Bill MacKeith, Barbed Wire Britain
lighty people supported a demon- stration outside the main etee on
I Campsfield Immigration Detention Centre near Oxford to mark the ninth anniversary of the first detainees being bused in from Heathrow Airport.
Samba band Rhythms of Resistance from London gave detainees - who roared their approval - and protesters a huge boost.
Swindon South MP Julia Drown, a former local councillor and former active campaigner against detention, had accepted ari mivitation to return to the scene. She was left in no doubt by the demonstrators about what they thought of her defence of government policy on immigration, asylum and detention. " Mounted police, a police helicopter and several vans of plod were there to deal with Intelligence we have received that an 'attempt will be made to breach the fence". If only ...
Following the demonstration, the fourth meeting of the Barbed Wire Britain Network to End Detention of Refugees and Migrants took place.
The Campaign for Justice in the Yarl's Wood Trial invited support for its picket on 1Oth December (Human Rights Day) outside the office of the Director of Public ..... Prosecutions, 50 Ludgate Hill, St Paul's, London to demand 'Drop the charges! Prosecute Group 4 and the Home Office for endangering life and limb.'
The trial will open at Harrow Crown Court on 23 April next, 14 months after the fire that destroyed half of Europe's biggest detention centre (900 places) on St Valentine's Day.
I plead not guilty to charges of A arson and violent disorder.
Memories of 'Campsfield 9' trial in 1998, which was ended by the prosecution because it could not rely on the evidence of Group 4 guards and the Home Office officials. The detainees found not guilty are suing the government and Group 4 for malicious prosecution and wrongful imprisonment.
Dover Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers and the Campaign to Close Dover Removals Centre is heading a fourth international action on December 15, when people will be travelling to Calais to express solidarity with people now excluded from the Sangatte Red Cross camp, alongside migrants and their supporters. This crossChannel international action is developing fast.
Cambridgeshire Against Refugee Detention is watching the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights by former Oakington detainees against their unlawful detention at the fast-track reception centre. The next CARD demonstration (and next BWB meeting) will likely be in March or April.
An appeal was also made by Bicester Refugee Support, which is opposing the first of the goyernment's new accommodation centres' near Oxford. This will be virtually a detention centre and is a concept - isolation for 750 people in the middle of nowhere -not supported by any refugee body.
On the first day of the Public Inquiry, they want support outside Bodicote House, Banbury, at 9am also on Tuesday 10th December.
The meeting was electrified by a speaker from Tamil People's Forum on Western intervention and 20 years of war in Sri Lanka. And a refugee from Zimbabwe spoke of the need for refugees and other migrants themselves to organise and speak out against detention and on other issues. the left and in human rights oming months will see debate on
groups: Should we go for an "amnesty campaign" for undocumented migrants already in the UK or for the "open borders" policy most if not all of us believe in? Or both? Look out for publications and notice of meetings on this.
BWB meets quarterly with a small group of MPs including Neil Gerrard (chair of the all-party group on refugees) and John Macdonell, MP for Hayes and Harlington (including Harmondsworth detention centre).
Both sides of the wire Outside Campsfield a samba band(left) leads the protestors, much to the enoyment of the prisoners - inside. (Photos: Stalingrad O'Neill -This has resulted in early day motions being tabled calling for a public inquiry into Yarl's Wood and an end to return of immigration detentions in prisons. A delegation of MPs to visit detainees in Harmondsworth is being organised and it is hoped will result in a critical report, along the lines of the MSPs' visit to Dungavel in Scotland.
A new 24-page Voices from Detention pamphlet containing the words of 12 for-