are stealing ‘our’ land; and so on and so forth. The real causes (profit-driven capitalism and state repression) are sidestepped as irrelevant little details.
Sick of being lied about?
We are workers, migrants, refugees, Africans, East Europeans, Muslims, youths, single mums, queers, unemployed, lefties, anarchists… We are ordinary people sick of being lied about. We are not ‘others’ and we have the right to be here. We are here because you were there, plundering our countries and killing our planet, waging wars and arming dictators. The mainstream/corporate media have always sided with those in power, justifying their crimes and demonising their victims, softening up their brutality and blaming others. The result is that much-repeated lies become given facts and the victims of this screwed-up system are blamed for it.
It ain’t just about headlines
The tabloids’ rants against migrants, travellers and Muslims are nothing new. The Daily Mail’s campaign against Russian Jewish immigrants helped pave the way for Britian’s first ever immigration law, the Aliens Act of 1905. In the 1930s, the Mail supported Mussolini and Hitler (“Adolf the Great”), shouted “Hurrah!” for Moseley’s fascist Blackshirts and campaigned against the “outrage” of Jewish refugees “pouring in” from Nazi Germany.
With the alarming rise of the English Defence League and the BNP, who are increasingly treated less hostilely by journalists and editors across the industry, history needs to be relearned. It’s the headlines that grab our attention, but it’s the column inches that mount up. This same uncritical coverage has allowed the draconian ‘anti-terror’ policies to be accepted as normal; has supported the state’s repression of Muslims and others in the name of ‘extremism’; and created a general climate of fear in which immigration has become a scapegoat for just about every social and economic problem you can think of. Politicians capitalise on this scaremongering and newspapers sell it. The consequences are grave.
All the way down
The Daily Mail is just the most obvious symbol of media racism. Porn-king Richard Desmond’s Daily Star and Daily Express match it blow for blow in hate-speech. But even liberal papers like The Guardian and The Independent, or the ‘impartial’ BBC, share the same biases: anti-immigration, pro-government, pro-war… although in more subtle ways. When the former immigration minister Phil Woolas, calling for a cap on immigration and population growth and justifying his agenda by the economic crisis and British people’s ‘worries’, when he is given prime coverage by The Times and BBC, while his critics are silenced or hardly mentioned, one must ask: was this what a racist minister wanted to say through stupid media, or what racist media wanted to say through a stupid minister? Capitalism and the state feed on fear; the racist press supplies the poison.
Do something about it!
We are calling upon all concerned groups and individuals to stand up to counter fear with action on the 2nd and 3rd July. Let us put the racist press in the spotlight. From owners, journalists and editors to printers and distribution hubs, they are all guilty of turning journalism into hate- and scaremongering.
For more information, see http://pressaction.wordpress.com
To contact us, please email pressaction(at-)riseup.net
2nd – 3rd July 2010
Sick of being lied to?
Border controls, detention centres, surveillance cameras, anti-terrorist laws, restrictions on movement, militarisation and never-ending wars… Britain in 2010 is a fortress state much like George Orwell’s 1984. One difference is that the Ministry of Propaganda is now privatised. The mainstream/corporate media manufacture a culture of hatred and fear: fear of migrants, fear of strangers, fear of difference, fear thy neighbour, fear each other. And they do so by twisting facts and recycling politicians’ lies: Migrants are the cause of unemployment and inflation; Muslims are a threat to democracy; Gypsies are stealing ‘our’ land; and so on and so forth. The real causes (profit-driven capitalism and state repression) are sidestepped as irrelevant little details.
Sick of being lied about?
We are workers, migrants, refugees, Africans, East Europeans, Muslims, youths, single mums, queers, unemployed, lefties, anarchists… We are ordinary people sick of being lied about. We are not ‘others’ and we have the right to be here. We are here because you were there, plundering our countries and killing our planet, waging wars and arming dictators. The mainstream/corporate media have always sided with those in power, justifying their crimes and demonising their victims, softening up their brutality and blaming others. The result is that much-repeated lies become given facts and the victims of this screwed-up system are blamed for it.
