Pre-Departure Accommodation Planning Application Approved

*** PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE DISSEMINATION***

PEASE POTTAGE PRE-DEPARTURE ACCOMMODATION APPROVED DESPITE OBJECTIONS [24/03/11]

Despite noisy protests outside, Mid Sussex Council District Planning Committee today gave a green light to the continued detention of children and families when they approved by 14 votes to 1 the UK Border Agency's application [1] to turn Crawley Forest School in Pease Pottage into a Pre-Departure Accommodation centre.

Opponents of child detention, including SOAS Detainee Support, Brighton No Borders and No Borders London, branded the decision "disgraceful" and vowed to continue the fight against the centre and the companies involved in designing and running it.

From the start of the Planning Committee meeting it was apparent that the majority of councillors were much more concerned about the colour of the internal fences and whether a "majestic beech tree" would be "protected from the children climbing on it " than the exact nature of the regime operating the facility, the level of security and how little it differed from current forms of family detention. [2]

Ian Bros, one of the formal objectors at the planning meeting, says that the involvement of children's charity Barnado's in the centre, which has much been trumpeted by the government, almost single-handedly swung the application in the UKBA's favour. Whilst Barnado's will run play facilities at the centre, the facility itself will be run by global security giant G4S, who are threatened with corporate manslaughter charges for the death of a detainee in their care last year [3]. G4S did not get a single mention in the meeting, Ian noted, and the councillors present "seemingly believed that Barnado's will take charge of the whole centre".

Ends.


Notes for editors:
[1] See: http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=LG3751KT04L00

[2] The UKBA has portrayed the Pre-Departure Accommodation Centre as a new form of Planning Use and, as such, should be considered a Sui Generis Use, whereas objectors point out that the facility more closely resembles a Category D Open Prison-style facility. See: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/changeofuse/

[3] See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/16/mubenga-g4s-face-charges-death















[Alec Smart]

Fit To Fly?

"Fit to fly" is a short film by Martin Freeth about the work of Medical Justice.

Watch the film

Down And Out In Lampedusa

Whilst the situation in Libya has been holding the world's attention, the fall out from the fighting and the uprising in Tunisia earlier on in the year has only, in the form of refugees arriving in Europe, has only intermittently made it into the press. Landfall for most of these refugees, just as it has been for decades, is the tiny island of Lampedusa 130 km off the Tunisian coast and 300 km from the Libyan capital Tripoli. In the past couple of years, since Berlusconi struck a deal with his then close friend Gaddafi to prevent the passage of migrants across the Mediterranean to Europe, the so-called 'push back policy', the flow had dropped to almost zero (the Tunisian authorities had also had a fairly strict policy of preventing the flow of refugees from its territory). Now it has turned into a deluge and Lampedusa is suffering its own humanitarian crisis.

In the wake of the Tunisian uprising in January, 5,600 Tunisian refugees arrived on the Island over the course of a few days in February, an island with a population of only 4,500. And there are currently around 5,000 Tunisian and Libyan refugees on the Island again today, with hundreds arriving each day. Here is a quick run down of some of the events in the past 2 weeks based on news reports and verbal accounts from an activist on the Island:

