As some of you may know, there are regular charter flights London to Kabul, nearly one per week, with 40 to 60 Afghans on board. Many are former unaccompanied minors who have turned 18 or 19. There are often protests, hungerstrikes etc, but, as contact between the Afghans detained and the outside world is almost non-existent, almost nobody hears about.

We have some news from John O of Freemovement  http://www.freemovement.org.uk/ about a recent incident at Harmondsworth:

first message:
What 'Freemovement' has been told is that a number of Afghans were to be removed by Charter Flight.
The guards who were to process the Afghan detainees brought three Alsatian's with them, the Afghans were unhappy about this and refused to move. Guards then decided to lock them down and the Afghan detainees resisted, some of the detainees may have sustained injuries. Do not know if charter flight went ahead.
If anyone on list has hard info on events in Harmondsworth IRC, please Email 'Freemovement', make clear what is for information and can be made public and what is for information only and cannot be made public.

Second message:
"Spoke to a detainee that witnessed some of what went on, he said that on Monday an Afghan man that appeared to be a leader was protesting about being sent back because he had lived in this country for 12 years and had partner and children living in Sheffield,
He said a number of guards started beating him up and the man was screaming when he come out of the room he was covered in blood bleeding from the mouth and nose, when the other Afghan nationals saw this they were very angry and started smashing up the place, police and 5 dogs were brought in.
Flight appears to have got cancelled but they were taken yesterday Tuesday.
He said the man was badly injured but they put him on the flight, three were brought back and they in solitary confinement and no one can get to them their phones get taken away he also said all in all in Harmondsworth there were 56 Afghans."

The following link is rare exception of a media report of a hunger strike by a group of 18 Afghans, at Morton Hall, Lincolnshire, reported by BBC news: The short- lived hunger strike ended 18th September.

 http://www.digitalhen.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-14965306

'The UK Border Agency said it would only return people to Afghanistan if they did not need protection'. (last sentence of the article).
Afghanistan has suffered nearly 30 years of war and life expectancy is of 45 years, the lowest in the world before the crisis in the Horn of Africa.


To obtain asylum in UK is very difficult indeed for the Afghans, as the Home Office claims that, if for instance someone is in danger in Helmand, he can 'safely relocate' in the areas that are 'protected' by the Afghan forces and coalition forces. It seems superfluos to comment on how grotesque this lie is, but they get away with it. Even after the Taliban brough an attack right in the heart of Kabul... As of September 18, 2011, there have been 2,649 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001 (according to wikipedia); the numbers of Afghan army and police dead are far much higher, but it is difficult to find such figures (as well as it is difficult to find figures for the Afghan civilians' deaths).

Latests:
21/09/2011: Afghanistan, eleven policemen killed
20/09/2011: Afghanistan, former President Rabbani killed in an attack
19/09/2011: Afghanistan, killed three soldiers in ISAF in the South
14/09/2011: Afghanistan, killed the last two Taliban of the NATO attack
13/09/2011: Afghanistan, Kabul embassy attack: At least 6 dead
13/09/2011: Afghanistan, Taliban attack U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters
09/09/2011: Afghanistan, in Helmand car bomb: 7 dead and 5 wounded
from Peace Reporter,  http://it.peacereporter.net/


Sometimes it seems to me we are nibbling at the hedges and missing the real issues, when the UK are deporting thousands of people including families with small children to countries at war, countries where the worst human right abuses happen, where they are terrified to be deported, least they get imprioned, tortured, killed. Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, DR Congo, Iraq...

No Borders did quite recently a brilliant action blockading the two Heathrow deportation centres, Harmondsworth and Colnbrook, to try stop a charter to Iraq. The flight was in fact cancelled thanks to legal action, the blockade probably gave more time to the solicitors to act.  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/481632.html

I would really like to see a wider and sustained campaign against deportations, involving the national communities, the detainees, their supporters, the visitors when they are up for taking some action: of course not everybody is required to lock in front of a deportation centre, there are other types of action, legal action, campaigning, organizing protests, signing letters and petitions, lobbying MPs and a combination of all those. What I most hate is to see no action, as they say bad things happen because good people do nothing - but if they do nothing, what are they good at?


No Borders No Nations Stop Deportations