A YouGov poll, whose results arrived yesterday. Confounding many assumptions about the British public, 54% OF THOSE INTERVIEWED AGREED with the statement: People should be free to live and work wherever they wish, and enjoy the same rights as all other residents. No one is illegal.

SIGN THE DECLARATION (and get as many others as possible to do the same): http://nooneisillegal.wufoo.com/forms/sign-the-no-one-is-illegal-declaration/

Over 50 women have been on hunger strike at Yarls Wood Immigration
Prison near Bedford since Friday 5th February, demanding their
immediate release from indefinite detention.

More info, Read more and visit: http://london.noborders.org.uk

Serco, the company that runs Yarl’s Wood on behalf of the UK Border
Agency, has tried to brutally repress the hunger strike, most notably
on Monday 8th February when Serco guards locked the hunger strikers in
a corridor for 8 hours without access to water or toilet facilities.

London NoBorders calls for the immediate release of the hunger
strikers and an end to immigration prisons and is calling for a demo
in solidarity with the hungers strikers this Friday at 2.30pm outside
Serco’s offices at 18-22 Hand Court (off High Holborn), London, WC1V
6JF. Please bring banners and instruments.

One of the UNISON members picked up, who was traumatised by the clandestine nature of the raid and the appearance of around 40 officers in full body armour, arrived back in Bogota, 48 hours after the raid, wearing the same clothes she was arrested in and with 75pence in her pocket. Others were deported or are detained at Yarl’s Wood.

Full story: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/433893.html

This is a perfect example of the practice of companies like Amey and organisations like NPL who bring them in to cut costs. These companies are responsible for attempting to lower wages through casualisation. More solidarity action is needed to support workers who are brave enough to stand up to these attacks and so help protect the wages of all.

In response to these outrages, London No Borders has called a solidarity demo at the French Tourist Board in High Holborn, London, Friday 14th November, from 1pm-2pm. Click ‘Read more’ for full story and demo details.

** Solidarity demo with migrants in Calais, outside the French Tourist
Board, 300 High Holborn, London – this Friday 1-2pm **

In the last few weeks there has been an increasingly brutal repression
of migrants in Calais and the surrounding areas.

On Wednesday 22nd October police and 250 armed riot squad officers
smashed a camp that was home to 350 Eritreans. There were hundreds of
arrests and around 80 of the migrants were imprisoned in a detention
centre.

Then on Thursday 6th November police conducted a manhunt of Afghans in
the area. Journalists and activists on the scene were encircled by
police for a number of hours to prevent them from documenting what was
happening, and intervening. During a solidarity demo the following
evening a prominent local activist was arrested.

We understand that the arrest of Afghans is in preparation for a
charter flight to Kabul in the next few weeks that is being organised
jointly by the French and British authorities.

In response to these outrages, London No Borders is calling for a
solidarity demo at the French Tourist Board this Friday, 14th November,
from 1pm-2pm. No detention! No deportations! End all immigration
controls!

Address: Lincoln House, 300 High Holborn, WC1V 7JH. Please bring
banners and noise making things!

Email: noborderslondon [at] riseup.net
http://noborderslondon.blogspot.com

Also in London on Monday 16th June, details on http://www.outrageousdirective.org/
Demonstrate at 12 noon outside the London office of the European Commission at 8 Storey’s Gate, SW1P 3AT [Map] against the “Return Directive” to be voted on by the European Parliament on 17th or 18th June 2008 which will allow EU member states to:
* Detain non-EU migrants for up to 18 months
* Detain and deport migrants including vulnerable people, unaccompanied minors (under 18 years of age) and pregnant women
* Expel unaccompanied minors and other migrants to a country where they have neither family nor legal support
* Ban an expelled migrant from re-entering any part of the EU for up to 5 years (although UK is already looking at making this 10 for some deportees, see:
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/Newszine95/HC321.html ).

