NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST IMMIGRATION POLICE STATE
6am. A cold autumn morning. A young woman and her two young children are woken by loud banging at the door. They know who it is; this is what they have been dreading for months. Eight to ten large, burly, aggressive men are outside. As soon as the door is opened they arrest the woman - who has committed no crime - and order her to pack her things. If she hadn’t opened the door they would have just smashed it down. She is terrified, her children are terrified. They are bundled into the back of a van and driven to a nearby compund where they are locked up. Then they are bundled back into the van and driven to a prison several hours away. Bogota ? Baghdad? - No, Bristol... it’s the routine morning removal of an asylum-seeking family to a detention centre.
Answering the call-out from the No Borders camp (see SchNEWS 604), and marking UN International Migrant’s Day on 18th December, activists round the country simultaneously blockaded Immigration Reporting Centres - the bases used for snatch squad seizures of asylum seekers. Arriving at the centres in the early hours of the morning, the activists aimed to prevent Immigration Enfarcement Officers from staging dawn raids, in which families are often rounded up in preparation for removal to countries from which they have been forced to flee.
In Bristol, activists arrived in time to lock onto vehicles, and a police officer was over heard confirming that a dawn raid had been planned. In Portsmouth, activists were locked on to the swing barrier and gates by 4.30am another dawn raid from that site was thwarted.
Glasgow activists were in place by 5.30am when the Immigration Goon Squad arrived, who were unable to leave the car park in their vehicles due to a tripod, whilst other people d-locked to the gates. Newcastle activists dressed in Santa outfits, locked on to the gates and used arm tubes to prevent vehicles from leaving the car parks. Two of the Glasgow activists were cut free from their d-locks and arrested, whilst a tripod continued to ensure that vehicles could not leave the car park. Activists at the other sites were able to leave without any arrests taking place.
In Manchester the local Immigration Reporting Centre, Dallas Court, had its gates locked with a motorcycle chain and a banner reading “Caution snatch squads – we are watching you” was hung. Later, at 10am, the Home Office in Marsham Street SW1, London was disrupted after activists blocked the entrance and unfurled a large banner declaring “No Child is Illegal: Child Detention is a Crime”.
Meanwhile, Nottingham activists were campaigning to stop the deportation of Jane Mary Mutetsi a Rwandan national who fled to Britain via Uganda after her husband was murdered following which she was subjected to a gang rape and severe beating by Rwandan soldiers in which she lost the sight in one eye, her left ovary and several teeth. Jane Mary faces deportation to Uganda, where it is rumoured that there is a warrant for her arrest.
One activist on the Portsmouth blockade told SchNEWS, “It was crucial to directly intervene in this inhumane and secretive process. Dawn raid seizures are like a form of extraordinary rendition, targeted at individuals and whole families - and are taking place in British cities with barely any public awareness. These raids are carried out with maximum secrecy and the government relies on public ignorance of, or indifference to, their brutality. Where is the coverage of the two-and-a-half thousand people currently imprisoned without having committed any crime?. Where is the coverage of the dozens of children, some not even a year old, in prison? Where is the coverage of the real situation of asylum seekers who came here for peace and safety and are instead humiliated, abused, locked up, attacked and treated like dirt at every turn?”
These bases are all around the country. There are no statistics on the number and regularity of the raids carried out because the government will not release the figures. But the fleets of vehicles blockaded on just one day this morning and the harrowing personal accounts of families show a large sale operation.
Dawn raids are used to gain custody of whole families in order to imprison them before anyone has gone out to school or work. Every day, doors are kicked in and families are snatched from their beds and taken to detention centres, where they are punished for seeking refuge in this country. They are taken away from their houses, jobs, schools and communities – their lives. The timing ensures no witnesses are present. So far – except when detainees riot in the conditions at detention centres, there has been little mainstream coverage of this aspect of the UK’s inhumane immigration policies.
Liam Byrne – Minister for Immigration has admitted that these raids take place without warning in the early hours is because otherwise families due to be removed might attract public sympathy.
Other activists have continually targeted the weakest link in the removal process – the airlines. Up until recently asylum seekers were forcibly removed on ordinary passenger aircraft. While some detainees have been able to frustrate the process by forcibly resisting, many others have been jettisoned out to a uncertain and dangerous future sat next to cheerful holidaymakers off on their latest cut-price bargain citybreak. Following unwanted attention from campaigners, and an action at it’s Crawley premises during the climate camp, one airline - XL airlines - has now pulled out of a £1.5 million contract with the Home Office. Staff and pilots were leafleted and informed that they were ‘flying people to their deaths’.
Airline spokesmen expressed their “sympathy for all dispossessed persons in the world” but claimed they “did not understand the political dimensions involved” in such charter flights! Well they obviously need the education activists can provide then. Meanwhile one Bradford campaigner was arrested and is on trial this week at Horsham magistrates for ‘aggravated trespass’.
Hoping to step into the gap however are Asylum Airways, a pint-sized Austrian outfit, linked to British security firms, who want to use planes with padded rooms and specially designed seats enabling guards to strap down and restrain detainees. They’ve made their bid to the government who will surely lap up their ‘blue skies’ thinking, so watch this space...
Activists don’t intend December’s actions to be a one-off, merely the start of a new wave of regular resistance to the racist immigration regime in general and the dawn raids in particular.
