No Borders Round Up: Yarls Wood, Calais, Bristol, Cardiff, Dale Farm

Hunger Strike: Yarls Wood Immigration Prison, Bedfordshire

Yarls Wood On Fire during previous resistance in 2007

Since the 5th of February 2010, we the residents at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre are on hunger strike which involves over 84 + women, who are protesting against the period of time spent in detention and the treatment that they receive while being detained.The strike was sparked to protest and demand that the frustration and humiliation of all foreign nationals ends now.

A full statement of demands by the Women can be found here

Calais – Kronstadt Hanger Eviction

Arrested for helping migrants

Brighton No Borders Writes: Since the news of the impending opening of the Kronstadt Hanger, a self-organised resource centre for activists and migrants alike, the police had closely monitored the building and effective mounted a blockade of it since last Friday. On Saturday, people managed to circumvent the 3 police lines blocking access to the front door (they did not force their way in as Besson has claimed). Their numbers were swollen with migrants who were once again shelter-less following the closure after 2 days of the cold weather shelter at the BCMO…full report here A number of Bristol No Borders activists were present.

A statement from Sos Sans Papier can also be found (in french only)here: here.

Bristol Immigration Raid:

The UK Border Agency raided the Glassboat in Welsh Back during a lunch service and closed it off as officers arrested a Jamaican kitchen porter and Peruvian sous chef. Mr Lee, the owner said the Jamaican woman had been working at Glassboat since 2003 and that in 2008 the restaurant wrote to the Home Office to support an application to extend her visa.

He added: “The way they operated was a little shocking and heavy- handed. They didn’t ask to see the documents we had – and the office where I have copies of their documents is 100 yards away. They weren’t interested at all. They were like Stormtroopers as they made their way into the restaurant at the beginning of service at a time we had customers waiting to be seated.The “full” story and the normal racist comments can be found on the This is Bristol website: here

Meanwhile, Alberto Durango, persecuted by his employers and UKBA for his union activism has been sacked (again) by the Lancaster Cleaning Company in London. Background can be found here

Demo last year for AlbertoMore background and details of solidarity demo here.

Cardiff – Anti Mass Deportation Demo

Last Wednesday (3rd Feb) Bristol No Borders joined their Comrades from South Wales in a picket outside the Regional UKBA headquarters in Cardiff to protest against a mass deporrtation to unsafe Nigeria. A full report can be found here.

Dale Farm Travellers

Hanningfield - Wanker

On a lighter Note, Traveller-hating posh-knob-scum-bag Lord Hanningfield is one of four politicians who face prosecution for the parlimenatry expenses scandal. Hanningfield is presently charged with making thousands of pounds worth of false claims for overnight accommodation while allegedly being chauffer-driven home from parliament.

It was he who wanted to tear down Dale Farms’s community centre and Chapel and had been the Queen’s Deputy Lieutenant of the county when in 2004 bailiffs and riot police stormed the Meadowlands caravan park,burning homes and evicting Travellers onto the road in freezing winter weather.

A interesting ariticle by Gratton Puxton about Dale Farm and “Irish” Travellers can be found here. An impending eviction attempt still looms for Dale Farms residents.

The Stockholm Programme: 1984 is here

“1984 is here, no really, this time we’re not lying , honest. “

A personal slant on the disturbing confluence of the a ever more sophiscated and extensive controlling and surveilling techonolgy on the one hand, and increaslingly repressive legislation on the other.

For those of you who have the time  to read Statewatch reports: you needn’t bother reading this .

Yep, I know that using Orwell is a bit of a cliche but its too appropriate not to.

Download it here: thestockholmprogramme1984ishere

Produced by one of Bristol No Borders

Comments and feedback appreciated

Autonomous Space For Migrants and Supporters in Calais needs Help

As you might have heard, a few days ago, activists from the transnational NoBorders network and the French organisation SôS Soutien aux Sans Papiers have opened a large warehouse for migrants in Calais as a response to the ongoing repression against the migrants in
Calais by the authorities. [1]

The building is to be an autonomous space for migrants and activists struggling for the right to freedom of movement. It will be host to information-sharing, debate and practical solidarity. The Kronstadt building is located in the town that has become the symbol of Fortress Europe, a place where police arrests and beatings of migrants are a daily occurrence, and where night-time pursuits are relentless.