It ain’t just about headlines
The tabloids’ rants against migrants, travellers and Muslims are nothing new. The Daily Mail’s campaign against Russian Jewish immigrants helped pave the way for Britian’s first ever immigration law, the Aliens Act of 1905. In the 1930s, the Mail supported Mussolini and Hitler (“Adolf the Great”), shouted “Hurrah!” for Moseley’s fascist Blackshirts and campaigned against the “outrage” of Jewish refugees “pouring in” from Nazi Germany.
With the alarming rise of the English Defence League and the BNP, who are increasingly treated less hostilely by journalists and editors across the industry, history needs to be relearned. It’s the headlines that grab our attention, but it’s the column inches that mount up. This same uncritical coverage has allowed the draconian ‘anti-terror’ policies to be accepted as normal; has supported the state’s repression of Muslims and others in the name of ‘extremism’; and created a general climate of fear in which immigration has become a scapegoat for just about every social and economic problem you can think of. Politicians capitalise on this scaremongering and newspapers sell it. The consequences are grave.
All the way down
The Daily Mail is just the most obvious symbol of media racism. Porn-king Richard Desmond’s Daily Star and Daily Express match it blow for blow in hate-speech. But even liberal papers like The Guardian and The Independent, or the ‘impartial’ BBC, share the same biases: anti-immigration, pro-government, pro-war… although in more subtle ways. When the former immigration minister Phil Woolas, calling for a cap on immigration and population growth and justifying his agenda by the economic crisis and British people’s ‘worries’, when he is given prime coverage by The Times and BBC, while his critics are silenced or hardly mentioned, one must ask: was this what a racist minister wanted to say through stupid media, or what racist media wanted to say through a stupid minister? Capitalism and the state feed on fear; the racist press supplies the poison.
Do something about it!
We are calling upon all concerned groups and individuals to stand up to counter fear with action on the 2nd and 3rd July. Let us put the racist press in the spotlight. From owners, journalists and editors to printers and distribution hubs, they are all guilty of turning journalism into hate- and scaremongering.
For more information, see http://pressaction.wordpress.com
To contact us, please email pressaction(at-)riseup.net
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Libya Gives UNHCR The 'Order Of The Boot'
The Libyan government has decided to kick the UNHCR out of the country. Libya, which is not a signatory of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, has no asylum system of its own and has never been particularly accommodating to the UNHCR. In fact, the UNHCR has effective been operating in the country under sufferance, with no formal agreement having been negotiated between the agency and the Libyan government. Almost all contact between the two bodies has been via third parties such as International Centre for Migration Policy Development, the International Organization for Peace, Care and Relief (a Libyan NGO) and, more importantly, the International Organisation for Migration.*
Despite having a presence in Libya since 1991, it was only in the past couple of years that the UNHCR had been granted limited access to Libyan detention centres. However the signing of the 'push-back policy' agreement with the Italian state has seen increased frostiness between the UN body and Libyan authorities following UNHCR criticism of both governments.
The UNHCR have been given no deadline nor any reason for the decision and the fate of the 9,000 or so refugees and 3,700 asylum seekers that the organisation has so far registered in Libya, together with the healthcare, shelter, education and training programmes and legal advice services that it provides, is not known.
* For more information on the background of UNHCR activities in Libya see: [1], [2], [3], [4].
Despite having a presence in Libya since 1991, it was only in the past couple of years that the UNHCR had been granted limited access to Libyan detention centres. However the signing of the 'push-back policy' agreement with the Italian state has seen increased frostiness between the UN body and Libyan authorities following UNHCR criticism of both governments.
The UNHCR have been given no deadline nor any reason for the decision and the fate of the 9,000 or so refugees and 3,700 asylum seekers that the organisation has so far registered in Libya, together with the healthcare, shelter, education and training programmes and legal advice services that it provides, is not known.
* For more information on the background of UNHCR activities in Libya see: [1], [2], [3], [4].