14 March - 22 landings on the Island with 1623 people arriving in a 24 hour period. Plus another boat is known to have capsized in Tunisian waters - 5 rescued with approximately 35 refugees unaccounted for, presumed drown. Neo-fascists Marine Le Pen, Front National presidential candidate, and Mario Borghezio, an Italian Northern League MEP also turned up to garner a bit of publicity and were greeted by a demonstration of 30 locals, who made it plain to them that they were not welcome.
15 March - 2,500 refugees currently on Lampedusa but no new arrivals due to bad weather.
16 March - Stefania Craxi, the Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, visited to see the situation at first hand, warning that the rest of Europe would have to help out Italy. Interestingly, she was a prominent apologist for Ben Ali when he fled Tunisia, claiming that Italy should have granted him asylum. She even claimed that he was not a dictator, even though it was her father, then Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, helped Ben Ali seize power in 1987. No doubt she was seeking to return Ben Ali’s favour when he sheltered Craxi Snr. after he fled Italy to avoid criminal charges in 1984?
Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni quoted as saying that 11,200, mostly Tunisian immigrants, had arrived in Lampedusa since the start of this year.
17 March - Lampedusa residents block the landing of 4 boats with around 200 refugees on board in the harbour. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the refugee facility on the Island designed for 850 is currently housing 2,600. “There are a number of women and many minors amongst the refugees. They sleep everywhere: two in every beds, under the beds, outside, in any space available, so that there is no space even to walk. They do not have blankets. There is no water to shower. They are given a bottle of water to wash themselves. There is not much food. They have to queue up for hours and sometimes the food finishes before they arrive at the end of the queue and when they eat it they immediately want to sleep.”
18 March - Lampedusa's residents again prevent a boat with 116 people on board from landing during daylight hours. Over night 3 boats with 378 people arrived.
20 March - 12 boats with a total of 1,350 refugees arrive, with a further 117 arriving at Catania in Sicily.
"Sunday we woke up around 7 am because someone was shouting from a megaphone on a car telling people to go and occupy the port to stop the arrival of red cross tents, probably for at least 10,000 people. The woman at the megaphone is one of the locals that want to save the [tourist] economy in Lampedusa and want the Tunisian [to be] transferred elsewhere in Italy. We went there to check what was happening. The people of Lampedusa always try to explain to the Tunisians that they are not against them and they just want them to be transferred quickly anywhere else in Italy. They also wanted the Tunisians to join but most of them were too scared to get in trouble."
"In the end they had to let them unload the tents because otherwise the ferry would not leave with their fish and it would have been a problem for the many fishermen on the Island."

Currently there are around a thousand Tunisians sleeping rough in the port area, many with wet clothes and no blankets, almost no food and only 1 litre of milk a day between 5 people. Many are falling ill from being cold and constantly wet (it has also been raining and there is little shelter). Local police have been giving many of them their waterproofs and their lunch too. "A whole family with a small kid, some minors and some very young women arrived. They brought the women and the minors into a building [owned by] the council. I saw them arriving. Many were walking bare foot and were half naked."

Many of the refugees had taken part in anti-government demonstrations and who had been arrested and beaten and are afraid because Ben Ali's cronies are still in charge in Tunisian despite the Jasmine revolution. Consequently they have good asylum cases but there is little legal advice available on their rights to asylum. Many also say they just want to reach their relatives in France or just want a job, both of which will hold no sway with the authorities and is certain to get them locked up in a camp and deported.

More On Barnardo's And The Continued Detention Of Children

A repost of a National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns news item:

Children’s charity Barnardo’s have been contracted by the Home Office as a service provider at the new families detention centre at Pease Pottage, Sussex. The secure “pre-departure accommodation” is widely seen as detention re-packaged, and Barnardo’s role in the centre – which could see over 6,000 children a year detained – is controversial.

Chief Executive Anne-Marie Carrie, refused to condemn the practice of child detention on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, arguing that Barnardo’s are best placed to help in the running of the new centre, described by the Immigration Minister as having “an entirely different look and feel to an immigration removal centre”.

However, Heaven Crawley, professor of international migration at Swansea University, said on the Today programme the that new process is “really something of a repackaging”. Writing for the Migrants’ Rights Network blog today, Professor Crawley claims that to repackage detention as ‘pre-departure accommodation’ is disingenuous. “Families with children will be taken to the facility against their will. Once there, families will not be allowed to come and go freely. The unit is intended to be secure, which in this case means a 2.5m palisade fence with electronic gates surrounding the site, and 24-hour staffing designed to provide ‘an appropriate level of security to protect the occupants of the site and deter them leaving the site’.” She also calls on the government to come clean – if it can’t end child detention then it should say so. In fact, earlier this week in Parliament, the Immigration Minister did let slip that detention of children at Tinsley House immigration Removal Centre would indeed continue for “high risk families”.

