Update: Women In Yarl’s Wood Vow To Stay On Hunger Strike – Black Women’s Rape Action Project | 12.02.2010http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/02/445969.html
Women’s struggle ongoing in one of UKBA’s detention centre’s run by Serco scumbags. Moved to mainstream prisons to try and keep them down. How you can help:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/02/445917.html
Continue reading Defend the Yarl’s Wood 4
Women at Yarl’s wood immigration detention centre have been on hunger strike since Friday last week and in the last couple of days, the detention centre has responded brutally. See the links below for info/summary about what’s been happening. The traditional violence of the British state is alive and kicking.
F-word website: Report from the Yarl’s Wood hunger strike: By Jess McCabe | 8 February 2010, 16:54
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/02/report_from_the
See also: National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaignshttp://www.ncadc.org.uk/
On August 12th Hicham Yezza was released from HMP High Down after more than 5 months in prison following a year-long ordeal of first being arrested at his workplace University of Nottingham as part of a terrorist scare fiasco, subsequently incarcerated and moved around various detention centres facing immediate deportation but managing to prevent this and to take his case to court in spite of vigorous opposition from the Home Office, then being found guilty of a criminal charge and imprisoned again.
More details about his case and welcome release are forthcoming. In the meantime, his campaign website carries details of the new issue of Ceasefire, the magazine of Nottingham Student Peace Movement he edited whilst at the University. This one is a special 68-page limited edition edited in Cell 213, HMP Canterbury.
Hicham is due to speak at this weekend’s Beyond Borders event in Nottingham.
To find out what you can to help local people facing deportation, visit: http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk/
There is also an Anti-deportation group that meets regularly – contact No Borders Nottingham for details: Email info (at) nobordersnottingham.org.uk
Visit http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk/nrcg.htm for news & advice about detention and deportation. For UK-wide anti-deportation information visit National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns: http://www.ncadc.org.uk/
Latest news, 20th May, 2009:
We have just heard that Sima Valand’s removal directions have been cancelled!
Sima now has a decent solicitor working on her case and the solicitor’s intervention stopped today’s removal. She has submitted fresh evidence which the Home Office are considering so hopefully, Sima won’t be at risk of removal now and can apply for bail. But if you’re poised over the fax machine about to send an appeal on Sima’s behalf to Smith, don’t let this stop you from carrying on!
Sima Valand is desperately fighting to stop the Home Office sending her to India where she is at risk of murder at the hands of her in-laws. She was not flown on Fri 8th May or Wed 20th May. She remains in an immigration prison until she is bailed, to fight and hopefully win her case. More info: http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk/
Read an Indymedia round up of recent No Borders actions: No detentions, No deportations! More action to take place on Saturday 21st March (for details, follow link, or just scroll down this blog).
Saturday 21st March 2009 Gather 11.30am at Bedford Town Centre to march from Bedford to Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre, to demonstrate between 12.30 and 2pm.
Continue reading Bedford demo “For An End to Immigration Detention” Sat 21st March
This comes from a detainee we have come to know and who anti-deportation activists in Nottingham are supporting. Like many desperate Zimbabweans she came to the UK on Malawian passport. This is not illegal in international law if you are fleeing persecution. She narrowly escaped being removed last week due to a Home Office cock-up, but we can’t rely on another one of those. Please watch this space for more news of how to support her. We don’t want to give her name, but here is her experience?
Continue reading Letter received from Zimbabwean detainee in Yarl’s Wood
Edited from a report by activists who took part in the Shut Down the Camp! (Luk Lejren!) action on 25th October:
“2-3000 participants went from Allerød train station, 30 km away from Copenhagen, to the biggest refugee camp in Denmark, Sandholm, to cut down the fence around the place. Before the day, local nazis and anti-semitic groups cut one main train-cable to prevent us from arriving in time, the delay just scaled the whole thing up and more people came running! In front of the camp several hundreds of people tried to reach the fence to tear it down, the cops responded with LOTS of tear gas – both against the teams of mobile fencecutters and the standing demo also attended by children and elderly people – but the fence was torn down at several spots, game over.”