By this act, they stand in solidarity with those for whom border and immigration control is a discriminatory, oppressive and unjust reality.

The space is not, as the conserative press has dubbed it, a “new Sangatte”. It is a self-organised space. ( see Brighton NoBorders response to the article in the Daily Mail from yesterday: [1] ) Of course, help is needed. If you want to support the space by either travelling to Calais or otherwise, please contact:

noborderslondon@riseup.net

for more information and updates, see

http://london.noborders.org.uk

about the situation in calais, see http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com

[1]
press release : http://london.noborders.org.uk/node/282
[2]

http://nobordersbrighton.blogspot.com/2010/01/not-that-old-sangatte-ii-things-again.html

No Borders Global Round Up: Haiti, Calais, Italy, Switzerland, London…

As the dubious motives of the U.S. led aid effort in Haiti are revealed, it’s become clear that the issue of “security” and “migration management” are much higher up the agenda than any humanitarian motive. : the U.S. has stated it will accept no Haitian refugees, and a Naval Blockade, including an Air Craft Carrier has been set up to stop fleeing Haitian’s reaching the coast of Florida, where , just in case any do make it immigration authorities have cleared space in a 600-bed detention center in Miami, and the naval base at Guantanamo Bay is also being prepared to hold those who try to flee. Some may say that since the U.S. has been continuing meddling in Haiti’s affairs  for most of the 20th and 21st Centuries-  including Coups’ and support of dictators -  it should bear some extra responsibility for what happens next. It  may turn out that it does – buit in the guise of  a U.S. military-corporate invasion on the scale  not seen since Iraq. See “>Seamus Milne’s analysis for a  broader overview of the situation.

Meanwhile in Calais: “On January 19th tents were distributed to migrants because the cold weather plan was suspended and the BCMO gymnasium closed. migrants launched a movement protest on the morning of the closure by burning a few blankets and banners, so the evening after the distribution of tents they decided to sleep next to BCMO. half an hour later fifty uniformed police riot made a line outside the camp, saying that if migrants do not leave they would destroy everything .After negotiation they agreed that migrants could leave with tents in the direction of the old jungle and they would not stop anyone and destroy any tents … migrants and activists were going to install the new camp escorted by the Police who showed us the place where they would not intervene… Yet they arrested 6 people at 2 am and came back at 7am” An urgent appeal has been issued for anyone who can to  to Calais to try to stop the authorities worst behaviour. More at: http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com.

In Rosarno, Italy at least 37 we’re  wounded,in a migrant revolt, including 18 police officers.

In one of the “worst-ever incidents” of racial unrest in Italy, the violence broke out on Thursday evening after white youths in a car fired air rifles at a group of immigrants returning from working on farms.

“Two immigrants were slightly injured by the gunfire. ‘Those guys were firing at us as if it was a fairground,’ a Moroccan identified as Kamal told La Repubblica newspaper. ‘They were laughing, I was screaming, other cars were passing by but nobody stopped.’

In Zurich, police raided and demolished an autonomously run school where undocumented migrants held language classes. The raid came as the Swiss government admitted that its harsh treatment of undocumented asylum- seekers has partly failed, and following an announcement that it is again planning a revision of federal asylum law. Several police officers, half of them in riot gear, stormed the Autonomous School Zurich (ASZ) Thursday. After chasing away the squatters and holding off protesting supporters with pepper spray, officers started confiscating teaching materials and technical utilities. The police partly demolished the single-storey building and removed its windows, leaving it uninhabitable. The ASZ had started operating at the Allenmoos School on Zurich’s outskirts last April, when activists squatted the empty building. The autonomous school operated according to do-it-yourself principles. Anyone could take, or offer, courses for free. As a result, a broad variety of training ranging from open-source computer courses to classes in solar energy fundamentals was available.

London: On Saturday 23rd January there will be two demonstrations called by London No Borders  in London. One will be at St. Pancras, where the UK (e-)border agency put up their controls in the middle of London. The second one will be at Piccadilly Circus where, while commuters, tourists and clubbers stare at the never-ending stream of commercials at ground level, they themselves are under constant observation by security and police in their cosy CCTV headquarters below ground.

Divide and Rule:Re-Post

I re-post this post because of the recent statement by John Denham that “ethnic  minorities are no longer always automatically disadvantaged”, which if you look at the comments on the BBC news website is full of racist postings.  This excellent Reader on this issue cuts the crap.