Without doubt, the routine use of force and detention of children and families over the years has been shameful. As reported in the Free Movement legal blog, a High Court judgement in January revealed just how disgraceful practice has been. The case of R (on the application of Suppiah) v Secretary of State for the Home Department demonstrated that, despite overwhelming evidence that detention is harmful to children, UKBA officials ignored even their own guidelines on detaining only as a last resort. Alternatives were not pursued, UKBA claims of offering assisted voluntary removal prior to detention were untrue, and excessively long periods of detention were being used needlessly.

Sadly, no officials have been or will be brought to book for the false imprisonment of children and families under the previous Labour government. It is all water under the bridge since the coalition announced plans to reform the detention system for families.

It is yet to be seen whether the involvement of one of the country’s leading children’s’ charities will significantly improve the lot of detained children, or merely serve to help the coalition government with it’s public relations exercise.

The fact remains that children are still to be detained, and force is still to be used against families to remove them from the UK. The asylum system still operates a culture of disbelief, resulting in a high percentage of refugees being sent back to persecution.

And a question remains unanswered: just what do have we to fear from these families that we must hunt them down, lock them up and forcibly deport them? Families who have fled persecution, war or poverty, and come to the UK to make a better life for themselves and their children, should be allowed to live in safety for as long as they want to. Many would return to their home countries when it is safe, others would settle and their children grow to become part of our ever-changing society.

But as for detention, we can leave the final words to the previous Chief Executive of Barnado’s, Martin Narey, speaking in December 2010 in support of the government’s claim to have abolished detention of children:

“Incarcerating [children] simply because they have parents who wish to live here was unnecessary, expensive and more to the point, just plain wrong.” former Barnados Chief Executive, Martin Narey

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Barnardo's won't lessen trauma of child detention - Guardian Comment Is Free article.

'Accommodation centre' rebrand fury - Morning Star.

No Borders oppose new deportation centre - Institute of Race Relations.

Promises, Promises - End Child Detention Now.

Barnado's Legitimise The Continued Detention Of Children

PRESS RELEASE ***FOR IMMEDIATE DISSEMINATION***

The children's charity Barnardo's is legitimising the continued use of detention for children by agreeing to provide welfare services at a "pre-departure accommodation" centre the government plans to open in Pease Pottage near Crawley in Sussex.

The Home Office and UK Border Agency claim that this facility will be 'open non-detention accommodation' [1] and, as such, they are seeking to persuade the Mid Sussex District Planning Committee that their Change of Use planning application is a sui generis use [2], falling outside of other current planning guideline Classes.

However, careful consideration of the limited publicly available information [3] on how the facility will operate shows that it will in fact closely resemble current Immigration Removal Centres and Short Term Holding Facilities in many facets:
· children and families will be arrested and administratively detained under the provisions of the 1971 Immigration Act when being move to and from this 'Pre-Departure Accommodation'; [3a]
· they will be subject to the Control and Restraint techniques used across the detention estate; and [3a]
· the detained children will only be allowed out of the facility under strictly controlled circumstances. [3b]
Clearly this amounts to the continued use of "the detention of children for immigration purposes".

According to the BBC [4] which has seen an advanced copy of a speech from Barnado's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie, the charity will seek to justify its participation in this controversial project. Ian Bros of No Borders Brighton, who is formally objecting to the planning application, states Barnado's: "may seek to rationalise its proposed work at the facility as helping to hold the Home Office to its commitment to run a more humane removal system, but it cannot escape from the fact that this is a detention centre in all but name. In fact Anne Marie Carrie has given the lie to the government's position that this is not a detention centre by calling it 'secure pre-departure accommodation' in her proposed speech. This is clearly a Class C2A [Secure Residential Accommodation] use, just as all Immigration Removal Centres are classed and as such the Mid Sussex Council should reject this planning application as incorrectly filed."

