--------------------PLEASE FORWARD
> WIDELY-----------------------------------
>
>
> RACIST IMMIGRATION SWEEP AND DEPORTATIONS OUTSIDE OF
> LONDON TUBE STATION:
> NO ONE IS ILLEGAL
>
>
> Yesterday at 3pm in central London, outside of
> Victoria tube station
> something happened which I have not seen before.
> Almost 40 police officers
> and immigration services officers standing in a
> massive line, with
> sniffing dogs detaining, searching, and stopping
> people. At first I was
> not sure about what I had seen, but as soon as I
> realized the only people
> who were being stopped were people of colour,
> especially Arabs, and South
> Asians it was either about stopping asylum seekers
> or “terrorists”. The
> police were just cherry picking anyone that day who
> was a person of colour
> was being picked up and surrounded by officers,
> harassed, asked for their
> visas, and essentially taking people away who did
> not have their papers.
> This is the institutional racism that was always
> their and obvious, but
> yesterday immigrants became afraid to even ride the
> tube. I was as well.
> The police were completely ignoring peoples rights
> and demanding peoples
> identification, oh yeah it wasn’t scary if you were
> white, the cops
> wouldn’t even look at you. Unsure of what to do I
> had called liberty an
> organization that supports asylum seekers, and media
> to alert them of
> this. The police then took notice of myself. As I
> had tried to intervene
> on peoples behalf and show solidarity with them by
> informing their rights
> and intervening to make sure the police were not
> violating their rights.
> The police then physically dragged me out of the
> tube station because I
> was an obstruction to their procedures. I had said
> that this was racism to
> the core, and the police officer said “this is
> perfectly legal and we are
> doing this to keep London safe for Christmas”.
> Keeping London safe for
> Christmas? From what those damn Muslims, or south
> Asians, because their
> terrorists. Could it be. They had been arresting so
> many people they had
> taken them away in dark blue unmarked police vans in
> shifts to
> deportation centres. The police said we need these
> asylum controls because
> you can only have so many people in this country or
> (so many people of
> colour). I had argued with them the problem isn’t
> immigrants the problem
> is what causes immigration, which is UK foreign
> policy which is causing
> people to risk their lives and the lives of their
> families to make an
> attempt to flee from destitute poverty and political
> persecution at the
> hands of western policies and economic imperialism.
> After an hour over 15 immigrants had been taken away
> for deportation I
> had a one person “no one is illegal” demonstration
> because something to
> this scale could not go unchallenged. People who
> were being questioned
> needed that solidarity as it gave them the strength
> at least tell the
> police they were completely racist. After another
> hour the reception had
> be appreciated by onlookers, which was enough to
> aggravate the police to
> the point where my placard was then confiscated by
> London transport
> police. Saying this had been stolen property.
> That day in total from what I had seen around 20
> people had been arrested
> and the police had left the tube station at 7pm. As
> the immigration cops
> smiled and laughed it had been a good day for them.
> But for anyone who
> was their for those who now face deportations with
> their mothers, wives,
> children, and friends those people are now the
> disappeared, the
> invisible. These immigrants are victims of the war
> the war at home which
> is vital to the racism that justifies the war
> abroad, by blaming those
> who fit the “other”. As I had spoken to someone in
> Liberty who had said
> this type of immigration sweep is only beginning to
> happen recently but
> is becoming more frequent. These brutal and
> humiliating tactics which
> violate the rights of everyone must become
> challenged. If you see an
> immigration sweep, call liberty get as many people
> down their to cause
> enough of a disruption until they can no longer
> continue their policies
> of racism. Don’t let the pigs get away with this
> again because their are
> no concessions for those families who are now broken
> up. There are no
> concessions for those who are dying in campsfield.
> Enough is Enough
> No One Is Illegal!!
>
> To be invlolved in disrupting such immigration
> sweeps please email me @
>  mostafah@riseup.net
>
> To find out more on actions in solidarity with
> immigrants
>
> Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers:
>  http://www.defend-asylum.org
>
> National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns:
>  http://www.ncadc.org.uk
>