24 Iraqi refugees held in a detention centre in Oxford have started a hunger strike to protest against the government’s plans to deport them to Baghdad. More than 70 people are currently being held in detention centres around the country. Officials from the Iraqi government are currently visiting them to confirm their identities so that they can be deported, as part of an agreement between the two governments.
The majority of the detainees have refused to meet with the officials in protest at their role in the deportations.
A statement from the group, which consists of Kurdish and Iraqi refugees, says:
"Some of us don’t have any homes or nowhere to go in Iraq. If we were returned we would be left to survive for ourselves on the streets with nothing, which isn’t. Some of us don’t even know if our family members are alive or dead because we haven’t had any contact with them for a long time.
While we have been in England, for all different amounts of times, we have lived here safely and got on with our lives. We have family and friends here. Being parted from them at this time is very hard and stressful for both sides. Some of us are engaged or married, and have wives here in England. We also have children here, some of us more than one. Some of our wives are expecting babies. They need to be together as families.
Everyone has the right to be able to live in a safe country. It is not right if we are returned to Iraq. Our lives would be ended."
Dashty Jamal from the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees says:
"the UK government is responsible for the tragedy in Iraq. They are playing politics with the lives of Iraqi refugees. They are making a deal with the despotic Iraqi regime, which the Iraqi people are currently rising up against, to send people back."
There will be a demonstration outside the Iraqi Parliament in Sulaymania on Sunday 12th June to protest against the deportations.
For more information about how to support the campaign against deportations to Baghdad please go to: http://www.federationifir.com/english/En.file/camping%20against%20deport%20to%20iraq.html
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Demo At Barnado's Head Office
On June 6th 2011, activists visited Barnado's HQ in Barkingside Essex to protest against their involvement with the UK Border Agency. Campaigners gave out leaflets informing Barnado's staff of the work that Barnados will be doing at the soon-to-be-opened "pre-departure accommodation facility" near Gatwick and urging them to express their concerns about this to Barnado's management.
On June 6th 2011, activists visited Barnado's HQ in Barkingside Essex to protest against their involvement with the UK Border Agency. Campaigners gave out leaflets informing Barnado's staff of the work that Barnados will be doing at the soon-to-be-opened "pre-departure accommodation facility" near Gatwick and urging them to express their concerns about this to Barnado's management.
Barnardo's is the UK's largest children's charity. The protesters wanted to raise awareness among Barnardo's' customers about the charity's controversial new involvement with the UK Border Agency (UKBA). Barnardo's has accepted a government contract to run a creche at the soon-to-be-opened "pre-departure accommodation facility" near Gatwick. This is essentially a prison where asylum-seeking families with children will be detained pending a deportation attempt by the UKBA. The security at the prison will be done by G4 Securicor - the notorious firm involved in the deadly deportation of Jimmy Mubenga in October 2010.
The government are claiming to have ended child detention, and introduced a new “compassionate approach to family removals”. Barnardos' support for this process adds a veneer of respectability to the government's deception. Indeed, at the planning application meeting for the new prison, councilors said any concerns they had about the welfare of the children were reassured by Barnardos' involvement.
The protest was greeted by Barnado's' Press Team who attempted to explain away Barnado's' involvement in this new facility, claiming that they were trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
Protests against Barnado's will continue...
[Repost]
On June 6th 2011, activists visited Barnado's HQ in Barkingside Essex to protest against their involvement with the UK Border Agency. Campaigners gave out leaflets informing Barnado's staff of the work that Barnados will be doing at the soon-to-be-opened "pre-departure accommodation facility" near Gatwick and urging them to express their concerns about this to Barnado's management.
Barnardo's is the UK's largest children's charity. The protesters wanted to raise awareness among Barnardo's' customers about the charity's controversial new involvement with the UK Border Agency (UKBA). Barnardo's has accepted a government contract to run a creche at the soon-to-be-opened "pre-departure accommodation facility" near Gatwick. This is essentially a prison where asylum-seeking families with children will be detained pending a deportation attempt by the UKBA. The security at the prison will be done by G4 Securicor - the notorious firm involved in the deadly deportation of Jimmy Mubenga in October 2010.
