Dignity Not Detention! march arrives at Lindholme

Right to work

Did you know that people seeking asylum in this country are not allowed to work? Rather than face destitution or criminalisation they are forced to work in unregulated jobs, often with the lowest pay and the most dangerous conditions in industries which already use casual labour to drive down wages and conditions for us all. Therefore we demand the right to work.

Politicians and vicious media campaigns spread myths about 'scroungers' and encourage people to believe that refugees rather than the politicians themselves are responsible for housing shortages and unemployment. Yet asylum seekers are given no special priority for council housing and are given benefits below the minimum allowed for British nationals.

Asylum is not a crime

Over 40,000 asylum seekers pass through the UK's 10 prison-like detention centres each year. Unlike prisoners, they have no release date, few legal rights and have often committed no criminal offence.

Government restrictions on legal aid make it almost impossible for asylum seekers to appeal against their detention without trial. While civil war and human rights abuses are condemned by the UK Government in Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and elsewhere, exiles from these countries find themselves detained without legal support, facing deportation and death.

Why Lindholme?

Staff at this former prison treat detainees as offenders, rater than recognising that they have not been convicted of any crime. Run by the Prison Service, Lindholme "Immigration Removal Centre" near Doncaster holds up to 112 male detainnes. An unannounced inspection by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in 2004 recommended that the Government "should review whether Lindholme is an appropriate facility for an immigratin removal centre" due to it being "deficient in all four of our key tests: safety, respect, purposeful activity and preparation for release". Inspectors noticed Prison Officers shouting in English to non-English speaking detainees and a lack of interpreters.

People in Lindholme have left their homes and families to escape war, torture and dictatorship in their own countries. Yet the UK Government invades Iraq and Afghanistan; it helps western companies plunder £millions of resources daily from places like the Congo in Africa while proxy wars rage; it works with corrupt regimes around the world and then it tries to imprison and deport people who seek safety in this country.

Does the government speak for you when it acts like this?

People who disagree with your views are always labelled racist. It shows only too well the true nature of 'freedom of speech' in this country by those who would no doubt be the first to declare their desire for each individual to express an opinion without interference. Hypocrisy is the word that comes to mind.

To everyone else capable of thinking, the end result of unregulated immigration into the UK has been well documented: loss of countryside due to thousands more houses and roads etc; higher crime rates; inner city estates turned into run down waste-lands; increased fear on the part of the elderly to walk the streets; diminished rates of pay for unskilled work as immigrants take away work that could be done by UK citizens; less money going to help the poor, sick and needy of our own country; a reduced sense of community as increasingly people feel isolated and alienated in their own country of birth; and, ironically, increased racial disharmony.

I have no dislike for anybody of any race, but allowing unlimited numbers of people onto this small island will only create future problems on an unimaginable scale, with no discernible benefits.

I wonder whether you people are living in a constant dream world. For God's sake wake up!

"freedom of speech", "unregulated immigration", "racial disharmony" - all familiar buzzwords and phrases, straight off BNP propaganda.

"I have no dislike for anybody of any race" sounds a lot like 'I'm not a racist, but...' which will also be familiar to anyone who's come across these bigots before.

steve's probably just pissed off there isn't anything worth posting on redwatch from this article

just to confirm i was there and they were definitely racists.

:)

The 'bigots' look like a bunch of ignorant kids to me. It's one thing to post the faces of nazis on the internet - fair's fair, they have Redwatch. But this is just sick. These are working class kids who don't know any better - just look at their body shapes, they're typical McDonuts - but they're also people who can be reached and educated. But the average middle class politico is also a bigot and they'd rather spend their time slagging off the working class than looking deeper into their own complicity - hypocrites every last one of them!

The racists referred to were families of prison officers. To label them as working class kids is simplistic and misleading. These people have a very material interest in maintaining capitalism and racism. And the notion that the 'ignorant' working class just needs to be reached out to and 'educated' is completely patronising and anti-working class. Go back to your troll hole Mr Bush.

For a discussion on the role of prison officers see:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384038.html

Ok, my last comment wasn't well worded, but I was enraged. Posting pictures of kids on the internet and calling them bigots is just plain sick - unless of course they begged their parents to be screws. Calling me a troll won't wash, I've been an active anti-fascist for twenty years until I gave up mixing with middle class time wasters who are willing to wear the t-shirt or wave a banner but when push comes to shove won't lift a finger to help the working class. The BNP are parasitic scum who claim to want to help the working class whilst acting against them; whereas reds are totally different, they're parasitic scum who call the working class 'chavs' whilst acting against them. Grow up Red, you're politics failed last century, time to move on.

i agree with every word steve said in the earlier posting

Ishmael Bush said:
"It's one thing to post the faces of nazis on the internet - fair's fair, they have Redwatch. But this is just sick."

They weren't posted with the intention that those 'middle class reds' go out and hunt them down, so the comparison with Redwatch is false. They were posted as part of a report of an event. They were making a very public statement, in the knowledge that cameras were snapping away and did not request not to be photographed.

"These are working class kids who don't know any better... but they're also people who can be reached and educated."

For a start, there was only one person who could technically be called a kid, and she was certainly old enough to be considered an adult in terms of responsibilities in my book. It's also hard to reach and educate someone who is standing behind police constantly shouting racist abuse at people. Still, people did try to engage with those shouting. Nevertheless, they were probably just "middle class politicos" who doesn't have Ishmael's magical powers of understanding.

"Calling me a troll won't wash, I've been an active anti-fascist for twenty years"

What kind of anti-fascist gets more worked up about photos of racists being posted on the internet than the detention and deportation of thousands of people based on their nationality?

"reds are totally different, they're parasitic scum who call the working class 'chavs' whilst acting against them"

No one except Ishmael mentioned the word chav in this thread. He also referred to the racists as "typical McDonuts".

auldie reekie said:
"i agree with every word steve said in the earlier posting"

That's because you are steve.

iam not steve ! i wish was then i would have his articulation !

"What kind of anti-fascist gets more worked up about photos of racists being posted on the internet than the detention and deportation of thousands of people based on their nationality?"

I am not more worked up about one subject than the other. The fact is that the 6th photo in this collection looks like kids and using THAT photo along with THAT caption (and justifying its use by saying they're the kids of screws) makes the posters of this report look as fascistic as those that they're trying to condemn. 'Mc Donuts' relates to a body shape that is a plague among kids who have been raised with hyper-individualist mores (middle class media, middle class marketing and middle class education induced hyper-individualistic mores) - this is what I meant when I tried to point out that kids like that are not lost causes and deserve to be educated. In fact things will only get better if we attempt to change THEIR hearts and minds.

Mr Bush,

My politics is live and kicking thanks. Perhaps because it involves analysing and challenging reality, not insulting the working class along with non working-class activists and all overweight people.

Unless you are trying to say that all overweight people are working class, your argument makes no sense. Where I live we have yards, not gardens. Most of us get the bus, we don't have multiple cars parked outside our garage extensions. And the street is the street, not our private property. Being young is not an excuse for being a racist.

the pictures might be a bit confusing, but none of the locals were under 30.

also, i think they are military families from when this used to be a military base.

and they were totally full of racist bile so I have no sympathy for them.

and...

you can't make out who they are from the pictures (obviously!) so there's nothing wrong with having posted them up.

and...

even if you could make out who they are no one's going to go around and hassle them because no one ever does that.

and...

even though you can't make out who they are, everyone knows where they live anyway.

so,

what's your point?