Working Class Youth - according to the The Daily Telegraph

Over it’s eight essays, it shows how good old divide and rule tactics are still being used by the ruling classes and their acolytes to unfortunate good effect.

The themes include educational attainment, housing and the portrayal of the white, working class as a ethnic minority, rather than part of a multi-ethnic working class.

In the opening essay, Wendy Bottero makes the observation that the “white” working class are portrayed “as a council estate dwelling, single-parenting, low-achieving, rottweiler-owning cultural minority, whose poverty, it is hinted, might be the result of their own poor choices…and have the epithets ‘chav’, ‘asbo’ and ‘pramface’ (and hoodies) applied to them. While the very same commentators are also at pains to portray them as victims of a liberal conspiracy to promote the interests of (non-white) immigrants over theirs.

So : “…comparison to other groups is always in terms of their ethnicity, with Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets, or Pakistanis in Oldham. The distinctive social position of these groups is presented in terms of their ethnic identity, as cultural or religious difference, rather than by the very marked class inequalities that they also experience. This exaggerates the differences between ethnic groups and masks what they hold in common. By stressing the whiteness of the white working class, the class inequality of other ethnic groups also slips from view. This sidesteps the real issue of class inequality, focusing on how disadvantaged groups compete for scarce resources, rather than exploring how that scarcity is shaped in the first place. If we really want to understand disadvantage, we need to shift our attention from who fights over the scraps from the table, to think instead about how much the table holds, and who really gets to enjoy the feast.” Quite.

Shortage, or rather unequal distribution of social goods, such a educational resources, is one pressure point to divide the “white” and “non-white” working class.

… Just 24 per cent of disadvantaged white boys
now leave school with five or more good GCSEs.
This compares with 33.7 per cent for black
African boys from similar low-income households.
There were fears last night that the figures
could hand votes to the far-Right British
National Party because additional funding is
available to help children from ethnic minorities.
(Daily Mail, 13 January 2007)

As David Gilborn comments:

“There are several things to consider here. First, the misleading assertion that ‘additional funding is available to help children from ethnic minorities’: in fact, local authorities (LAs) and schools have to bid for dedicated funding towards minority education projects: the additional funds are not simply handed out, automatically privileging minoritized children as the story seems to suggest.

Second, the story argues that the results could fuel support for extreme political parties like the British National Party (BNP). This
repeats a line of argument that has featured in British political discourse since the late-1950s – when riots by white racists led to the first major immigration controls (Sic).

By warning of the danger of inflaming support for racist parties, what actually happens is that politicians and commentators invoke the threat of racist violence as a means of disciplining calls for greater race equality . Official statistics reveal that most groups in poverty achieve relatively poor results regardless of ethnic background… the achievement gap between white students in poverty (in receipt of free school meals – FSM) and more affluent whites (non-FSM) is more than three times bigger than the gaps between different ethnic groups who are equally disadvantaged… And yet it is the race gap that is highlighted both in the Daily Mail story (above), which warns of BNP mobilization, and in the attendant story in the Times Educational Supplement.It is significant that despite the larger class inequality, media commentators and policy advisers do not warn of an impending class war…”

Social Housing is in crisis. The crisis is not, as the right-wing press would like you to believe one created by a influx of scrounging foreigners, but of a chronic shortage, created by the Thatcherite policy of “right to buy” and an absence of major new public housing projects.

Tensions between the indigenous (not necessarily) white population and recent immigrants is often exploited where housing is concerned:

“…there is always far more demand than
supply of social housing, and only people who are technically homeless, and/or have multiple social problems, disabilities, or dependent children, can aspire to be housed by local authorities in the short to medium term. The chunk of working-class families on low to medium wages who used to be relatively certain of getting access to council housing in the period up to the 1980s are now unlikely to enjoy that luxury…allocation is based primarily
on points systems like ‘needs’ and ‘bidding’.”

The upshot of this policy, combined with low social housing stock means that only the poorest 20% of the population ever can get social housing. The very poorest people are often the most recent immigrants. From the viewpoint of the established residents, for instance, on Bristol’s Barton Hill Estate, it may seem that new immigrants are given higher priority than people who may have been waiting longer. Some are, but on basis of need and income, rather than race. It is those politician’s (and those who voted for them?) who systematically dimnished available social housing who are to blame.