The government are claiming to have ended child detention, and introduced a new “compassionate approach to family removals”. Barnardos' support for this process adds a veneer of respectability to the government's deception. Indeed, at the planning application meeting for the new prison, councilors said any concerns they had about the welfare of the children were reassured by Barnardos' involvement.
The protest was greeted by Barnado's' Press Team who attempted to explain away Barnado's' involvement in this new facility, claiming that they were trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
Protests against Barnado's will continue...
[Repost]
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Trouble At Brook House IRC
On Friday evening 27th May at approximately 19:30 a group of 22 to 25 detainees began a protest at the continued holding in segregation of two detainees. According to one detainee, riot police were brought into the removal centre and at 05:30 hours on Saturday morning, 22 to 25 detainees were removed from association.
It is not known if they are still @ Brook House IRC or have been transferred to any of the immigration prisons, that is those removal centres managed by the Prison Service, Morton Hall, Lindholme, Haslar or Dover IRCs.
[http://www.freemovement.org.uk/]
It is not known if they are still @ Brook House IRC or have been transferred to any of the immigration prisons, that is those removal centres managed by the Prison Service, Morton Hall, Lindholme, Haslar or Dover IRCs.
[http://www.freemovement.org.uk/]
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Support Clara Osagiede
RMT Representative Assaulted And Suspended
Don't Let Initial Get Away With Attacking The Right Of Underground Cleaners To Organise!
Demo this Thursday, 10am, outside the hearing at the Initial Office, 13-27 Brunswick Place, London, N1 6DX (2 mins from Old St station)
Clara Osagiede is an RMT representative employed by Initial Cleaning Services on London Underground. On 4th March 2011 Clara witnessed members being forced to clean graffiti off a tube train in the 'acid shed' at Hainault Depot. Aware that the staff involved had no appropriate training to carry out what could be a very hazardous task she raised concerns with the manager on duty who told her it was none of her business and to get out of his office.
Clara explained she was a Health and Safety rep and that it was her business. The manager became aggressive and shoved her out of the office, slamming a door behind her. She reported the incident to other management and to British Transport Police. The manager was suspended but not for long. A few days later Clara reported for work to find the manager back at work without due internal processes being completed. Terrified she withdrew to a safe place of work locking herself in an office. Clara is now suspended for standing up for vulnerable workers being made to undertake dangerous duties in the acid shed for which they are not trained.
Please come and show support outside the disciplinary hearing this Thursday. Bring banners, placards and noisemakers!
Don't Let Initial Get Away With Attacking The Right Of Underground Cleaners To Organise!
Demo this Thursday, 10am, outside the hearing at the Initial Office, 13-27 Brunswick Place, London, N1 6DX (2 mins from Old St station)
Clara Osagiede is an RMT representative employed by Initial Cleaning Services on London Underground. On 4th March 2011 Clara witnessed members being forced to clean graffiti off a tube train in the 'acid shed' at Hainault Depot. Aware that the staff involved had no appropriate training to carry out what could be a very hazardous task she raised concerns with the manager on duty who told her it was none of her business and to get out of his office.
Clara explained she was a Health and Safety rep and that it was her business. The manager became aggressive and shoved her out of the office, slamming a door behind her. She reported the incident to other management and to British Transport Police. The manager was suspended but not for long. A few days later Clara reported for work to find the manager back at work without due internal processes being completed. Terrified she withdrew to a safe place of work locking herself in an office. Clara is now suspended for standing up for vulnerable workers being made to undertake dangerous duties in the acid shed for which they are not trained.
Please come and show support outside the disciplinary hearing this Thursday. Bring banners, placards and noisemakers!
