[IMC-UK-Features] No Borders feature proposal

[manchesternoborders at riseup.net]

Hi, we are proposing the following feature. We've already included links
in brackets into the text. As reports of the demos come in, they could
maybe be included as updates as done with the pieing of Mandelson. As a
picture we suggest the photograph of Phil Woolas trapped in his office on
our blog at the moment. Cheers

www.manchesternoborders.org.uk


Abolish All Immigration Prisons

Last Friday evening, two dozen activists entered the offices of Minister
for Immigration and Borders Phil Woolas in Oldham, ‘detaining’
[http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/424174.html] him for about 30
minutes. The campaigners included members of No Borders Manchester
[http://www.nobordersmanchester.blogspot.com/], No One Is Illegal
[http://www.noii.org.uk/] and the Anarchist Federation
[http://www.af-north.org/]. The action intended to mirror the government’s
practice of detaining migrants in ‘immigration removal centres’ without
prosecution, trial or sentencing, for indefinite periods of time. They
called for all immigration prisons to be abolished.

Every year up to 30.000 innocent people including 2,000 children are
detained arbitrarily and indefinitely in the UK under immigration powers,
in purpose built prisons for migrants. Torture and rape survivors are
routinely detained, so are pregnant women and people who have or develop
serious illnesses and mental health problems. 2,500 people are currently
locked up in 10 British immigration prisons, 7 of them owned and managed
by private companies. There are also a number of ‘short-term’ detention
centres at British ports and airports. Phil Woolas is seeking the
expansion of the detention estate to 4,000 spaces. Brook House, a new
immigration prison at Gatwick airport is due to open this spring
[http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/420686.html] and there are plans
to build another ‘mega’-detention centre near Bullington, Oxfordshire.

Groups affiliated to the UK No Borders network [http://noborders.org.uk/]
are now calling for demonstrations against immigration detention on
Saturday 21st March. A protest march
[http://london.noborders.org.uk/yarlswood2009] will lead from Bedford to
the Yarl’s Wood detention centre, which was half destroyed by fire in
2002, following an uprising ignited by the ill-treatment of a sick woman
by guards. Transport is available from London. Solidarity demonstrations
are planned in Manchester and Edinburgh.

Fires, riots and hunger-strikes in protest at appalling treatment and
conditions are such a common occurrence in British detention centres that
it would be impossible to document
[http://london.noborders.org.uk/radicalhistory] them all. Many protests
have also highlighted racism and violence from guards, obstruction of
asylum claims, attempts to isolate people from outside support and
targeting of so-called ringleaders. Similar conditions can be found in
detention centres across Fortress Europe, with the recent destruction by
fire [http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/422754.html] of a centre in
Lampedusa, Italy, grabbing the headlines.

The demonstration in Manchester
[http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/423790.html] will be going to the
newly-expanded ‘Pennine House’ detention facility at the airport. The
campaign to close this prison has achieved a high profile recently after
the invasion of Phil Woolas’s offices and an intervention
[http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/423407.html] during a speech by
Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese.

In Edinburgh [http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/424189.html],
campaigners will picket the private security company G4S. G4S profits from
running immigration prisons in the UK, including Dungavel near Glasgow and
Pennine House. They have also received the contracts for Brook House.