Other contributions include Becky Taylor’s and Ben Rogaly’s look at over simplifications of both the class-basis of racism – as likely to be found on a playground in an affluent middle class area as in a ’sink’ council estate comprehensive – they mainly concentrate, however, on questioning the  over simplification of a white working class identity, stating that:

“Migration out of the United Kingdom is as important as migration into it in the making of its constituent nations and of the idea of Britishness”

“The essay draws on oral history interviews with 73 people who were (former) residents or workers in three social housing estates in Norwich. In it we use the term ‘indigenous’ transnationalism to
refer to the transnational practices of people who have not moved away from their place of birth but are related or otherwise connected to people who have done so.”

The complete set of essays is available at:
www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/WhoCaresAboutTheWhiteWorkingClass-2009.pdf

Cinema Klandestino and Bristol No Borders present: 7 Suns (2008).

Sunday 10th of Jan 2010. 7 Suns (2008). 7pm.

Cinema Klandestino and Bristol No Borders present: 7 Suns (2008).

Sunday 10th of January 2010 @ the Cube Cinema

Tax: £4/3
Doors: 7pm
Film: 8pm

7 Suns film, music, info night!

To kick off the new year on Sunday 10th of January 2010 Cinema Klandestino returns to the Cube Cinema and team up with Bristol No Borders to present: 7 Soles (2008).

Cinema Klandestino joins with Bristol No Borders to bring you 7 Soles (7 Suns) the 2008 Mexican feature film from writer-director Pedro Ultreras. Based on true stories, the drama follows a group of Mexican migrants attempting the death-defying journey across the US border through the Sonoran Desert.

The screening will be accompanied by Latin American music, with slideshows and info stalls from No Borders, highlighting the injustices meted out daily upon migrants attempting to cross borders in Europe and the Americas. Yasmine Brien who has worked with No More Deaths (a US campaign group working on the US-Mexico border) will present the film and guide a discussion round the issues.

Tax: £4/3
Doors: 7pm
Film: 8pm

film info: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/08/must_s…m.php
trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOpgnHWaQLc

directions to the cube: http://microplex.cubecinema.com/cubewebsite/directions.html
cube website: http://microplex.cubecinema.com/

http://www.cinemaklandestino.org
http://bristolnoborders.wordpress.com/

Related Link: http://bristolnoborders.wordpress.com/

The EU’s murderous borders: four poles of suffering and denial of rights

“A report published by Migreurop (a Euro-African network of 40 organisations from 13 countries working on issues of immigration policy, externalisation and their consequences within and beyond the EU’s borders) in October 2009 paints a vivid picture of the effects of the EU’s migration policies by focussing on three regions in which a number of common denominators are identified in spite of the significant difference between them (the Calais region and the north of France, the Greek-Turkish border and the Oujda region in eastern Morocco). These are added to by a case study on events on the Italian island of Lampedusa, where practices have been adopted for the sake of expediency that confirm the suspicion that legal guarantees and human rights conceived as minimum standards for the treatment of all human beings are becoming a luxury that is not meant for migrants who have been criminalised and de-humanised as “illegals”.”

The themes that run through all the sections from specific areas are those of controls and attempts to stop migrants, their detention in awful conditions that often entails abuses by guards, and a de-humanisation that goes so far as to result in deaths and in the use of legal and illegal dissuasive practices, among which the Dublin II regulation and illegal repatriations are identified as being particularly harmful. Instances of resistance against policies enacted by government by migrants themselves and local populations that express solidarity for them are also examined. A special emphasis is placed on how some French policies are officially justified as seeking to prevent “a draught” that would encourage others to migrate towards Europe, that the authors interpret as people being made to endure dreadful situations not for their own sake, but for the message to reach their home countries and particularly those who might be tempted to follow them in the future.

Surprising parallels are drawn, such as those between the “tranquillos” in northern Morocco and the so-called “jungles” in France, which are both make-shift shelters self-managed by those attempting to escape the attention of the police, immigration authorities, in short, to become invisible while they try to plan the next stage in their journey after hitting a dead end. In Morocco, they face the choice between trying to cross a heavily guarded stretch of the sea in which thousands have died en route to Spain, trying to climb the six-metre-high fencing erected around the Spanish north African enclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla, or to reach them by swimming around the border, again, risking death. In France, they have the Channel blocking their way into the UK, the Dublin II regulation stopping refugees among them from claiming asylum in case they are sent back to the countries they first entered the EU from (most often Greece, where the level of successful applications is well below 1%), resulting in a likelihood of them never being able to obtain asylum regardless of whether they fulfil the requirements for it.