Following the action, activists have been busy pushing the agenda in the national media. The action was covered at every level, and has resulted in several different discussions:
1) Some in the parliamentary opposition are suggesting an end to the existing refugee camps and the indefinite detention that asylum seekers are subjected to.
2) The cops have been forced to explain their brutal use of teargas & pepperspray against the demonstration.
3) A central goal of the action was to pull the issue out of the closed system of NGO’s and politicians, to amplify the conflict at every level. Activists debated against politicians in different live-shows, called them racists etc., and exposed the role of the Red Cross that run all the refugee camps in Denmark.
Activists have daily contact with the asylum seekers inside both Sandholm and other Danish camps. Asylum seekers were satisfied with the action, and everyone is planning the next move together, with more people joining in every day.
Introduction to the action in English: http://luklejren.dk/spip.php?article14
Watch video of demos and direct action on Shut Down the Camp/Luk Lejren Danish website: http://luklejren.dk
Hour by hour acccunt of the action and link to pictures: http://luklejren.smartlog.dk/
Find some more pictures here on Belgian website: http://www.cemab.be/news/2008/10/5966.php
Continue reading Shut Down the Camp! Luk Lejren! Activists break the fence at Sandholm immigration prison in Denmark & spark national debate
With the passing of the EU ‘returns directive’ last week (see also
http://www.outrageousdirective.org/ ), it is encouraging to report on two actions, one in Belgium and one in Denmark that defy state treatment of would-be refugees and migrant workers.
DENMARK: Stop the Deportations ( http://www.stopudvisningerne.blogspot.com/ ) is a network that has emerged in Copenhagen as an answer to the unacceptable practise of sending people back to the turmoil in Iraq. Stop the Deportations has lately, on several occasions protested and made blockades in Kastrup airport in order to stop the deportations. We have succeeded in raising awareness and public debate about the issue and we are – with inspiration from the campaigning all over Europe, planning future actions. One day in the third week of July week 30 we will act specifically against Lufthansa. See previous action against deportation at Copehagen. Airport. May 28th 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnbbk4-4wBQ
BELGIUM: On Saturday 28th of march, 22 refugee-activists blockaded the gates of the closed detention centre in Merksplas (Belgium). The group, Mindy’s Mega Blockade, locked the two gates where mini-vans transport the refugees in and out of the centre. The gate for the staff and visitors wasn’t blocked. From seven o’clock in the morning ten activists used tubes to link their arms trough the two gates, while one activist, dressed up as Mega Mindy (a very popular female superhero in a dutch television series) climbed up the wall of the closed detention centre. Encouraged by the detained refugees they kept up the blockade until 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Not a single van could bring refugees to the airport or inside the detention centre. The action group informed the police of the blockade, but the police didn’t arrest the activists. The action was broadcasted through all the media in Flandres (the dutch-speaking part of Belgium) on Saturday. The activists said they wanted to shut down the deportation machinery, raise awareness about the detention of children and strengthen the debate about closed dention centres. See photos on : http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/23371.php
Note that UK, which implements an indefinite detention period, did not opt-in to the Returns Directive which lays down a maximum period of custody of six months & can be extended by a further 12 months in certain cases. The detention of human beings for any period is of course unacceptable to No Borders.
Continue reading European actions against detention & deportation
Following the cancellation order on his deportation and despite being unjustly incarcerated for over two weeks, Hicham Yezza has received news that he is to be transported to a fifth detention centre. He released this statement today from Colnbrook immigration removal centre saying, “I am […] refusing to go. I am not a piece of luggage, but a human being and deserve to be treated as such.? Read more on Indymedia:
http://notts.indymedia.org.uk
Also read interview with Hicham and a damning article about the current climate of ‘self-censorship’ in universities in Guardian newspaper today:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/new…2283183,00.html
Please note Hich is a a respected anti-militarist activist who has been in Nottingham for 13 years.
Continue reading Hicham Yezza refuses to be transported to fifth detention centre