Oxford Migration Newswire Archive

Arms Dealers, War and Refugees: Breaking the Cycle

17th June 2004 8:35pm @ the mac – Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham

Birmingham Indymedia presents an evening of films during Refugee Week drawing out the links between the (heavily subsidised by the West) arms trade, people displaced by war and occupation, and their resistance. We will be discussing the films with the film-maker of “My Dear Olive Tree” whose first experience of political dissent in Britain was the DSEi Arms fair protest in September 2003.
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On the 29th of may there was a demo for the closure of Campsfield "house". The name disguises the true nature of the place, which over the past ten years since it was built,has been detaining asylum seekers who have committed no crime. In the current political climate evermore hostile toward asylum seekers there are plans to expand the structure to "accomodate" even more than the current maximum of 200. Read more >>

STAR POETRY READING: Displacement, Identity, Asylum Issues
Date: Friday, Week 5 (28 May)
Time: 7:30 - 9:00
Venue: Long Room New College
FREE ENTRY Read more >>

Please join in or sponsor the 3rd Bicester Refugee Support / Campaign to Close Campsfield Annual Bike Ride, Saturday 29 May 2004 Read more >>

The Oxford University Anthropological Society presents:

SALAAM BERLIN
A Film by Judith Albrecht (Free University Berlin) Thursday, 27th May, 6pm

Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, 61 Banbury Road
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WHAT IS RACE? Beginning April 20, 2004. Tuesday evenings for 10 weeks.
A course lookig at 'race' from the birth of racism to the contemporary racism of immigration policy in an era of globalization to be held at the Oxford University Department of Education. Read more >>

Campsfield demo was one of dozens of demos. Read more >>

On Saturday 29 November, over 200 people from all over the country gathered for a demonstration outside Campsfield House Immigration Detention Centre, the scene of frequent protests, hunger strikes and a riot, to mark its 10th anniversary. Read more >>

a good demo Read more >>

After the police told the organisers of the Campsfield 10th anniversary protests that the planned demonstration couldn’t go round the back of the detention centre where detainees can come out into a yard and hear the demonstration, three banners mysteriously appeared snagged high on the perimeter fence last night. Stating ‘No One is Illegal’, ‘No Deportations’ and ‘No Detentions’, these banners were clearly visible to detainees inside providing a much needed morale boost for the asylum seekers, who quite often spend more than a year locked up with no trial and no charge waiting for their applications to be considered. Read more >>

Big demo at Campsfield immigration prison on Saturday November 29, 12-2pm outside Campsfield main gates, 3pm in Broad St Oxford, bike ride to Campsfield from St Giles 10am, coaches from Oxford, Birminghma, london,etc. Rhythms of Resistance, Oxford samba band, Bill Morris, ex-detainees. 10th anniversary of opening; Campsfield not to be closed but expanded. Read more >>

It happened in oxford and is continuing in Palestine all the time Read more >>

It isent finished yet... but good anuf to whatch so thought I would post it anyway (: Read more >>

This Thursday, the Oxford Narmada campaign will screen 'Drowned Out', an
award-winning documentary that follows one of India's largest grassroots struggles
since Independence. Read more >>

Jon Snow claimed on this evening's news that Britain would never reject an asylum claim knowing that there was a chance that the asylum seeker would be killed when sent home. It would be good to be able to challenge this.

Monday 27 October 2003

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Barry Coates, Director of the World Development Movement (www.wdm.org.uk), will be speaking at a free public meeting in the Oxford Town Hall at 7pm, on Thursday 4th September. Read more >>

Join this protest against Section 55 called by the 35 asylum seekers camped outside Refugee Council [London] since 8 August. This growing movement started with Eritrean women refusing being made destitute by Section 55 and forcibly dispersed away from caring and support networks. Now another group of asylum seekers have taken the lead in refusing a racist two-tier system that denies women, children and men asylum seekers basic benefits, health care and other crucial resources. Read more >>

Campsfield House is an Immigration Detention Centre at Kidlington, six miles from Oxford. It is a prison run for private profit by Group 4, supervised by Home Office immigration officials. It used to be a youth detention centre, but it re-opened as an Immigration Detention Centre in November 1993. The local parish council was opposed to it, but their wishes were overruled by the Home Office.

There are 200 detainees in Campsfield House. Most are political refugees fleeing danger, torture and even death from countries such as Nigeria, Algeria, Ghana, Turkey, India and Zaire. They are held without charge, without time limit, without proper reasons given, and without proper access to legal representation. Amnesty International report that these are breaches of internationally recognised human rights. The former Chief Inspector of HM Inspectorate of Prisons (Judge Stephen Tumim) and The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture have condemned conditions at Campsfield House.

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Falcon Rowing and Canoeing club took the initiative and obtained funding to give canoeing lessons to boys from Aslyum Welcome. The boys, between 14 and 16 years old, are refugees and asylum seekers. Some are unaccommpanied without their parents. Their response to this initiative was fantastic to watch. More are needed. Read more >>

its on the wall! Read more >>