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Free Daniel! Solidarity with the Hunger Strike!

Stop Deportation! | 22.03.2012 11:36 | Migration

A Congolese man has gone on hunger strike to demand his release from an Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow Airport.

An injury on Daniel's arm from a previous deportation attempt in 2008
An injury on Daniel's arm from a previous deportation attempt in 2008


Daniel Ngonga Nsevelo, 29, claims he was savagely beaten by private guards aboard a Kenya Airways flight during an abortive attempt to deport him last month (24/02/2012).

“Because he refused to go on the flight they badly beat him, stamping on his whole body and on his head,” said Mr Nsevelo’s sister Isabelle, adding: “His neck’s swollen because they also strangled him. This isn’t the first time.”

Daniel was born in the Congo but fled with his parents to Angola to escape the murderous civil war aged just 3 years old. The family later sought safety from war-torn Angola, fleeing to the UK when Daniel was 8.

He is currently being held in indefinite detention at the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Center, a high security detention site nicknamed ‘The Cooler’ by some Border Agency officials [1].

Activists from the ‘Stop Deportation Network’ have pledged to support Daniel’s action. “We are inspired by Daniel’s courage to go on hunger strike. Though his protest puts him at risk of further victimization and isolation by the immigration authorities. We demand Daniel’s immediate release and the end to violent deportation,” said Alex Thomlinson, a spokesperson for the group.

The tragic death of fellow asylum seeker, Jimmy Mubenga, at the hands of private guards in October 2010, quickly brought the business of deportation into the public eye [2]. Jimmy and Daniel were in detention together in 2008 and became close friends.

Daniel now fears a similar fate to Mubenga claiming he has been violently assaulted three times during nine separate deportation attempts. On one occasion he says he was even bitten by the escort.

[Ends]

Contact: Stop Deportation Network

Please send messages of support for Daniel to  stopdeportation@riseup.net

“Daniel keep it up we are with you in the struggle”

“You are in our prayers”

Notes:

1. Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre was referred to as ‘The Cooler’ in this article:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046938/Secret-diary-Labour-Immigration-Minister-rails-Human-Rights-Act.html

2. Jimmy Mubenga death: prosecutor weighs up whether to charge G4S security guards  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/16/jimmy-mubenga-decision-due

Stop Deportation!
- Homepage: www.stopdeportations.wordpress.com

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

any info

22.03.2012 12:07

Why is he been deported?

Paul


why?

22.03.2012 12:48

The UK government refuses around 75% of asylum claims, as a matter of routine. And then tries to deport the failed claimants, as a matter of routine. Even if people have evidence of being tortured, their lives in danger, etc., officials do their best to find any doubt in peoples' claims so that they can be denied refuge. Effectively, refugees are assumed guilty (of lying) until they can prove themselves innocent. Which is often pretty hard if you have fled from a country leaving documents etc. behind. People can then be placed in detention indefinitely (prison, but without charge, trial, or sentence) and deported. If you have a good lawyer you can maybe fight against this and get your case considered properly. There are not enough good lawyers to go round, but many crooks.

The question is not why any individual is deported. The question is why do we sit back and watch a system of racism and exploitation, which sucks up the profits from cheap migrant labour then discards us like dirt, continue to play with peoples' lives like this.

solidarity


natural rights v human rights

22.03.2012 18:52

Freedom of movement and access to common resources is more than a Human Right, bestowed under the Human Rights Act. It is a natural right bestowed on all by the creator of the universe.

If you create something by your own actions you are entitled to destroy it also. The Human Rights Act was created by government states, so it can be destroyed by government states.

But no one can destroy natural rights. You can ignore them, but you create the consequences. You own the consequences. You bare personal unlimited liability for the consequential losses to others. You break the non aggression principal. You begin a war that others are entitled to end.

In other words if you take part in the deportation of some one who later dies as a result you may rightly be killed.

Regardless of whatever the government laws says, natural rights take precedence in the natural order of things.

So if you want to maintain your right it exist, leave others alone.

anarchist


there is no such thing as natural rights

23.03.2012 18:34

I too would like to see all borders abolished, and have an anarchist society, but I have to disagree about "a natural right bestowed on all by the creator of the universe."

For starters there is no creator of the universe, and secondly, even if there was, I'm sure they were more concerned with setting up the fundamental laws of physics rather than the minutiae of travel arrangements for autonomous creatures that might evolve billions of year later.

There are absolutely no fundamental or natural rights at all, only those we decide as a society that we should have.

The alternative is just religious or new age hippy bullshit.

anon