Monday, 23 May 2011
Dale Farm Eviction Will Be Resisted
The residents of Dale Farm are living on land that they have bought. Travellers throughout the country were encouraged to buy land to live on after the requirement for local authorities to provide caravan sites was removed. But cruelly when they did this voices were raised to ensure that planning permission was not granted. So generations, from babies to grannies, live 'illegally' on their own land with all the uncertainties and dangers that implies.
It is claimed that they are encroaching on green belt land. This might be what appears on maps. But the truth is that prior to the community buying and settling on this land it was a scrap metal yard! The local council and the objectors know this perfectly well. Behind the smokescreen of planning rules and green belt land lies a blatant racism. Basildon Council has not formally replied to the planning applications for alternative mobile-home sites put forward by the Gypsy Council - that could be provided on government agency land at a far lower cost than this act of ethnic cleansing. It is clear that the Tories want Travellers out of Basildon district at whatever cost in human misery and tax payers' money.
On the strength of this dishonesty and bigotry, and despite pleas from the UN, Council of Europe and Amnesty International, the Tory leader of Basildon District Council trumpets the need to "Uphold the Rule of Law". He has committed £8 million pounds of council reserves to the eviction. Up to another £10 million could be spent by Essex police in assisting with the eviction.
The Council has commissioned private bailiffs Constant & Co to carry out the eviction, a company known for its brutal treatment of Traveller families during move-on operations around the country.
The residents of Dale Farm have asked supporters to establish a camp, Camp Constant, to help stop the destruction of their homes.
No Passaran!
Friday, 20 May 2011
UK Retailer Backs Campaign To End Immigration Controls
Ethical cosmetics company Lush is dedicating all of its 95 UK stores to promoting the cause of open borders and freedom of movement for all, from Friday 20th-Friday 27th May 2011.
Customers will be given a free NOII newspaper and invited to sign the No One Is Illegal Declaration:
… and make a donation to help publicise it.
Lush have produced 50,000 copies of the 4-page tabloid newspaper, and a special passport that any human being can issue to any other human being.
The passport affirms that its owner is a human being, and not an alien (or a corporate entity, or a figment of some racist’s imagination), and should be treated like one.
We hope to test the passport at a national border somewhere in the London area during the next few days.
[Repost]
Customers will be given a free NOII newspaper and invited to sign the No One Is Illegal Declaration:
“People should be free to live and work wherever they wish,
and enjoy all the same rights as all other residents.
No One Is Illegal.”
… and make a donation to help publicise it.
Lush have produced 50,000 copies of the 4-page tabloid newspaper, and a special passport that any human being can issue to any other human being.
The passport affirms that its owner is a human being, and not an alien (or a corporate entity, or a figment of some racist’s imagination), and should be treated like one.
We hope to test the passport at a national border somewhere in the London area during the next few days.
[Repost]
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
BESIDES, WE’RE FROM HERE
AGAINST RACISM
AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT IMMIGRATION POLICIES
FOR THE REGULARISATION OF UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS
After the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy at the 2007 presidential election, the Ministry for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Solidarity Development was created, the first time in the history of the French Republic. Since then, tens of thousands of undocumented migrants, men, women and children, have been targeted, arrested and deported, including to countries in war, such as Afghanistan. This immigration policy is unacceptable and it violates the elementary humanitarian principles and the international agreements France has ratified. Besides this, there are the disastrous consequences of the “debate” about national identity and thepersecution of the Roma.
We want this situation, which is undermining fundamental rights, threatening the right to seek asylum and ruining the lives of the targeted foreigners in France, TO STOP. This is why in May 2011, on the anniversary of the creation of the Ministry for Immigration, we are calling for a unified national demonstration. There will be demonstrations happening on the same day all over France, including a demonstration in Calais.
We demand an immediate stop to the government's repressive policies against undocumented migrants and the Roma and the regularization of undocumented migrants.
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION
SATURDAY THE 28TH OF MAY
DEMONSTRATION IN CALAIS
Start at 2.30pm at the crossroads of Rue de Moscou and Rue Lamy.