Ian concludes: "It is bad enough that the Home Office are trying to rush this whole project through the planning process, ignoring EU competitive tendering process, and restricting public access to the planning application itself under catch-all security considerations, but to rope a respected charity in as its PR-patsy must really win some prize in the annals of government spin."

London NoBorders, http://london.noborders.org.uk
No Borders Brighton, http://nobordersbrighton.blogspot.com


Notes to Editors:

[1] See CgMs Consulting letter to Pease Pottage residents on behalf of the Home Office: http://tinyurl.com/crawleyforest
[2] See the planning application: http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=LG3751KT04L00
and http://www.planning-applications.co.uk/uco1.htm
[3] See:
[a] the current UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance Chapter 45 Family Cases: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/enforcement/oemsectione/chapter45?view=Binary
[b] and the Planning Statement: http://62.189.207.187/pap_msdclive/framepage.asp?dc2=&appnumber=11/00330/COU
[4] See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12690444

Barnardo's To 'Front' New Detention Centre

In a surprising PR coup, the Home Office have managed to persuade Barnardo's, the children's charity, to run the welfare side of the new children and families detention-lite centre near Crawley. This facility, as we have steadfastly been arguing, singularly fails to meet the Coalition's promise to end the detention of children for immigration purposes, as the charity's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie concedes when (in the text of a speech today released to the BBC) she describes this pre-departure accommodation as "secure". It doesn't matter what the sign on the facility's fence says, whether it describes it as 'Open Accommodation - As Approved By Barnardo's', it the people held there are detained under the powers contained in the Immigration Act 1971 and are not free to leave the facility at any time, taking their children with them, then it is no better than the Families Unit at Yarl's Wood, no matter how many toys Barnardo's supply the place with.

Latest Greek Travel Advice

10th of March: Worldwide solidarity action day with the 300 hunger strikers immigrants-workers in Greece.

Latest Greece travel advice:

You might have heard that Greece is a beautiful country to visit with delicious food and people with great hospitality. Be careful: this is not the whole truth. The reality for hundreds of thousands of visitors is completely different. There is a general threat of human rights’ violations. Expatriates and visitors, who cross the Greek borders, can be departed or transferred in detention centres for 2–4 months or longer. If and when these visitors are released, they are forced to work in agriculture, local industry, organised crime, or as street salesmen, without documents or any civil rights whatsoever. Visitors of Greece are warned about abuse, intolerance, hatred, slander and indiscriminate violence by the Greek State.

Greece is exploiting approximately 500,000 illegal immigrants and refugees to raise the nation’s miserable economics. Last year, nearly 140,000 immigrants crossed the Greek borders in a hope of better life. Most of them are going to remain illegal for years and treated as unwelcome contemporary slaves.

Since the 25th of January, 300 immigrants who work and live in Greece for many years started a nationwide hunger strike in Athens and Thessaloniki. They claim the legalisation of all undocumented immigrants of Greece. Their struggle is a struggle of all immigrants, workers and citizens of the world.

The 10th of March will be the 45th day of their hunger strike, but the Greek State has not yet responded to their rightful claims!

We call people in Greece and throughout the world to carry out civil disobedience actions on the 10th of March in solidarity with the 300 hunger strikers. We ask everyone to target their actions against Greek soft spot-tourism: 15% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product is coming from tourism. In fact, tourism and migration are two sides of the legal right of freedom of movement.
We suggest an easily attainable target that you people can find almost in every country: Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO). You can e.g. demonstrate, blockade, squat, spread leaflets or carry out other creative actions in front, inside or around GNTO offices.

The addresses of the GNTO offices aboard are here: http://internezia.net/addresses.html

If you don't have a GNTO office at your city, you can target your actions against the Greek embassies or enterprises, or simply demonstrate in crowded public places or on media.

300 MURDERS OR LEGALIZATION

More information about the hunger strike of 300: http://hungerstrike300.espivblogs.net

'All Immigrants of the World'