[IMC-UK-Features] No Borders feature proposal

[m3shrom at riseup.net]

Hi there,

It's a bit long for a feature - maybe could you rewrite it to be only 3
paragraphs and link out to articles which already exist to get all the
ideas across?

m

> 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.
>
>
> --
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