Tony Baldrick MP
'It's amazing what you find in the press' Part 52:
From the pages of the Oxford Mail we have just learnt that children are no longer detained in immigration prisons in the UK: "a shift in [government] policy meant children were no longer detained in removal centres." This is the paper quoting local MP Tony Baldry about his request to the current government to clarify their plans vis a vis the planned 800-bed Bicester detention centre, and making as much sense as his Blackadder (near) namesake.
But then again, it might just be the Oxford Mail's cub reporter Sam McGregor not knowing what he's talking about, as in the same article he also came up with the bizarre appellation "an open door asylum centre" in reference to Labours previous plans for the ex-MOD site. What on earth is an 'open door asylum centre'? Maybe he actually believes that Nu Labour did really have a measure entitled the 'Open Door Immigration Policy'? Definitely a case off 'repeat the lie often enough and people will believe it'.
From the pages of the Oxford Mail we have just learnt that children are no longer detained in immigration prisons in the UK: "a shift in [government] policy meant children were no longer detained in removal centres." This is the paper quoting local MP Tony Baldry about his request to the current government to clarify their plans vis a vis the planned 800-bed Bicester detention centre, and making as much sense as his Blackadder (near) namesake.
But then again, it might just be the Oxford Mail's cub reporter Sam McGregor not knowing what he's talking about, as in the same article he also came up with the bizarre appellation "an open door asylum centre" in reference to Labours previous plans for the ex-MOD site. What on earth is an 'open door asylum centre'? Maybe he actually believes that Nu Labour did really have a measure entitled the 'Open Door Immigration Policy'? Definitely a case off 'repeat the lie often enough and people will believe it'.
Government Solicitors Tell High Court To Facilitate Baghdad Deportations
Stop Deportations Network Press Release:
A letter from the government solicitors has asked High Court judges to facilitate a mass deportation flight to Baghdad, scheduled for Wednesday, by not considering last-minute Judicial Review applications by detainees due for deportation. [1]
The letter by Andrea McMahon of the Treasury Solicitor's Department (TSol), which providers legal services to over 180 government departments and agencies, addressed to the Administrative Court Office at the High Court, states that, "Because of the complexities, practicalities and costs involved in arranging charters flights [sic] it is essential that these removals are not disrupted or delayed by large numbers of last minute claims for permission to seek judicial review." [2]
"To ensure the viability of this latest operation to Iraq," the letter continues, "the Home Office may decide not to defer removal simply on receipt of a last minute threat or application to seek judicial review in cases where removal directions have been set and served at least 5 working days before departure."
The flight is scheduled to depart the UK, from an undisclosed airport, at 5:15am on Wednesday, 9th June. It is expected to carry up to 10 Iraqi nationals from the UK, who are currently being held at different immigration detention centres, mainly in Colnbrook, near Heathrow airport. More deportees will then be picked up at Halmstad, Sweden, before the flight continues to Baghdad. The joint 'operation' is being coordinated by the EU border agency, Frontex, under the new Joint European Union Charter Flights Initiative.
The letter claims that a memorandum of understanding with the Iraqi government had been signed in 2005 but that, "due to concerns regarding the security of those on board the aircraft," the UK did not previously enforce forcible returns beyond the Kurdistan Regional Government-controlled region in the northern part of the country. "These concerns," the letter continues, "are no longer an issue for our charter flight operations to Iraq."
The document then provides a detailed legal discussion of whether the indiscriminate violence in Iraq is of a high-enough level that deportees' lives would be at risk by merely being in the country.
The United Nations refugee commission (UNHCR) has repeatedly expressed its concern that some European states have begun forcibly returning Iraqi refugees despite the "serious human rights violations and continuing security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central governorates." Asylum seekers from these areas, the international body advises, "should be considered to be in need of international protection." [3] The UK is one of a few European countries, beside Sweden and Denmark, that have forcibly deported people to central Iraq in recent months against the advice of the UNHCR and other international organisations.