Do we want a National Front mayor in Calais at the next elections?
Does anyone have better housing, because the migrants are sleeping outdoors?
20 years of deportations and destruction:
Is that a solution?
How long will there be border control between France and England?
Are we going to let the government ignore human rights in our name?
LET’S REACT!
A call out by:
AC! Côte d'OpaleAttacBoulonnais, La Belle Etoile (Calais), Europe Ecologie Les Verts, FSU 59-62, GDALE-CGA (Lille), Louis Lecoin nonviolent group of Dunkirk, La Marmite aux Idées (Calais), Ligue des droits de l’homme 62 (Dunkirk), MRAP Nord Pas Calais (with the Dunkirk group), the NPA, the PCF, Salam,Solidaires 59-62, SUD Education 59-62, Terre d’Errance
To sign the national call-out, go to http://dailleurnoussommesdici.org/
WITH OR WITHOUT PAPERS, WE HAVE RIGHTS!
For the past 10 years, undocumented migrants have wandered the streets of Calais, stuck between France and England, both of which didn’t want them. Too often people walk passed them, indifferent or too preoccupied with their everyway worries. Even worse, some use the migrant issue to stir up racism and fear amongst people. This way everyone keeps to themselves, thinking that nothing can change. Let’s not stay in this game of “divide and rule”! Defending the rights of the undocumented migrants means also defending our rights and valuing our solidarity.
A migrant is not an intruder, as they might like to have us believe, but rather someone who is searching for protection in Europe, because in his/her country, his/her life is threatened by war, conflict, famine and poverty. Isn’t it only normal to want to live better? We are trying to the same thing. Yet migrants are tracked down and persecuted daily on the streets of Calais, by the police and the authorities.
This is why it’s time to unite the different struggles and, of the documented or the undocumented (of people with or without papers), and tooprotect our most elementary rights:
*Lets reclaim the right to a decent housing, as well as the right to live in dignified conditions. Migrants often sleep outside, in the summer as well as in the winter, as the state doesn’t fulfil its obligation to house asylum seekers. On the other hand, there are also many “native” inhabitants of Calais, who live in precarious conditions, with respect to their housing and work. A simple question for the sceptics: does anyone have better housing, or a better salary, because the undocumented migrants sleep outdoors and get deported?
*Lets demand an end to the police violence and reclaim the right to peace. Every day the police harasses migrants without mercy, they arrest them for not having done anything wrong. But this omnipresence of police is weighing on the French residents of Calais too, especially in the neighbourhoods where the police and the authorities use only force to respond to the primarily social and economic problems. A baton has never been a solution.
*Lets reclaim the right to freedom of movement and condemn the systematic identity controls. There is freedom of movement for goods and capital, so why couldn’t we have freedom of movement for people? Every year 26 000 migrants are deported from France, while the country proclaims itself to be the cradle of human rights and while big companies make huge profit that only benefits a small minority.
Without a united struggle, the situation in Calais is going to get worse and worse, both for “native” Calaisians and for the migrants. We have to act collectively.
DEMONSTRATION ON SATURDAY THE 28TH OF MAY IN CALAIS
Start at 2.30pm at the crossroads of Rue de Moscou and Rue Lamy
The “d’ailleur nous sommesd’ici” collective is open to everybody, we need to organize the struggled together and united. Contact: dailleurs.dici@laposte.net
AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT IMMIGRATION POLICIES
FOR THE REGULARISATION OF UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS
After the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy at the 2007 presidential election, the Ministry for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Solidarity Development was created, the first time in the history of the French Republic. Since then, tens of thousands of undocumented migrants, men, women and children, have been targeted, arrested and deported, including to countries in war, such as Afghanistan. This immigration policy is unacceptable and it violates the elementary humanitarian principles and the international agreements France has ratified. Besides this, there are the disastrous consequences of the “debate” about national identity and thepersecution of the Roma.
