Attack on G4S

...might be wise to watch your words. I wouldn't mind betting that g4s are now going out tooled up in anticipation of a meet. I should think twice before your next action.

Solidarity for us is the struggle itself.

SOLIDARITY TO ALL THE PRISONERS OF WAR
FREEDOM TO ALL OF US

You want to be the same as the thugs that killed Jimmy Mubenga? What's the difference between you? I could almost believe this is the work of someone trying to discredit and sabotage the anti-immigration movement.
Good work on the vehicles, by all means trash the structure but many G4S employees are employed as 'drivers'. You don't change minds by beating them up. You make them angry and they vent their anger on the perceived cause - their detainees.

the scum of the workers will receive our danger

Solidarity from a comrade in Greece! We welcome any attack on the prison society that tries to silence us all over the world. The violence of the state and its hired goons in prisons must always be reacted against.

Fire to the prisons!

The article was hidden under the following guideline:

4. Publicize or advocate actions that actively endanger human or animal safety

 https://nottingham.indymedia.org/pages/editorial-guidelines

Perhaps the moderator who hid this had the same reaction as me. It reads more like a piece of disinformation and provocation than a genuine action report. This is coming the day after there was a more subtle than usual attempt on London indymedia to spread disinformation about Tuesday's deportation flight blockade. Are they the work of the same author?

I doubt that this attack really took place. On the other hand, if it did, and was the work of genuine comrades, those who did it should think carefully. Was the G4S worker you attacked someone you had identified as a detention centre or prison guard? Was it perhaps a guard who had been identified by prisoners for brutality? Maybe it was one of the G4S workers recently caught bragging about their deportation flight exploits on Facebook? Or was it just a random person in a G4S uniform you spotted on their own in a vulnerable location? G4S is one of the world's biggest security companies and employs tens of thousands of people in many kinds of jobs. Most of them have nothing to do with locking people up. Many of them are low paid immigrant workers. Many probably know nothing about the company's detention business. Would you also beat cleaners working for Serco, or Tesco shelf-stackers?

There is a history of militant attacks in support of migration struggles. You might want to read about the actions of groups such as the Revolutionary Cells and Rote Zora (Germany) or RARA (Holland), some of whom did target managers, senior officials and other individuals personally implicated in repression and exploitation. Targeting low-ranking individual workers was never a part of such strategies. Please spend some time thinking about why.

Why bother replying to what is almost certainly a troll attack? Because just in case it isn't, you seem to be comrades who have rage and courage. With a bit more thought and analysis your energy could be directed much more powerfully.

I have had a trawl through the local press online for Nottingham and cannot find reference to anything that resembles this incident. It is the kind of thing that would get at least a paragraph in the local paper, you would think, even if there is no understanding of the political motivation. So I have my doubts that the attack on the G4S employee actually happened.

Even if it did, a check of the G4S website, and articles on the subject of employee safety show that employees of security firms commonly get attacked, not generally for political reasons, but by your average criminals. So if this employee really was attacked, maybe it was thought to be just one more assault by criminal scum. G4S is involved in a variety of types of security work, as a previous poster said, not just deportations. One of the things they do is transport convicted criminals between police stations, court buildings, and jails.

Whether the criminal justice system is a legitimate is a whole other topic which I'm not going to go into here. But the work done by G4S in general means the company and its employees are not going to be popular in several quarters and there may be a range of people who want to have a go at them. That means any attacks done for political reasons would have to be carefully targetted and planned and properly publicised so there is no mistake as to the cause.

Also, individual ordinary employees are a soft target and not a legitimate one. Who has never ever compromised in the work they have taken on to get a living? Political activists might have limits as to what they'll take on to earn a wage but everybody makes compromises.

Attacking equipment like vans is something else. I wasn't entirely unhappy when vans used by staff at Dallas Court (UKBA building in Salford) were damaged some months back. But I don't see this kind of action, however satisfactory to take part in, or read about, as being likely to have much impact in stopping deportations. If you are aiming to get G4S to give up its deportation work, it will take a much bigger, more imaginative and far-reaching campaign. It is also likely to need mainstream media coverage. And then, once they've pulled out of doing deportation work, another company will take up the contract. And they will be more careful where they park their vans!

You know what? If the real intention is to save people from the distress of being forcibly deported, you would achieve a lot more by campaigning for the asylum system to be extended and made fairer and easier to negotiate, with adequate time allowed for people to put their cases together and an adequate - and properly funded by legal aid - right of appeal. No, it won't get you as much kudos as trashing G4S vans. And it is long, tedious work. But you might actually achieve something.

That's a pretty broad guideline that essentially denies the validity of everthing but NVDA. Maybe that hasn't been too much of an issue in so far in the UK, but armed resistance is hardly an unusual tactic across the world and it is odd that such actions - even if controversial - should be denied a space on one of the few radical open publishing news sites in the UK.

What if this attack had taken place inside an immigration prison? What if the people who did it were ex-detainees, or family members of deportees? Is the action or the article acceptable in any of the above instances? If so, aren't we making some real assumptions about those involved in the action?

I wouldn't personally opt for such a tactic for a variety of reasons. However, we shouldn't pass so much judgement as to censor action reports until we have experienced the true realities of social control for ourselves.The vast majority of activists have only a limited understanding of how many lives have been destroyed by the hidden world of the European border regime.

The guideline mentioned is a Notts indymedia one not a UK (United Kollectives) guideline. So the post has been hidden on Notts Indy but not here. The Notts guideline doesn't make much sense for lots of reasons, do you hide reports of state violence as well? Most G4S guards carry money or watch buildings not deport anyone. Nightwatchman is a shit dead end job usually done by migrants, elderly people, people with no qualifications or with criminal records. Only idiots would think it's revolutionary to attack them. But stupid things should also get reported.

This guideline is not listed under the IMC UK Editorial Guidelines as far as I can see and I would suggest that Notts IMC review their Guideline No 4.

Armed struggle and attacks against persons that perpetuate the exploitative system we fight against is a valid and in my opinion a necessary political choice. It is also the necessary choice for millions of people across the globe.

This moralistic, pacifistic positioning of some activists in the West is counter-revolutionary and deeply disturbing. Moreover, it is disingenuous to put human and animal safety in the same sentence. The human animal, although they may feel forced into certain jobs due to financial and class considerations, still have a choice NOT to work for scum like G4S. The masters cannot keep us enslaved unless we let them.

Fuck activism... Let's arm ourselves.

Zeb

...and I suspect we'll be reviewing it.

what about rapists, murderers and robbers?

Are you lot suddenly going to step in and escort these dangerous people to the prisons?

Because if you are not, then I am seriously very concerned about who will if not these security personal?

This is a very important question that needs addressing before any more action is done.
One more murderer on the street is one more innocent victim killed - which will be blood on your hands.

i wish i had as much guts as you lot. i'm assuming the G4$ worker was a hard bastard, and your well aware the cops and going to bust you sooner than later.

Can anyone source some evidence, corrobating report or anything to back up this story?

Coming so soon after the bullshit disinfo being posted on London IMC recently (now hidden as innaccurate), and on the same theme (migration/NB activism) it seems very suspicious.

If it did happen, and you just attacked a G4S guard at random without knowing anything about them, then that is a shit action. Really. If you'd targetted someone personally known for racist or brutal behaviour, I might support that. Certainly I'd understand it. But a random attack? That's shitty.

But like I said, I'm not convinced the report is even genuine.

er, have you met many G4S workers!?

I'm assuming they were an overweight doughnut-muncher who was rejected by the police and has an unusual fetish for gun magazines!

Stereotyping, I know, but funny. ;-)