UK Newswire Archive
Shell delayed again
27-07-2011 08:23
London's Death Sentence For Brendan Lillis
27-07-2011 02:23
Brendan Lillis is an Irishman left dying in the UK prison system. The British Govt and their agents shockingly believe that Brendan is still a dangerous man. What nonsense.SchNEWS on Oslo Massacre
26-07-2011 19:52
The Norway attacks have led to frenzied speculation around the nature of the crazed ideology that could lead to such horrific acts. Handily Andre Brievik (or Andrew Berwick) not only allowed himself to be captured but posted a 1500 page manifesto online - Grandly entitled 2083 - A European Declaration of Independence (www.slideshare.net/darkandgreen/...) , apart from a load of weird stuff about body-armour, the Knights Templar and the appropriate use of steroids, at the heart is a vision eerily familiar to readers of such fringe esoteric publications as say the Daily Express, Daily Mail or Sun.Rote Flora: "Access all areas" - International Day of Action
26-07-2011 17:32
The Israeli Spring
26-07-2011 17:27
A revolution in Israel. Make everyone know because the international media won't report this!July 14
The Political Context of the Norway Terror Attacks
26-07-2011 17:03
170 international peace activists enter secret Swedish military test site
26-07-2011 16:50
170 international peace activists from 17 countries today entered the North European Aerospace Test range in a massive act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the north of Sweden. Some 28 activists have been confirmed as arrested or detained, among them activist from Venezuela, Spain, Germany, Germany, UK and Finland.When the state organizes police violence against refugees
26-07-2011 16:37
Palestine Today 07 26 2011
26-07-2011 15:37
Leeds ABC Rebel Night A Roaring Success
26-07-2011 12:12
Campaigners target Morton Hall IRC
26-07-2011 07:55
Activists are stepping up the campaign against Morton Hall IRC, the latest addition to the UK’s detention estate for migrants. Morton Hall, which opened in May, is near Swinderby in Lincolnshire and will imprison 392 men when it is full. Its opening by immigration minister Damian Green was met by a noise demo and protesters returned on Saturday. The detention centre was also the subject of a meeting during Refugee Week and a visitors group has formed to support those inside.
On the Newswire: LUC @ Morton Hall | Morton Hall demo - pics | Noise demo at Morton Hall detention centre | Public Meeting in Nottingham on Morton Hall IRC | Morton Hall Demo
Morton Hall was formerly a prison for female foreign national prisoners but has now been converted to an immigration removal centre for male detainees. It is run by HM Prison Service in collaboration with the UK Border Agency. Less than 30 miles from Nottingham it is the only detention centre in the East Midlands.
Immigration detainees can be held indefinitely, as detention is not automatically reviewed by the courts, and many end up in these prisons for years. one of them are being detained as punishment for a crime. Most detainees are asylum seekers whose claims have been refused. Other people are waiting to find out if they will be allowed to stay in Britain or are waiting to be returned to their countries of origin. Many experience extreme isolation and distress, knowing no-one in the UK and with very limited understanding of the language, law, their rights and entitlements. Many people have already been traumatised by their experiences in their home country and are further scarred when they find themselves detained with no release date, and by the prospect of being forcibly returned.
Instances of racism, brutality and neglect in detention centres are rife. In 2009 two guards at immigration detention centres were found to be members of the fascist British National Party. This month a guard at Yarl’s Wood IRC was fired after a detainee became pregnant whilst in detention. The denial of medical treatment is commonplace in detention centres. Examples include denying wheelchair access to a detainee unable to walk after an assault during a forced removal attempt, which meant that she couldn’t go to eat. Denial of medication to patients with health problems is common. For example HIV positive detainees have been denied access to anti-retroviral drugs whilst in detention. A Kenyan detainee, Eliud Nguli Nyenze, died in Oakington IRC last year after an ambulance called for him by detainees was turned away by staff.
According to the rules regarding detention, victims of torture and people with psychiatric conditions are not suitable for detention. However, these regulations are routinely ignored. Indeed, the experience of detention can exacerbate or precipitate poor mental health. Ahmad Javani, an Iranian national detained for over thirteen months comments: ‘If any single normal person came to this place you’d go mental, mad in this place. I was a normal person before coming to this place, and now, I’m forgetting things always. Like old people that forget things. I can’t understand, I’m not the same person. I’m a different person. Who gives this power to them to keep these people here for years and years and years, to make them mental and crazy?’ Levels of self-harm and suicide attempts in detentions are high.
