>VIGIL FOR CORIN REDGRAVEAS BASILDON DEFERS VIRDICT
A candle-lit vigil was held last night
for actor Corin Redgrave following his collapse
at a council meeting held to decide the fate
of Britain's largest Traveller community.
Redgrave suffered a severe heartattack
while pleading with councillors not to vote
for the destruction of Dale Farm. The meeting
was adjourned as Redgrave was taken to a
nearby hospital where he remains in intensive
care. He was said this morning to be in a stable
condition.
A candle-lit vigil was held last night
for actor Corin Redgrave following his collapse
at a council meeting held to decide the fate
of Britain's largest Traveller community.
Redgrave suffered a severe heartattack
while pleading with councillors not to vote
for the destruction of Dale Farm. The meeting
was adjourned as Redgrave was taken to a
nearby hospital where he remains in intensive
care. He was said this morning to be in a stable
condition.
>VIGIL FOR CORIN REDGRAVEAS BASILDON DEFERS VIRDICT
A candle-lit vigil was held last night
for actor Corin Redgrave following his collapse
at a council meeting held to decide the fate
of Britain's largest Traveller community.
Redgrave suffered a severe heartattack
while pleading with councillors not to vote
for the destruction of Dale Farm. The meeting
was adjourned as Redgrave was taken to a
nearby hospital where he remains in intensive
care. He was said this morning to be in a stable
condition.
His wife, actor Kika Markham, who earlier
in the day had welcomed Dale Farm residents to
a meeting at the House of Commons, was later
at the hospital where Redgrave was on a lifesupport
system.
That morning Redgrave had chaired a packed
meeting in the Jubilee Room at the Palace of
Westminster called by Peace & Progress to try and
prevent a forced eviction. Lord Avebury urged that
a moratorium on evictions be imposed by the
government until land was made available for private
and council-run caravan parks.
"We need action right now to save Dale Farm,"
Lord Avebury concluded. "Eviction will solve
nothing. Under the Homelessness Act Basildon will
still have responsibility."
Kathleen McCarthy, chair of Dale Farm
Residents Committee, said the threatened eviction
had little to do with planning rules and everything
to do with prejudice and racism. "Just leave us alone
to send our children to school," she pleaded.
HUMAN RIGHTS IGNORED
Vice-chair of the Parliamentary Committee
on Human Rights Jeremy Corbyn said Travellers had
been denegrated and vilified in a way that would never
be tolerated in respect of other ethnic groups. He hoped
that reasoned argument and protest action would lead to
a victory of common sense at Dale Farm and an end
to the spate of evictions around the country, which
were giving Britain a bad name. The latest EU report
was highly critical of the UK record on treatment
of Travellers whose human rights were routinely
ignored.
Martin Collins, director of the Irish Travellers
Movement, pointed out that Irish Travellers were taking
the brunt of criticism with headlines in the press like
"Stamp On The Camps". He said it was within the power
of the Deputy Prime Minister to step in and resolve the
issue of planning consent.
Accusing the government of habouring a hidden
agenda, Sylvia Done, of Traveller and Gypsy Affairs, said
she feared Tory leader Michael Howard's plan for old army
camps to be turned into concentration camp-like reserves for
Travellers might still be on the books. Meanwhile, children
were being severely traumatised by evictions and many had
expressed their fears in painting depicting fires and
caravans on fire.
Nick Harvey MP likened the recent election tactics
by the Conservative Party when voters had been egged on
by racist statements against Gypsies to the situation in
Germany during the rise of Nazism in the l930s. He was
also shocked by the attitude of the Deputy Prime Minister
John Prescott whose inaction was allowing the crisis to
worsen.
Even more alarming was a conversation he had
overheard in which a "very senior politician" on the
Labour frontbench had asked whether the UK could derogate
from sections of the Human Rights Covention so as
to avoid certain obligations towards Gypsies. It
appeared some people in the Labour Party held views
similar to Howard.
CARAVANS BURNED
Referring to the immediate prospects at Basildon,
Grattan Puxon said if the council voted to attempt an
eviction by force and bring in Constant & Co. that
decision would be challenged in the courts. More than
40 Dale Farm residents had asked solicitor Keith Lomax
to represent them in an application for a Judicial Review
and an Injunction stopping Basildon from taking direct
action.
He described how Constant, a private security
company specialising in eviction of Gyspies, had cut a
swathe of destruction across Britain, destroying more
than 250 private plots in the past two years. Old people
had been assaulted, children terrorised and mountains
of property, including caravans, been burned.
"The campaign for Gypsy rights has never been
stronger nor more united," Puxon said. "But if we can't
together save Dale Farm then we have failed and this
destruction will go on unchecked."
Toma Nikoleaff, chair of the Trans-European Roma
Federation pledged his solidarity with Dale Farm residents.
He said he had been appalled to find that Britain was
treating its Roma and Traveller minorities with such
lack of regard for basic human rights.
Wickford resident Ann Kobayashi said there was
now a groundswell of support among local residents for
the Dale Farm community. A growing number of
people were saying they did not want to see the families
simply evicted and their homes destroyed. Such
brutality would cause untold harm and solve nothing.
Twenty people at the meeting put them names
forward to act as Human Rights Monitors in the event
that Constant & Co are hired by Basildon to raze
Dale Farm. The council have set aside three million
euro for the operation.
****************************************
HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORS
If you wish to serve as a Human Rights Monitor
and help stop this "bulldozer law" operation:
email:
ustiben.5.@ntlworld.com
Help with travel, food and accommodation for
those able to commit to this action and selected
by Dale Farm community for Monitoring duties.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Messages to Basildon Council can be sent to:
malcolm.buckley@members.basildon.gov.uk
****************************************
A candle-lit vigil was held last night
for actor Corin Redgrave following his collapse
at a council meeting held to decide the fate
of Britain's largest Traveller community.
Redgrave suffered a severe heartattack
while pleading with councillors not to vote
for the destruction of Dale Farm. The meeting
was adjourned as Redgrave was taken to a
nearby hospital where he remains in intensive
care. He was said this morning to be in a stable
condition.
His wife, actor Kika Markham, who earlier
in the day had welcomed Dale Farm residents to
a meeting at the House of Commons, was later
at the hospital where Redgrave was on a lifesupport
system.
That morning Redgrave had chaired a packed
meeting in the Jubilee Room at the Palace of
Westminster called by Peace & Progress to try and
prevent a forced eviction. Lord Avebury urged that
a moratorium on evictions be imposed by the
government until land was made available for private
and council-run caravan parks.
"We need action right now to save Dale Farm,"
Lord Avebury concluded. "Eviction will solve
nothing. Under the Homelessness Act Basildon will
still have responsibility."
Kathleen McCarthy, chair of Dale Farm
Residents Committee, said the threatened eviction
had little to do with planning rules and everything
to do with prejudice and racism. "Just leave us alone
to send our children to school," she pleaded.
HUMAN RIGHTS IGNORED
Vice-chair of the Parliamentary Committee
on Human Rights Jeremy Corbyn said Travellers had
been denegrated and vilified in a way that would never
be tolerated in respect of other ethnic groups. He hoped
that reasoned argument and protest action would lead to
a victory of common sense at Dale Farm and an end
to the spate of evictions around the country, which
were giving Britain a bad name. The latest EU report
was highly critical of the UK record on treatment
of Travellers whose human rights were routinely
ignored.
Martin Collins, director of the Irish Travellers
Movement, pointed out that Irish Travellers were taking
the brunt of criticism with headlines in the press like
"Stamp On The Camps". He said it was within the power
of the Deputy Prime Minister to step in and resolve the
issue of planning consent.
Accusing the government of habouring a hidden
agenda, Sylvia Done, of Traveller and Gypsy Affairs, said
she feared Tory leader Michael Howard's plan for old army
camps to be turned into concentration camp-like reserves for
Travellers might still be on the books. Meanwhile, children
were being severely traumatised by evictions and many had
expressed their fears in painting depicting fires and
caravans on fire.
Nick Harvey MP likened the recent election tactics
by the Conservative Party when voters had been egged on
by racist statements against Gypsies to the situation in
Germany during the rise of Nazism in the l930s. He was
also shocked by the attitude of the Deputy Prime Minister
John Prescott whose inaction was allowing the crisis to
worsen.
Even more alarming was a conversation he had
overheard in which a "very senior politician" on the
Labour frontbench had asked whether the UK could derogate
from sections of the Human Rights Covention so as
to avoid certain obligations towards Gypsies. It
appeared some people in the Labour Party held views
similar to Howard.