Everywhere, the police are on their tracks, and capture involves the risk of detention, sometimes entailing violence as well as terrible living conditions, and expulsion, except for those who come from countries to where some European states will not expel them (unlike the UK, France does not usually repatriate Afghans), although this is not an issue if they are captured in Morocco or in Greece, where night-time returns to Turkey in perilous conditions across the river Evros are commonplace. The Italian practice of directly returning intercepted boats to Libya without identifying the people on board or their nationalities since May 2009 is a classic example of how the wish for expediency is trampling even the limited guarantees provided by increasingly harsh national immigration laws- expulsion without a judicial authority issuing a formal order; the presence of likely refugees disregarded; returns to presumed transit countries where they are likely to experience further abuses.

There are many excerpts of first-hand accounts from migrants’ experiences, ranging from a complete lack of understanding of the situation in which they are forced, for instance an Afghan youth in Calais who wonders how it is possible that he is not allowed to stay, nor allowed to leave and is thus condemned to roaming aimlessly, feeling as if he were “in a cage”, to harrowing descriptions of spiteful and mocking treatment at the hands of border guards that went so far as to lead people to perish, both on the Moroccan-Spanish border and the Greek-Turkish one.

The lasting impression caused by the report is that thousands of people are facing incredible ordeals as a result of policies, that awful living conditions from poorer countries are entering the EU as a result of exclusion and the creation of categories that are permanently forced to live in a condition of invisibility. On the other hand, to help them “regulate” immigration flows, the EU and its member states are funding a vast expansion of the internal security apparatus in bordering countries and of tough laws that are often implemented on the basis of skin colour.

This often means that visits by authorities from European countries and EU institutions for negotiations with third-country governments in this field result in indiscriminate round-ups in neighbourhoods in which large numbers of migrants live and in the spread of racism, both by security and police forces as well as by members of public, for example in north African countries against sub-Saharan migrants suspected of seeking to emigrate to Europe.

The report is available on the Migreurop website:
Les frontières assassines de l’Europe (French, original)
Europe’s murderous borders (English)
Fronteras asesinas de Europa (Spanish)

---

Rapport-Migreurop-nov2009-en

Official Welfare Centre to Open in Calais?

According to the Daily Telegraph: “A new welcome centre for UK bound illegal migrants is to open in Calais before the end of this year”.

“French officials insisted that it would only be a “day centre” for foreigners who are in a particularly bad way including the sick, pregnant women and minors under the age of 18. But the plans agreed by the Administrative Court of Lille include central heating, hot showers, and a kitchen. Officials defended the plan as a humanitarian response.One said: “There are more than 1000 migrants sleeping rough in the town, and with temperatures dropping their living conditions are getting worse.”“He said that September’s destruction of The Jungle, an illegal shanty town full of mainly Afghan young men, had not had the desired effect.

“It did not persuade them to leave, so we have to offer them a basic level of support,” the official added.”

Note that this new welfare centre will not offer accommodation. What this means for the current policy of the police destroying all accomodation/bedding that those sleeping rough in the Calais area is now unclear.

It’s a sign of the times that French Officialdom have kept such a basic humanitarian plan secret; and once it had been discovered had to defend it as if was something outrageous.

The Tory Shadow Immigration response is a foretaste of the roasting that the idea will get this side of the channel:

“This is another gesture of contempt from France to Britain. The only result of this will be to encourage more potential illegal immigrants to try to break our laws.

It’s such a perfect combo for the right-wing press: The Wogs and The Frogs Begin at Calais*

*”The wogs begin at Calais” was originated by George Wigg, Labour MP for Dudley, in 1949. In a parliamentary debate concerning the Burmese, Wigg shouted at the Tory benches, “The Honourable Gentleman and his friends think they are all ‘wogs’. Indeed, the Right Honourable Member for Woodford [i.e. Winston Churchill] thinks that the ‘wogs’ begin at Calais.”[3] Wigg’s coinage, sometimes paraphrased as “Wogs start at the Channel” or “Wogs start at Dover”, is used to characterise a stodgy Europhobic viewpoint, and more generally the view that Britain (more so England) is inherently separate from (and superior to) the Continent and the rest of the World -  A view only now maintained by the stupid and the bigoted, which unfortuantley includes much of the media. In this case, “wog” is used to compare any foreign, non-English person to those more traditionally labeled “wogs”.