This inhuman system has resulted in a huge amount of misery and many people have died in UK detention centres over the years.
In the face of the degrading conditions they are subject to and often with no idea of how long their incarceration will last, struggles from with detention centre are commonplace but are frequently misrepresented by mainstream media. Detainees have been on hunger strike and rioted to show their outrage. People who speak out against their treatment are generally subject to further punishment. For example Denise McNeil, who went on hunger strike in February 2010 and was then moved from Yarl’s Wood IRC to Holloway prison.
There are also groups on the outside committed to working to end the detention of migrants and support people who find themselves trapped in the system. The Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees lists visitors groups across the country that support detainees. No Borders campaigns for the end of border controls and supports detainees organising from within detention centres to challenge their treatment.
LUC @ IRC Morton Hall
26-07-2011 00:55
Lucky Devils join the noise protest against IRC Morton Hall, 23rd July 2011.
On 23rd July, LUC members made a field trip to Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre. We arrived at 10.50; intending to meet the No Borders group from Nottingham, we headed to the main gate. We waited a short while, made friends with some pigs in a nearby field, greeted a photographer & headed back to the station to see if anyone had arrived. We were told the last train from Nottingham had been & gone, & nobody got off. We headed back to the gate & decided it wasn't worth waiting around. We headed along the road to the south. A broken sign on the floor read "Todays Special" (sic), a taunt to anyone forced to wake up in IRCMH, or its previous use as a women's prison. We could now see the compound clearly. The perimeter was a 16' high ugly pale green fence, solid metal on the lower half. There were a couple of vantage points which made it possible to see inside - it appeared to have a largely self-sufficient agricultural area (making us wonder why inner-cities don't), otherwise, the compound was flat mown grass with a few trees. I did not see anyone outdoors in the compound, which I would have expected on a warm day.
Next we explored a small terrace of houses which lies along the southern edge, past a sign that read "Prison Shop Parking Area," a frank but unintentional admission of the site's previous role. A few houses had been converted into offices, but the ones further on were derelict. The last was a complete ruin, with numerous birds living (and dead) in the rotten rafters, including one very irritable pigeon. Someone had put up several bird boxes on the walls, but it hardly mattered as one even had a nest built on top.
We continued around the perimeter, for the sake of exploring the surroundings if nothing else, We looked across a few ponds & pastures before we heard a faint squealing sound which we took to be an animal, but as we got closer we could tell it was a metallic noise, & closer still we made out the sounds of saucepans being banged in time. The Nottingham group had in fact arrived and circuited the compound to the north.
We were now at the north-east edge, close to the main accommodation buildings. We saw the photographer we'd seen at the gate before we saw the protesters themselves, & I suspect they were pretty surprised to see us. A certain LUC member apologises for his - er - curt greeting, "Where the fuck have you lot been?" is not the way to make a good first impression. Anyway, we were glad to join the protest at last & did our bit with hands, lungs & whistles. We went back the way we came, staying close to the fence this time, and as we approached a half-built new section of the compound, a pair of officious-looking screws watched from a discreet distance. Back toward the main gate, we saw some of our familiar uniformed friends from Lincoln protests, including Britain's only cop with an actual Coffee-&-Donuts NYPD moustache. We quietened down and stood in solidarity with the inmates & their visiting families for a little while, seeing some of the real victims of the UK Border Agency abuse, the people whose loved ones are held inside to be shipped off to uncertain fates.
IRCMH's concealed position makes it almost impossible to see from a passing train or moving car. It would be very difficult to be aware of Morton Hall if you didn't know where to look. I was not aware of IRCMH before reading the indymedia article, & it is unlikely I would ever have known it was there. I doubt many Lincoln residents are aware of the place either, it may do us good to publicise it.
It is disturbing finding out about a prison for the innocent on your doorstep. It is a reminder that we live in a state which considers human beings to be essentially unnecessary, judging them on economic utility and sentencing them for the crime of having been born in the wrong part of the world.
No borders, no nations.
No-one is illegal.