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST IMMIGRATION POLICE STATE
6am. A cold autumn morning. A young woman and her two young children are woken by loud banging at the door. They know who it is; this is what they have been dreading for months. Eight to ten large, burly, aggressive men are outside. As soon as the door is opened they arrest the woman - who has committed no crime - and order her to pack her things. If she hadn’t opened the door they would have just smashed it down. She is terrified, her children are terrified. They are bundled into the back of a van and driven to a nearby compund where they are locked up. Then they are bundled back into the van and driven to a prison several hours away. Bogota ? Baghdad? - No, Bristol... it’s the routine morning removal of an asylum-seeking family to a detention centre.
Answering the call-out from the No Borders camp (see SchNEWS 604), and marking UN International Migrant’s Day on 18th December, activists round the country simultaneously blockaded Immigration Reporting Centres - the bases used for snatch squad seizures of asylum seekers. Arriving at the centres in the early hours of the morning, the activists aimed to prevent Immigration Enfarcement Officers from staging dawn raids, in which families are often rounded up in preparation for removal to countries from which they have been forced to flee.
In Bristol, activists arrived in time to lock onto vehicles, and a police officer was over heard confirming that a dawn raid had been planned. In Portsmouth, activists were locked on to the swing barrier and gates by 4.30am another dawn raid from that site was thwarted.
Glasgow activists were in place by 5.30am when the Immigration Goon Squad arrived, who were unable to leave the car park in their vehicles due to a tripod, whilst other people d-locked to the gates. Newcastle activists dressed in Santa outfits, locked on to the gates and used arm tubes to prevent vehicles from leaving the car parks. Two of the Glasgow activists were cut free from their d-locks and arrested, whilst a tripod continued to ensure that vehicles could not leave the car park. Activists at the other sites were able to leave without any arrests taking place.
In Manchester the local Immigration Reporting Centre, Dallas Court, had its gates locked with a motorcycle chain and a banner reading “Caution snatch squads – we are watching you” was hung. Later, at 10am, the Home Office in Marsham Street SW1, London was disrupted after activists blocked the entrance and unfurled a large banner declaring “No Child is Illegal: Child Detention is a Crime”.
Meanwhile, Nottingham activists were campaigning to stop the deportation of Jane Mary Mutetsi a Rwandan national who fled to Britain via Uganda after her husband was murdered following which she was subjected to a gang rape and severe beating by Rwandan soldiers in which she lost the sight in one eye, her left ovary and several teeth. Jane Mary faces deportation to Uganda, where it is rumoured that there is a warrant for her arrest.
One activist on the Portsmouth blockade told SchNEWS, “It was crucial to directly intervene in this inhumane and secretive process. Dawn raid seizures are like a form of extraordinary rendition, targeted at individuals and whole families - and are taking place in British cities with barely any public awareness. These raids are carried out with maximum secrecy and the government relies on public ignorance of, or indifference to, their brutality. Where is the coverage of the two-and-a-half thousand people currently imprisoned without having committed any crime?. Where is the coverage of the dozens of children, some not even a year old, in prison? Where is the coverage of the real situation of asylum seekers who came here for peace and safety and are instead humiliated, abused, locked up, attacked and treated like dirt at every turn?”
These bases are all around the country. There are no statistics on the number and regularity of the raids carried out because the government will not release the figures. But the fleets of vehicles blockaded on just one day this morning and the harrowing personal accounts of families show a large sale operation.
Dawn raids are used to gain custody of whole families in order to imprison them before anyone has gone out to school or work. Every day, doors are kicked in and families are snatched from their beds and taken to detention centres, where they are punished for seeking refuge in this country. They are taken away from their houses, jobs, schools and communities – their lives. The timing ensures no witnesses are present. So far – except when detainees riot in the conditions at detention centres, there has been little mainstream coverage of this aspect of the UK’s inhumane immigration policies.
Liam Byrne – Minister for Immigration has admitted that these raids take place without warning in the early hours is because otherwise families due to be removed might attract public sympathy.
Other activists have continually targeted the weakest link in the removal process – the airlines. Up until recently asylum seekers were forcibly removed on ordinary passenger aircraft. While some detainees have been able to frustrate the process by forcibly resisting, many others have been jettisoned out to a uncertain and dangerous future sat next to cheerful holidaymakers off on their latest cut-price bargain citybreak. Following unwanted attention from campaigners, and an action at it’s Crawley premises during the climate camp, one airline - XL airlines - has now pulled out of a £1.5 million contract with the Home Office. Staff and pilots were leafleted and informed that they were ‘flying people to their deaths’.
Airline spokesmen expressed their “sympathy for all dispossessed persons in the world” but claimed they “did not understand the political dimensions involved” in such charter flights! Well they obviously need the education activists can provide then. Meanwhile one Bradford campaigner was arrested and is on trial this week at Horsham magistrates for ‘aggravated trespass’.
Hoping to step into the gap however are Asylum Airways, a pint-sized Austrian outfit, linked to British security firms, who want to use planes with padded rooms and specially designed seats enabling guards to strap down and restrain detainees. They’ve made their bid to the government who will surely lap up their ‘blue skies’ thinking, so watch this space...
Activists don’t intend December’s actions to be a one-off, merely the start of a new wave of regular resistance to the racist immigration regime in general and the dawn raids in particular.
- The main campaigning organisations:
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns – www.ncadc.org.uk – 0161 7406504
Refugee Council – www.refugeecouncil.org.uk – 0207 346 6700
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) – www.jcwi.org.uk – 0207 2518708
No One is Illegal – www.noii.org.uk
Barbed Wire Britain – www.barbedwirebritain.org.uk
No Borders - www.noborders.org.uk