[IMC-UK-Features] feature proposal: Tinsley House immigration prison blockaded by anti-deportation campaigners

[Shiar]

Title: Tinsley House immigration prison blockaded by anti-deportation
campaigners

Image: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2009/03/424548.jpg

Abstract:

Early in the morning of 17th March, about 20 anti-deportation campaigners
<a href="/en/2009/03/424368.html">blockaded Tinsley House detention
centre</a> at Gatwick airport, where some Iraqi refugees due for
deportation were being held. Using D-locks and superglue, the aim of the
protest was to try and prevent the deportees being taken from the
detention centre to Stanstead airport, where a special charter flight to
Iraqi Kurdistan was scheduled that afternoon. The blockade was violently
removed police after about 6 hours and Tinsley deportees, along with some
50 others brought from Campsfield and Dover detention centres, were <a
href="/en/2009/03/424406.html?c=on#c218069">put on the flight</a>, which
landed in Sulaimaniyya around 10pm. Nine protesters, including the six
locked and glued to the gate, were <a
href="/en/2009/03/424406.html">arrested</a> under Section 69 of the
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (failure to leave land after a
warning) and taken to Crawley police station. They were released on bail
later that night and are due in court on March 30th.

<a href="/en/2009/03/424368.html">Tinsley House IRC blockaded by
protesters</a> | <a href="/en/2009/03/424406.html">Tinsley House blockade
ends with arrests and deportees taken to airport</a> | <a
href="/en/2009/03/424513.html">potos</a> | video

<strong>Related:</strong> <a href="/en/2009/02/423020.html">Flying people
to torture and death</a> | <a href="/en/2008/08/406704.html">Hunger strike
in Campsfield as deportee takes his own life in Iraq</a> | <a
href="/en/2007/02/361861.html">Dozens of Iraqi Kurds deported.. again</a>
| <a href="/en/2007/01/360647.html">No Deportations to Unsafe Iraq</a>

Content:

This was the eighth time in the last eight months that people have been
deported to Iraq by charter flight, with over 400 people deported. The
Home Office argues that, unlike other parts of Iraq, Kurdistan is 'safe'.
However, a number of recent deportees have reportedly committed suicide,
been kidnapped or killed in car bombs.

Unlike many other European countries, the UK government is refusing to
ratify Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which
prohibits the collective expulsion of foreigners. Instead, it is
increasing resorting to the use of charter flights to deport people, using
airline companies such as Hamburg International and Czech Airlines.

Deportees are not usually told the date or time of the flight's departure.
In previous flights, people have been deported before their solicitors
have had a chance to appeal or submit judicial reviews. Each deportee is
handcuffed and accompanied by two security guards. The total cost of the
flights are unknown, though it is assumed to be significant. The Home
Office constantly refuses to release such information as it may apparently
be 'commercially sensitive'.


-- 
Shiar