Stop new Gatwick detention centre being built-demo on the 21st of April
anon | 02.04.2007 10:20 | No Border Camp 2007 | Anti-racism | Migration | London | South Coast
SATURDAY 21st of APRIL 2007. There’s going to be a demonstration in THREE BRIDGES near CRAWLEY against the new detention centre. Come to the demonstration or organise solidarity demos/actions in your own cities and towns. Meet up at Jubilee Field in Three Bridges 12 o'clock.Nearest train stop Three Bridges.Come out of Three Bridges station and turn left into East Avenue,after two minutes walk the park (Jubilee Field) is on your right.
For more information on the campaign against the Gatwick detention centre and further details about the demo and companies involved in building and running the centre check www.indymedia.org.uk regularly or email this address: stopdetentionat gatwick@riseup.net
Contact your local noborder group for details of transport to the demo
Brighton
brightonnoborders@riseup.net
Phone 07880 523231
Bradford
j.a.fox@bradford.ac.uk
London
Phone 07983 274 568
Leeds
leedsnoborders@lists.riseup.net
or
Phone 07748010691
Over 2,600 people, mostly asylum seekers, are locked up in detention camps and prisons in Britain, without trial and without time limit and with no automatic right to bail.
The government is building new detention centres with a target capacity of 4000.
One of these is about to be built inside the Gatwick airport area. They are starting building works in the coming months and planning to finish it by 2008.
Detention centres are a crucial part of the European Union’s migration policy:
They are a vital link in the process of controlling and managing migration movements- according to media propaganda this is essential due to the ‘masses’ of migrants ‘swamping’ the country.
They are used as a way to filter migrants according to the needs of the European labour market.
They are a tool of social control: promoting fear by presenting migrants as people who need to be locked up.
Detention centres are institutions which resemble a closed prison regarding its conditions, and where migrants can be locked up due to their nationality and status. Detention can be enforced for many reasons, but in general it is not based on any crime but e.g. in order to unravel one's identity or entering route, or as a way of controlling someone who is due to be deported. Because the detention will mostly be applied on these asylum seekers, it is also in contradiction with the clause 31 of the Geneva refugee agreement, the clause that forbids the punishment of refugees solely on the basis of illegal entering to the country.
Current immigration detention facilities such as Campsfield in Oxfordshire, Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire and Harmondsworth in London where fires and riots have broken out, are notorious for their inhumane regimes. Detainees encounter routine racism and an indefinite period of detention whilst living in prison like conditions. Unlike prisoners they do not know when they will ‘get out’ and also face the fear of being forcibly returned to former countries where they might face torture and death.
In September Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Asylum Aid published a report They Took Me Away on detention of women, focusing on violent treatment during deportations, length of detention, and failure to meet specific needs of women. Children continued to be detained at Dungavel and Oakington and at Yarl's Wood a 250-plus "family unit" was due to open around the end of the year.
Seven out of 10 principal immigration detention centres in the UK are run by private companies for profit under contract to the Home Office (Interior Ministry).
THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION TO STOP THE NEW GATWICK DETENTION CENTRE BEING BUILT.
WE DEMAND AN END TO THE PRACTICE THAT IMPRISONS PEOPLE DUE TO THEIR IMMIGRATION STATUS
WE DEMAND THE BUILDING OF THE NEW DETENTION CENTRE AT GATWICK IS IMMEDIATELY CANCELLED.
NO DEPORTATIONS
NO TO ALL DETENTION CENTRES NO TO ALL PRISONS.
anon
e-mail:
stopdetentionatgatwick@riseup.net
Additions
Tuesday 17th,: No Borders film night/bar: "No Lager Nowhere"
16.04.2007 08:15
night/discussion centred on resistance against detention centres all
around the world - organised by the action group in solidarity with
migrants and opposing deportations and detention.
Film and discussion for the upcoming demonstration in gatwick next saturday.
Camberwell Squat Centre, 192, Warham Street, London SE5.
Nearest tube: Oval. Buses that go past: P5, 36, 185, 436.
or check out the website: www.56a.org.uk/warham.html
somebody
london transport details
19.04.2007 17:39
Suggested donation for coach is £6. But no one turned away for lack of funds!
ULU is on Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY
Bus: 10, 18, 24, 29, 30, 59, 68, 73, 91, 134, 168, 188, 205, 253, 390, 476
Tube: Goodge Street, Euston Square, Russell Square, Warren Street
Bike parking available.
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=529753&Y=182074&A=Y&Z=1
somebody else
Transport details from Brighton
20.04.2007 08:37
transport
e-mail:
stopdetentionatgatwick@riseup.net
Numbers of people detained and spaces in detention
21.09.2007 09:01
The real figures for average stays may be available - I have not come across it. But if this info. were included in this report it would have more impact and convey the scale of the problem more effectively I think than the number of spaces as such in detention. Of course not all these people are deported eventually, and in part this depends on all of us making as much of a fuss as possible about each case as well as the overall quotas policy and specific country returns. Thanks. xx
Helen Hintjens
e-mail:
hintjens@iss.nl