We want this situation, which is undermining fundamental rights, threatening the right to seek asylum and ruining the lives of the targeted foreigners in France, TO STOP. This is why in May 2011, on the anniversary of the creation of the Ministry for Immigration, we are calling for a unified national demonstration. There will be demonstrations happening on the same day all over France, including a demonstration in Calais.
We demand an immediate stop to the government's repressive policies against undocumented migrants and the Roma and the regularization of undocumented migrants.
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION
SATURDAY THE 28TH OF MAY
DEMONSTRATION IN CALAIS
Start at 2.30pm at the crossroads of Rue de Moscou and Rue Lamy.
Do we want a National Front mayor in Calais at the next elections?
Does anyone have better housing, because the migrants are sleeping outdoors?
20 years of deportations and destruction:
Is that a solution?
How long will there be border control between France and England?
Are we going to let the government ignore human rights in our name?
LET’S REACT!
A call out by:
AC! Côte d'OpaleAttacBoulonnais, La Belle Etoile (Calais), Europe Ecologie Les Verts, FSU 59-62, GDALE-CGA (Lille), Louis Lecoin nonviolent group of Dunkirk, La Marmite aux Idées (Calais), Ligue des droits de l’homme 62 (Dunkirk), MRAP Nord Pas Calais (with the Dunkirk group), the NPA, the PCF, Salam,Solidaires 59-62, SUD Education 59-62, Terre d’Errance
To sign the national call-out, go to http://dailleurnoussommesdici.org/
WITH OR WITHOUT PAPERS, WE HAVE RIGHTS!
For the past 10 years, undocumented migrants have wandered the streets of Calais, stuck between France and England, both of which didn’t want them. Too often people walk passed them, indifferent or too preoccupied with their everyway worries. Even worse, some use the migrant issue to stir up racism and fear amongst people. This way everyone keeps to themselves, thinking that nothing can change. Let’s not stay in this game of “divide and rule”! Defending the rights of the undocumented migrants means also defending our rights and valuing our solidarity.
A migrant is not an intruder, as they might like to have us believe, but rather someone who is searching for protection in Europe, because in his/her country, his/her life is threatened by war, conflict, famine and poverty. Isn’t it only normal to want to live better? We are trying to the same thing. Yet migrants are tracked down and persecuted daily on the streets of Calais, by the police and the authorities.
This is why it’s time to unite the different struggles and, of the documented or the undocumented (of people with or without papers), and tooprotect our most elementary rights:
*Lets reclaim the right to a decent housing, as well as the right to live in dignified conditions. Migrants often sleep outside, in the summer as well as in the winter, as the state doesn’t fulfil its obligation to house asylum seekers. On the other hand, there are also many “native” inhabitants of Calais, who live in precarious conditions, with respect to their housing and work. A simple question for the sceptics: does anyone have better housing, or a better salary, because the undocumented migrants sleep outdoors and get deported?
*Lets demand an end to the police violence and reclaim the right to peace. Every day the police harasses migrants without mercy, they arrest them for not having done anything wrong. But this omnipresence of police is weighing on the French residents of Calais too, especially in the neighbourhoods where the police and the authorities use only force to respond to the primarily social and economic problems. A baton has never been a solution.
*Lets reclaim the right to freedom of movement and condemn the systematic identity controls. There is freedom of movement for goods and capital, so why couldn’t we have freedom of movement for people? Every year 26 000 migrants are deported from France, while the country proclaims itself to be the cradle of human rights and while big companies make huge profit that only benefits a small minority.
Without a united struggle, the situation in Calais is going to get worse and worse, both for “native” Calaisians and for the migrants. We have to act collectively.
DEMONSTRATION ON SATURDAY THE 28TH OF MAY IN CALAIS
Start at 2.30pm at the crossroads of Rue de Moscou and Rue Lamy
The “d’ailleur nous sommesd’ici” collective is open to everybody, we need to organize the struggled together and united. Contact: dailleurs.dici@laposte.net
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