The TSol letter also claims that the UK government "successfully conducted its first charter flight to Baghdad on 15 October 2009." The flight was, in fact, a huge embarrassment to the UK government after Iraqi army officers confronted UK immigration officials at the Baghdad airport and forced them to fly back to London with 33 of the 44 deportees. [4]
Although the letter does not mention this, it does assure the High Court that those who are to be returned on this flight "have been cleared in advance with the authorities in Baghdad." Detainees in Colnbrook, near Heathrow, and Brook House, near Gatwick, have reportedly been interviewed over the last few days by Iraqi officials, who told detainees they were from the Iraqi embassy. The embassy, however, denies any knowledge of the detention interviews.
Last year, following the not-so-successful charter flight to Baghdad, an Iraqi government spokesman said his government was against the UK policy of forcing people back to the country. According to the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, some of the deportees are of Kurdish origin and do not even speak Arabic.
In a section explaining the "rationale" behind using charters for mass deportations, the TSol letter states that "charter flights allow [the] UKBA to effect volume returns to countries where asylum intake is high or where there are a significant number of foreign national prisoners awaiting return. This also makes charter flights a cost effective option."
The letter concludes with a kind request to High Court judges to effectively not do their job: "It is respectfully requested that Duty Judges take the above information into account when considering any applications made for injunctions to prevent the removal of those due to be returned on the flight on 9 June."
A spokesperson for the Stop Deportation network, which campaigns against mass deportation flights, said: "We have been trying to highlight, and challenge, the unlawfulness of these 'special arrangements' that deportation charter flights are subject to. It is incredible that the government would go as far as telling judges not to do their job."
-ends-
For further information and questions, please contact: stopdeportation(at)riseup.net
Notes for editors:
[1] A copy of the letter can be found at: http://stopdeportation.net/sites/default/files/letter_to_HC_re_Baghdad_flight.pdf
[2] Chapter 60 of the UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance, which explains the notice that must be provided of any removal and how the UKBA should respond to any challenge to this, states that charter flights "may be subject to different arrangements where it is considered appropriate because of the complexities, practicalities and costs of arranging an operation." Deportees are usually notified in their Removal Directions letter that "removal will not necessarily be deferred in the event that a Judicial Review is lodged". If proceedings are lodged or JR is threatened by, or on behalf of, a person who is due to be removed on a charter flight, the case must be referred to the Operational Support & Certification Unit immediately. OSCU will then consider whether it is appropriate to proceed with the removal in order to "guarantee the viability of the operation." If the OSCU decides not to defer removal, the claimant or their representatives must be informed of this decision and the reasons for it in writing and must be told that removal will proceed unless an injunction is obtained - which is often difficult due to lack of time and access to adequate legal representation.
[3] See: http://www.unhcr.org/4ae1998e9.html.
[4] See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/16/unhcr-uk-baghdad-deportations, for example.
[5] For more information on Stop Deportation, see http://stopdeportation.net.
A letter from the government solicitors has asked High Court judges to facilitate a mass deportation flight to Baghdad, scheduled for Wednesday, by not considering last-minute Judicial Review applications by detainees due for deportation. [1]
The letter by Andrea McMahon of the Treasury Solicitor's Department (TSol), which providers legal services to over 180 government departments and agencies, addressed to the Administrative Court Office at the High Court, states that, "Because of the complexities, practicalities and costs involved in arranging charters flights [sic] it is essential that these removals are not disrupted or delayed by large numbers of last minute claims for permission to seek judicial review." [2]
"To ensure the viability of this latest operation to Iraq," the letter continues, "the Home Office may decide not to defer removal simply on receipt of a last minute threat or application to seek judicial review in cases where removal directions have been set and served at least 5 working days before departure."
The flight is scheduled to depart the UK, from an undisclosed airport, at 5:15am on Wednesday, 9th June. It is expected to carry up to 10 Iraqi nationals from the UK, who are currently being held at different immigration detention centres, mainly in Colnbrook, near Heathrow airport. More deportees will then be picked up at Halmstad, Sweden, before the flight continues to Baghdad. The joint 'operation' is being coordinated by the EU border agency, Frontex, under the new Joint European Union Charter Flights Initiative.
The letter claims that a memorandum of understanding with the Iraqi government had been signed in 2005 but that, "due to concerns regarding the security of those on board the aircraft," the UK did not previously enforce forcible returns beyond the Kurdistan Regional Government-controlled region in the northern part of the country. "These concerns," the letter continues, "are no longer an issue for our charter flight operations to Iraq."
