Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

successful blockade of Portishead Immigration Centre

Bristol No Borders | 12.02.2008 06:14 | No Border Camp 2007 | Anti-racism | Migration

Blockade of Border & Immigration Agency depot steps up pressure to end
dawn snatches of families from their homes in the Bristol area

As part of the ongoing campaign against dawn raids, protesters from
Bristol No Borders have returned to blockade Portishead Border &
Immigration Agency (BIA) [1] depot to prevent them from being able to
leave in vehicles and snatch families. The activists have chained
themselves to a car blocking the car park exit. They have been there
since 3 am. Mike Daly of Bristol No Borders said : “In December we came
here and prevented the dawn raid squads from abducting families from
their homes in the week before Christmas. Now we are back again. There
will be no raids today. This inhumane practice needs to stop.”

Government policy targets the most visible and the most vulnerable amongst
those migrants that it sees as being 'undesirable'. Families with young
children fit the bill perfectly. [2]

Jo Freeman of Bristol No Borders explained, “..Children, the ill or
traumatised are targeted, in order to boost their official figures. Doors
are kicked in and families are snatched from their beds and taken to
detention centres, where they are punished for seeking refuge in this
country, and taken away from their houses, jobs, schools and communities –
their lives.”

Staff at the detention centres, snatch squads and deportation teams are
employed by private companies like Group 4 Security, who are famous for
their incompetence and aggression. There have been many instances of
violence and racial abuse in detention centres and during deportation
attempts. When complaints are made about these abuses, they are usually
investigated by the companies whose staff committed them.

Asylum-seeking children are denied the human rights that all other
children have. These rights include the right to go to school, the right
to privacy, the right to family life. No Borders activists state that a
legal system which divides children based on their country of birth
between those that have human rights and those that do not, is racist.

Janet Whittaker works with asylum seekers in Bristol. She said :
“All the time people who have come here seeking protection are being
deported back into danger. I have seen several people I know deported, and
immediately imprisoned by the same vicious regimes they had run away from
before. A friend of mine from Cameroon has been in prison where she has
been sexually abused and beaten by prison guards. Her family had to pay a
considerable bribe to get out. Most people are not lucky enough to have
relatives who can pay them out.”

In Fishponds, a disabled woman from Kenya, and her son, age 2, had their
house broken into by about 10 uniformed immigration officials. Because of
her disability, she needed time to collect her things. They did not allow
her this time, and forced her to leave, so she was not able to bring her
child's food and medicine with her. She has since been released, as many
people are, so this whole traumatic and expensive episode was totally
unnecessary.

The immigration service do these raids under a cloud of secrecy. They use
silver VW people-carriers with blacked-out windows across the country,
operating from a network of bases. The government does not publish any
statistics about dawn raids, but there are many harrowing personal
accounts from families, indicating that they are engaged in a huge hidden
program of dawn raids. Bristol No Borders is continuing to build pressure
on the Government to end this racist and inhumane practice.

Bristol No Borders

Additions

photo and comment

12.02.2008 13:23


Asylum seeker breaks his own neck in a desperate attempt to avoid deportation....
 http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=98276

tom
- Homepage: http://noborders.org.uk


Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. racist machine — enough is enough
  2. Well Done Bristol NB! — s
  3. Brilliant — Fuck the border
  4. No borders - No nations — No one is illegal
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech