They shall not pass - demo @ kalyx/Colnbrook 10th February 2007

200 + demonstrators from all over the UK supported the demo outside Kalyx/Colnbrook called by the 'No Borders Network'

Police bottle it
For over an hour no traffic passed in or out of the complex as the police gave up trying to clear a path through the assembled protestors.

People are moving. They are crossing mountains, rivers and oceans. Risking their lives by leaving their homes, crossing borders and in entering the UK. Asking for a place to exist and to live with dignity. Yet people who flee poverty, war and injustice throughout the world are deemed 'illegal' forced to work for low wages in precarious conditions and locked in removal centres, deprived of their freedom to move.

But no one is illegal. In making them illegal governments deny their existence and make them invisible. This invisibility is enforced by a capitalist system that seeks to criminalise and marginalise many of those seeking to survive within it, while at the same time depending on their labour and suffering to ensure its survival and keep us all in a state of fear and obedience.

With hunger-strikes, acts of self-harm and protest people are fighting their invisibility. The recent resistance inside the detention centres joins with the thousands of other people worldwide who demonstrate, riot, light fires and destroy compounds in protest against and in defiance of their incarceration. It shows that people, regardless of their desperation, will always struggle for their human dignity.

The problem with detention centres is not how badly they are run but that they exist in the first place. Private companies make huge profits from the incarceration and removal of hundreds of people every week. Migrant workers and those inside the centers are often exploited by the same companies. Kalyx, the business that operates Harmondsworth, is part of a catering company called Sodhexo, whose massive profits are based on the low wages of their mainly migrant workforce. Similarly the company which operates Colnbrook, Serco, is a large private security company who use cheap migrant labour to maximize their profits.

It's time to say Enough! We support migrant's struggles to work, live and stay in the UK.

On 10th February, we intend to join their struggle and take action in solidarity with our sisters and brothers inside the detention centres. Join us!

We demand:

Close all Immigration Removal Centres

Stop Deportations

No Immigration Controls

For more information, contact, London No Borders:
Rebecca Fisher