[IMC-UK-Features] Despair of British Gypsies (with photo)

[Dale Farm]

Please put on Indymedia.
  Grattan Puxon
  Gypsy Council




      

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                Mary, aged 8, close to blazing fire set by
                Constant bailiffs at her Meadowlands caravan park
                in Essex.
   
                Basildon Council are planning a £3 million operation
                to bulldoze a hundred homes at Dale Farm, Crays Hill,
                Essex.
   
                Volunteer as Human Rights Monitor?
                email dale.farm at btinternet.com
   
                  
  BULLYBOY BAILIFFS DEEPEN
DESPAIR OF BRITISH GYPSIES
  By Grattan Puxon
   
  Military-style, the bailiffs arrive at dawn in hard 
  hats with heavy machinery. Women and children 
  are soon marshalled outside, shivering in the glow
  of their burning homes.
   
       Armed riot police standy by to arrest any
  Traveller who resists the eviction. Another trailer
  park is being torched in Britain's undercover war
  on its unwanted Gypsies.
   
      "For us this is ethnic-cleansing," says Richard
  Sheridan, spokesman for Dale Farm, a village
  community facing imminent demolition. "Eviction
  will kill several of our elderly sick."
   
      He has witnessed the crushing of caravans
  and the bullyboy tactics of bailiffs who will stop
  at nothing to get the job done. Private security
  companies are picking up a large portion of the
  30 million euro spent annually by the UK to
  wipe out the Gypsy way of life.
   
      Constant and Co., leading specialists
  in this field, hope shortly to win a two million 
  euro contract from Basildon council to demolish 
  a hundred homes at Dale Farm.
   
      British Travellers, who now range far within
  the European Union, say their treatment in the UK 
  is as racist as anything seen in eastern Europe. 
  You only have to check the London tabloid press 
  to confirm this conclusion.
   
      It's against Constant that Dale Farm
  Housing Association has just posted a formal
  complaint with Secretary of State for Justice
  Jack Straw. The dossier contains allegations
  of arson, assault and theft by bailiffs who
  are said to ignore health and safety
  regulations and trample on the human
  rights of their Gypsy victims.
   
                      JUDGE SPEAKS
   
       Film showing a pregnant mother on the 
  ground and children screaming prompted 
  a judge in the UK High Court last month to 
  call for a halt to such raids. Judge Collins said 
  the use of Constant is inappropriate and the
  policy of repeated evictions must be
  reconsidered.
   
       The problem started back in 1994 when
  the Criminal Justice Act halted the building
  of municipal trailer parks and increased the
  powers of the police to harass Travellers.
  Their traditional way of life outlawed, they
  were advised to buy land and settle down.
   
       Many have done so only to be refused 
  planning permits. New homes have been quickly 
  wrecked and following eviction, families have 
  found themselves moved on daily from temporary
  camps on car parks and wasteland.
   
      A recent government-sponsored Gypsy
  task force reported on the dubious methods
  of bailiffs and called for introduction of a
  proper complaints procedure. It says evictions
  should stop while Travellers await new
  accommodation provision under the 2004
  Housing Act.
   
      But at the earliest this will not begin to
  happen until 2011. The majority of local
  authorities are dragging their feet and seem
  unlikely to comply for five, even ten years.
   
      "We can't wait that long," comments
  Sheridan. "Thousands of our children are
  missing school and live in constant
  insecurity."
   
       With nowhere legal to live the nomadic
  minority of Britain's 350,000 Gypsies fear only
  further persecution. The failure of the British
  government to pursue this issue with 
  vigor has left many in dispair.
   
       Richard Sheridan is turning to the Russians
  for help. Armed with his complaints dossier, he's 
  attending a conference on the protection of 
  minorities in Luxemburg next month, linked to 
  the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian 
  Federation.
   
   
   
   
       
   
   
   
   


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