BNP leadership vote - Griffin limps home in suspicious circumstances
25-07-2011 22:30
2011: the year we took on the unaccountable elites
25-07-2011 22:20
The people are fighting back - even Charles Moore wonders if ‘the Left may actually be right’Why the Scottish SP is opposed to reopening the case of Tommy Sheridan
25-07-2011 21:58
Andy Coulson, former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and one-time aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron, is under investigation by Strathclyde Police into “allegations that witnesses gave perjured evidence in the trial of Tommy Sheridan and into alleged breaches of data protection and phone hacking,” Chief Constable George Hamilton has confirmed.British media quick to dismiss death in Murdoch phone hacking case
25-07-2011 21:45
In an article posted July 20
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2011/07/482488.html , the World Socialist Web Site noted the rush to judgement by the Hertfordshire Police in the UK, who issued an extraordinary statement declaring the death of former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare to be “unexplained but not thought to be suspicious”. This statement was made just hours after police arrived at Hoare’s home to discover his body and before a post-mortem had been conducted.
Dale Farm info night
25-07-2011 20:55
Dale Farm, Essex, is the UK?s largest Travellers? community, consisting of nearly a hundred separate properties, owned mainly by travellers of Irish heritage and Romani families, lying well outside the village and made up of extended family plots or yards on an ex-scrap yard.
Dale Farm, Essex, is the UK?s largest Travellers? community,
consisting of nearly a hundred separate properties, owned mainly by
travellers of Irish heritage and Romani families, lying well outside
the village and made up of extended family plots or yards on an
ex-scrap yard.
Caving in to racial prejudice, Basildon District Council (BDC) has set
aside 9.2 million pounds to demolish the homes in the back 52 plots
and have asked the Home Office for 10 million more. The council have
consistently rejected planning applications and several appeals..now
is the time for action…
EVICTION DUE 31ST AUGUST…. FOLKS NEEDED FROM 27TH for helping set up
the resistance camp. People from Bristol will be going through out
August. Come to the Factory, 2-8 Cave st, 830, Tuesday 2nd August, to
find out more and get involved! Or email bristolnoborders@riseup.net
For more info…see dalefarm.wordpress.com
Italy - MEP Borghezio: the ideas of the aggressor in Oslo? Deeply healthy
25-07-2011 18:37
YOUTUBE (13mins)-Guantanamo Guard Demands EndTorture, CloseGitmo &Justice 4Hicks
25-07-2011 18:13
YOUTUBE (13mins)-Former U.S. Military Guantanamo Guard Demands End to Torture, Closure of Gitmo & Justice or David Hicks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrNN07qTG7Y&feature=player_embedded
Announcing the Olive Morris Memorial Award
25-07-2011 17:55
The Remembering Olive Collective (ROC) is delighted to invite nominations for the Olive Morris Memorial Award.
In the spirit of Olive’s life and work, 3 awards of £500 each will be given to young women engaged in radical grassroots political activity.
Olive Morris was an significant and inspirational community activist in 1970s Britain, who died at the young age of 27 leaving behind a significant legacy, that the Remembering Olive Collective seeks to honor. Olive was a member of the British Black Panthers, as well as a founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and the Brixton Black Women’s Group. The breadth of her political work went from her pioneer role in the local squatter campaigns in South London, through to organising with Black women and the student movement in London and Manchester, to supporting liberation movements in the Third World. For more information about the life and work of Olive, please visit http://rememberolivemorris.wordpress.com
Criteria
Nominees must be engaged in radical grassroots political work of any nature. For example, as organisers, advocates, activists, lobbyists or being themselves victims of repression for their political activities. Charitable work is not eligible, unless it is part of a wider and demonstrable radical politics agenda. Nominees must be women who are between 16 and 27 years of age and of African or Asian descent. This is meant in a broad geo-political sense that may include, for example, Palestinian women. All women who fall under the above category shall be considered regardless of their nationality and immigration status.
Nomination forms
Anyone can nominate a woman for the award, provided they complete all the information requested in the nomination form. Please download nomination forms from http://rememberolivemorris.wordpress.com/.
All forms to be returned by email to olivemorrishq@gmail.com by 21 September 2011.
Award ceremony
There will be a public award ceremony held at a London venue towards the end of October 2011, with details to be confirmed closer to the date.
The Remembering Olive Collective is a group of women of diverse ages and backgrounds that was active from 2008-2010, dedicated to preserving and reactivating the memory of Olive Morris and the political movements she was part of. The Olive Morris Memorial Award is ROC’s final public appearance, bringing to a close an intense period of work, whose main outcome was the creation of the Olive Morris Collection at Lambeth Archives.
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ROC - Remembering Olive Collective
http://www.rememberolivemorris.wordpress.com
E: olivemorrishq@gmail.com
A COPY OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IN POSTER FORMAT IS ATTACHED. FEEL FREE TO PRINT AND DISPLAY IN RELEVANT NOTICE BOARDS.