On Saturday 31 May 2008, from 1pm, there will be Public meeting at the Friends Meeting House (Quakers House), 6 Mount Street, Manchester, in which everyone can speak without censorship, against the racist policies and degrading and inhuman treatment of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants in Britain by this racist Labour government!


All groups and individuals are welcome.


As deportations continue relentlessly, we need to rethink our strategies for defending asylum seekers. Should we become a charity-type organisation that focuses only on providing food, blankets, tea and coffee and 'advocacy' to asylum seekers and refugees or should we build political campaigning organisations that link defending asylum seekers and the whole asylum issue to the struggle against racism in Britain and British oppression and exploitation abroad?


In the north east, an anti-deportation organisation called TCAR (Tyneside Community Action for Refugees) have been organising asylum seekers for the last two years, organising regular protests and successfully stopping some deportations. TCAR's campaigning is clearly political, frequently blaming the treatment of refugees on the British government itself and its immigration laws, rather than on the odd nasty official in the Home Office. Many of the leaders and activists of this political organisation are asylum seekers and refugees themselves. How do they do it? Is it right to be political? Will it not backfire? Will it not make things worse?


Come and hear a speaker from TCAR tell us about their experiences in the north east and about the anti-racism conference they are planning for on 21 June 2008.



In solidarity

NWASDG