The document then provides a detailed legal discussion of whether the indiscriminate violence in Iraq is of a high-enough level that deportees' lives would be at risk by merely being in the country.
The United Nations refugee commission (UNHCR) has repeatedly expressed its concern that some European states have begun forcibly returning Iraqi refugees despite the "serious human rights violations and continuing security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central governorates." Asylum seekers from these areas, the international body advises, "should be considered to be in need of international protection." [3] The UK is one of a few European countries, beside Sweden and Denmark, that have forcibly deported people to central Iraq in recent months against the advice of the UNHCR and other international organisations.
The TSol letter also claims that the UK government "successfully conducted its first charter flight to Baghdad on 15 October 2009." The flight was, in fact, a huge embarrassment to the UK government after Iraqi army officers confronted UK immigration officials at the Baghdad airport and forced them to fly back to London with 33 of the 44 deportees. [4]
Although the letter does not mention this, it does assure the High Court that those who are to be returned on this flight "have been cleared in advance with the authorities in Baghdad." Detainees in Colnbrook, near Heathrow, and Brook House, near Gatwick, have reportedly been interviewed over the last few days by Iraqi officials, who told detainees they were from the Iraqi embassy. The embassy, however, denies any knowledge of the detention interviews.
Last year, following the not-so-successful charter flight to Baghdad, an Iraqi government spokesman said his government was against the UK policy of forcing people back to the country. According to the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, some of the deportees are of Kurdish origin and do not even speak Arabic.
In a section explaining the "rationale" behind using charters for mass deportations, the TSol letter states that "charter flights allow [the] UKBA to effect volume returns to countries where asylum intake is high or where there are a significant number of foreign national prisoners awaiting return. This also makes charter flights a cost effective option."
The letter concludes with a kind request to High Court judges to effectively not do their job: "It is respectfully requested that Duty Judges take the above information into account when considering any applications made for injunctions to prevent the removal of those due to be returned on the flight on 9 June."
A spokesperson for the Stop Deportation network, which campaigns against mass deportation flights, said: "We have been trying to highlight, and challenge, the unlawfulness of these 'special arrangements' that deportation charter flights are subject to. It is incredible that the government would go as far as telling judges not to do their job."
-ends-
For further information and questions, please contact: stopdeportation(at)riseup.net
Notes for editors:
[1] A copy of the letter can be found at: http://stopdeportation.net/sites/default/files/letter_to_HC_re_Baghdad_flight.pdf
[2] Chapter 60 of the UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance, which explains the notice that must be provided of any removal and how the UKBA should respond to any challenge to this, states that charter flights "may be subject to different arrangements where it is considered appropriate because of the complexities, practicalities and costs of arranging an operation." Deportees are usually notified in their Removal Directions letter that "removal will not necessarily be deferred in the event that a Judicial Review is lodged". If proceedings are lodged or JR is threatened by, or on behalf of, a person who is due to be removed on a charter flight, the case must be referred to the Operational Support & Certification Unit immediately. OSCU will then consider whether it is appropriate to proceed with the removal in order to "guarantee the viability of the operation." If the OSCU decides not to defer removal, the claimant or their representatives must be informed of this decision and the reasons for it in writing and must be told that removal will proceed unless an injunction is obtained - which is often difficult due to lack of time and access to adequate legal representation.
[3] See: http://www.unhcr.org/4ae1998e9.html.
[4] See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/16/unhcr-uk-baghdad-deportations, for example.
[5] For more information on Stop Deportation, see http://stopdeportation.net.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Oakington To Continue 'Welcoming All Comers'
South Cambridgeshire District Council's planning committee yesterday passed an application to extending Oakington Immigration Reception Centre's 'temporary planning permission' until June 2013 by "six votes to eight"! One can understand why the paper constantly refer to Oakington as a Reception Centre*, after all that's what the UKBA sign at the entrance says, but how can a motion be passed "six votes to eight"?**
Another strange claim made in the article was that following the protests in Oakington at the death of Eliud Nyenze in April, "[m]ore than 180 inmates took part in the riot, which led to 60 arrests." How 180 people forcing open a locked gate to protest outside the detention centre's administration office amounts to a 'riot' only the piece's author, Jack Grove, knows.***
Also, 60 detainees were moved to prisons and other detention centres as part of a process of speeding up their removal and of course punishment for complaining. They were not 'arrested', and no one has heard of any charges being brought against detainees, let alone G4S guards for apparently ignoring Mr Nyenze's calls for medical attention or for turning away from the camp's gates an ambulance that had been called by fellow detainees via mobile phone.
However, getting back to the planning meeting, amongst the objections made by councillors on the planning committee, the paper quotes:
Liberal Democrat Cllr Sebastian Kindersley: “Innocent people in 2010 should not be treated like this. It still staggers me we consented to allow any prison facility. I am disgusted by this application and could never possibly support it.”
Independent Cllr Deborah Roberts: “Taking away people’s liberty and imprisoning them is a terribly serious matter, particularly when they are not criminals. If we are expecting people to stay there, the Home Office should be improving provision for them much more.”
Independent Cllr Sally Hatton: “I wonder what makes a man or woman leave their homes, but then put up with these appalling conditions rather than return home.”
These objections were not enough to stop the committee red-stamping the application - Conservative Cllr Nick Wright: “There is no valid planning reason that this should not go ahead. As a planning committee, we are not here to give the Home Office a bloody nose.” But the council surely is there to protect the interests of the people living in its area, even if those are only temporary residents held at 'Her Madge's pleasure'. It could have added riders to the permission, calling on the UKBA to significantly improve the crumbling infrastructure of the ex-WWII RAF base. But that of course would have been too much to expect.
* Shades of nice friendly smiling faces, saying: "Welcome to our lovely country. How may we help you?"
** No doubt it was 8 to 6, and the 8 for were the committee's Tory majority.
*** Though this drivel was also the line taken by fellow reporter Raymond Byrne whilst the incident was going on.
Another strange claim made in the article was that following the protests in Oakington at the death of Eliud Nyenze in April, "[m]ore than 180 inmates took part in the riot, which led to 60 arrests." How 180 people forcing open a locked gate to protest outside the detention centre's administration office amounts to a 'riot' only the piece's author, Jack Grove, knows.***
Also, 60 detainees were moved to prisons and other detention centres as part of a process of speeding up their removal and of course punishment for complaining. They were not 'arrested', and no one has heard of any charges being brought against detainees, let alone G4S guards for apparently ignoring Mr Nyenze's calls for medical attention or for turning away from the camp's gates an ambulance that had been called by fellow detainees via mobile phone.
However, getting back to the planning meeting, amongst the objections made by councillors on the planning committee, the paper quotes:
Liberal Democrat Cllr Sebastian Kindersley: “Innocent people in 2010 should not be treated like this. It still staggers me we consented to allow any prison facility. I am disgusted by this application and could never possibly support it.”
Independent Cllr Deborah Roberts: “Taking away people’s liberty and imprisoning them is a terribly serious matter, particularly when they are not criminals. If we are expecting people to stay there, the Home Office should be improving provision for them much more.”
Independent Cllr Sally Hatton: “I wonder what makes a man or woman leave their homes, but then put up with these appalling conditions rather than return home.”
These objections were not enough to stop the committee red-stamping the application - Conservative Cllr Nick Wright: “There is no valid planning reason that this should not go ahead. As a planning committee, we are not here to give the Home Office a bloody nose.” But the council surely is there to protect the interests of the people living in its area, even if those are only temporary residents held at 'Her Madge's pleasure'. It could have added riders to the permission, calling on the UKBA to significantly improve the crumbling infrastructure of the ex-WWII RAF base. But that of course would have been too much to expect.
* Shades of nice friendly smiling faces, saying: "Welcome to our lovely country. How may we help you?"
** No doubt it was 8 to 6, and the 8 for were the committee's Tory majority.
*** Though this drivel was also the line taken by fellow reporter Raymond Byrne whilst the incident was going on.
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