See also: Shut Down EU Migrant Hunters! – Actions against Frontex

This was sent by Global Women’s Strike & WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)
>Tel 020 7482 2496 (voice/minicom)
>winvisible@allwomencount.net http://www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20WwDiss/WVindex.htm>
>www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20WwDiss/WVindex.htm. They will be supporting Peter Gichura in court and outside with placards.
>contact: tel/minicom: 020 7482 2496 or 07803 789699

More information…
Peter Gichura, father, wheelchair user and disability activist, is again
>threatened with imminent removal back to Kenya, where he faces political
>persecution, including death threats, and the loss of the medical treatment
>on which his life depends.
>
>Mr Gichura is suing the Home Office and Kalyx, the private company which
>runs Harmondsworth detention centre, for mistreatment in 2006. On 21 May,
>the district judge at Central London County Court will rule whether Mr
>Gichura can proceed with his disability discrimination case under the
>Disability Discrimination Act, and also under the European Convention on
>Human Rights which forbids discrimination. Meanwhile, the Home Office is
>pressing ahead with deportation of the man who has taken them to court for
>discrimination. On 23 May at the High Court, Mr Gichura’s legal team will
>argue it is unjust for him to be returned to Kenya.
>
>The Home Office claims that if he is sent back, Mr Gichura’s right to a
>fair hearing of his case won’t be jeopardised, and that he could pursue his
>civil action from Kenya — despite having compelling medical and other expert
>evidence that he would not have access to treatment there, his life would
>be
>in danger, and the village he would return to lacks basic accessible living
>conditions.
>
>BACKGROUND
>
>Peter Gichura was detained twice in Harmondsworth in appalling conditions
>including: not being able to use the bathroom and toilet properly,
>suffering
>painful and threatening body searches, and on the first occasion (February
>2006) being given the wrong medication. Anne Owers, HM Chief Inspector of
>Prisons, condemned the conditions at Harmondsworth as “the poorest report
>we
>have issued on an Immigration Removal Centre” (November 2006).
>
>Mr Gichura’s original application for asylum on grounds of political
>persecution as a disability activist was refused. In 2006, when his spinal
>injury worsened, he applied for asylum for medical treatment without which
>he would die. Expert evidence from Rachel Hurst OBE (Disability Awareness
>in Action), a member of the Advisory Group to the government Office for
>Disability, confirming this, has been ignored. Many other people seeking
>asylum face a similar fate as Mr Gichura, and others have already been sent
>back, because of a High Court ruling that removal does not contravene
>Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights — the right not to be
>subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment.
>
>In a similar case, recent press coverage has highlighted the plight of a
>couple who face a rapid deterioration in their health and death, if they
>were deported, because the medical treatment they need (for HIV) would not
>be available and their young son would become an orphan (Independent, 4
>April 2007).
>
>In March, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights condemned as
>unacceptable, “the deliberate use of inhumane treatment” in asylum policy
>and found that, “Asylum seekers as a group do not always get the greatest
>sympathy from society or the media, but what we have seen and heard
>provides
>very hard evidence of appalling treatment that no human being should
>suffer.”
>
>Also in March, Anne McGuire, Minister for Disabled People, signed the UK
>government up to the
> UN Convention on
>the
>Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which prohibits discrimination against
>people with disabilities in all areas of life, including access to justice
>and the right to health services. But the Home Office is going against the
>Convention by continuing High Court proceedings to send Mr Gichura back to
>Kenya.
>
>Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, writing in support of Mr Gichura,
>said: “I would underline the wider social consequences of handling cases
>like these in ways that entrench . . . a perception that the UK immigration
>regime is unbalanced, unjust and inhumane. I recall . . .the European
>Convention on Human Rights, “Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by
>law.” He proposes discussion with the Home Office “to find some more
>humane
>middle ground” than the current refusal of medical grounds (Letter to Liam
>Byrne, 12 October 2006).
>
>People with disabilities have not only the right to life but also the right
>to live free from fear. We are calling on everyone, and especially those
>who speak for the disability community, to defend Peter Gichura’s right to
>anti-discrimination protection and safety. A victory in his case would help
>establish rights and protections for all.
>

Demonstrate 7 January 2008. 9am onwards at Southwark Crown Court.
1 English Grounds (off Battlebridge Lane),
Southwark, London SE1 2HU (nearest tube London Bridge).

The trial of four men who were in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre the time of the protest there on 28 November 2006 will open on 7 January 2008 and a demonstration will take place at Southwark Crown Court.

The Support the Harmondsworth 4 campaign is supported by London No Borders, Barbed-Wire Britain, Institute for Race Relations, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism, Crossroads Womens? Centre and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

Harmondsworth is run by private company Kalyx, a subsidiary of Sodexho. The protest came the day after the publication of a damning inspection report by Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers into conditions and treatment of detainees at Harmondsworth, and was directly triggered by the attempts of members of staff to prevent a group of detainees from watching a news broadcast about the report. Prison riot squads were drafted in to batter the protesters into submission. About 50 detainees were left in a courtyard all night and others were locked in their rooms even though parts of the detention centre were on fire.