CARAVANS BURNED
Referring to the immediate prospects at Basildon,
Grattan Puxon said if the council voted to attempt an
eviction by force and bring in Constant & Co. that
decision would be challenged in the courts. More than
40 Dale Farm residents had asked solicitor Keith Lomax
to represent them in an application for a Judicial Review
and an Injunction stopping Basildon from taking direct
action.
He described how Constant, a private security
company specialising in eviction of Gyspies, had cut a
swathe of destruction across Britain, destroying more
than 250 private plots in the past two years. Old people
had been assaulted, children terrorised and mountains
of property, including caravans, been burned.
"The campaign for Gypsy rights has never been
stronger nor more united," Puxon said. "But if we can't
together save Dale Farm then we have failed and this
destruction will go on unchecked."
Toma Nikoleaff, chair of the Trans-European Roma
Federation pledged his solidarity with Dale Farm residents.
He said he had been appalled to find that Britain was
treating its Roma and Traveller minorities with such
lack of regard for basic human rights.
Wickford resident Ann Kobayashi said there was
now a groundswell of support among local residents for
the Dale Farm community. A growing number of
people were saying they did not want to see the families
simply evicted and their homes destroyed. Such
brutality would cause untold harm and solve nothing.
Twenty people at the meeting put them names
forward to act as Human Rights Monitors in the event
that Constant & Co are hired by Basildon to raze
Dale Farm. The council have set aside three million
euro for the operation.
****************************************
HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORS
If you wish to serve as a Human Rights Monitor
and help stop this "bulldozer law" operation:
email:
ustiben.5.@ntlworld.com Help with travel, food and accommodation for
those able to commit to this action and selected
by Dale Farm community for Monitoring duties.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Messages to Basildon Council can be sent to:
malcolm.buckley@members.basildon.gov.uk ****************************************
e-mail:
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
No !
10.06.2005 18:08
now a groundswell of support among local residents for
the Dale Farm community"
What utter bollocks - the travellers have no support among the local community. The local community is united in its desire to see these people evicted. Our countryside has been vandalised, our children sworn and spat at, our lives made intolerable. Why are you supporting people that have done so much damage ?
Alison - local activist
institutional racism or ethnic cleansing?
11.06.2005 08:21
there are many local residents WHO SUPPORT THE TRAVELLERS in Basildon and all over the place. not all local residents are as bigotted and racist as you.
evol
BASILDON: BULLDOZER LAW
11.06.2005 08:21
From: "ustiben.2"
Date: Sat, June 11, 2005 7:30 am
To:
Priority: Normal
Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version
>BASILDON: DIRECT ACTION<
Constant has been called in to evict
ten plots at Hovefield Avenue, Wickford,
following a decision in favour of a "direct
action" operation taken by Basildon's
Development Control Committee taken
on Thursday (9 June).
This could happen as early as
next Tuesday.
The meeting adjourned due to Corin
Redgrave's collapse is to be held on 21 June.
Expected time and location: 7.30 at the
Basilden Centre. The committee is almost
certain to recommend direct action at
Dale Farm.
All from Dale Farm are planning
to be present. Both Kathleen McCarthy, chair
of the residents committee, and Nora Egan
have asked to address the councillors.
Meanwhile, Nick Harvey MP (Lib-Dem)
has expressed his willness to act as a Human
Rights Monitor.
Two councillors have now expressed
opposition to evictions at Hovefield and
Dale Farm.
I'm letting people know about
the orientation/training session for
Human Rights Monitoring teams
on 29 June at Dale Farm.
BASILDON: BULLDOZER LAW
BASILDON LOVES YOU
11.06.2005 08:29
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WEZ
A Picture paints a ......
11.06.2005 10:46
You could almost think the decision to send the children to the school on a day a local press photographer was there was an attempt at some cheap publicity couldn't you ?
Former resident
Incredible isn't it?
11.06.2005 15:03
You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves. Our forefathers died to keep nazism out of this country you pricks.
...
Turn Basildon into Chernobyl
11.06.2005 21:22
To all the people of Basildon, I hope your town is swept away in the next flood tide, and you all drown in your own excrement.
Someone with a job and a home