Calais today: repression has escalated to unprecedented levels

Arrests have increased dramatically since the end of November, as well as raids on squats and jungles.

The new Pashto jungle is being raided over and over, with dozens of people arrested every time including several unaccompanied boys, some as young as 11 or 12. Police brutality is on the increase for beatings – a 13 years old boy has been injured in a leg by being hit with a truncheon. The CRS have been seen again using gas.

All new camps have been destroyed. After arresting everybody who does not manage to run or hide, the police slash the plastic covers with knives and destroy blankets and people’s possessions. Two large urban squats are also under constant attack and police patrol the beach and the park arresting people there all the time.

Usually people are released after a few hours, or they have to spend 12 hours or more in the police station. They have to walk one hour to go back, including under age children, sick and injured people and people with papers (who have applied for asylum in France). Increasingly people are detained for longer, lately often taken to deportation centres other than Coquelles. They are routinely threatened they will be deported if they do not apply for asylum in France – to Afghanistan or other countries. Many people have finger prints in other ‘safe’ counties from where they have transited – such as Greece – and they may sent back there according to the Dublin2 agreements.

(note: there is evidence of police torturing migrants in Greece, two have been killed; illegal deportations from Greece to Turkey are a common occurrence –and from Turkey eventually to the countries the people are escaping from, in flagrant violation of the 1951 Convention on Refugees).

The migrants of Calais want to go to England and eventually make a claim for asylum there. They want to live without constant fear of arrest. Shakir said: “the public of Calais are good but the police are a problem”. His friend Tariq said: “If I am in England I will celebrate Christmas, but I will probably spend my Christmas in the police station. “…Shakir is under 16. He is alone in Calais, on his journey from Afghanistan.

URGENT ACTION IS NEEDED TO OPPOSE THE REPRESSION AND THE VIOLENCE THE MIGRANTS ARE SUBJECTED TO

Calais Migrant Solidarity have been present on the ground all the time since the No Borders camp in Calais (end of June).We now have an office space and a space where people can sleep – it can get pretty crowded though! More support is needed, especially since the repression is escalating. With Besson’s threat to make Calais ‘a migrant free zone’ by the end of the year in mind, we are calling for more activists to come and support.

If you want to get involved or just would like more information, please call 0634 810 710 or email calaisolidarity@gmail.com
For more details and updates see

http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com

NOTES ON THE SITUATION OF THE MIGRANTS IN CALAIS AFTER THE ‘DIGNIFIED’ DESTRUCTION OF THE MIGRANTS’ CAMPS

Migrants: still here. At least 300 people go to food distributions in Calais . An estimate 2000 migrants have spread around the coast to safer places, or down South. The most visible result of the repressive immigration policies implemented by the French government is that life for the migrants has become unimaginably hard.

Smugglers: still here. In fact the price of a journey from Calais to England has pretty much doubled since the destruction of the jungles: the average cost for a ‘guarantee’ journey to the UK in the back of a truck is now 1500 euros. This is another remarkable result of the new immigration policies, despite the French immigration minister’s worthless claims that the destruction of migrants camps was done ‘with dignity’ and for ‘humanitarian reasons’, and to defeat people’s smugglers. In fact the smugglers are profiting from people’s misery and people are pushed further into the mafia’s hands by the desperate conditions they are forced to live in.

Jungles: still here. The Pashto jungle has been razed to the ground, trees included, but people are sleeping in the woods nearby. The new camps have also been destroyed by the CRS (riot police) and people just shelter under bits of tarpaulin. The CRS keep going there and arrest all those who do not manage to escape, any time day or night. After, they slash the plastic covers with knives and destroy the blankets and people’s property. It rains a lot. Hazara jungle: similar situation.
Iranian jungle: similar situation.
Kurdish jungle: similar situation.
Sudanese jungle: camp destroyed again and again, most people have gone to the beach (shelters have been destroyed also there) or to squats or they are trying to sleep rough in various places.

Bridges: gone. All the people who were sleeping under bridges, where at least they had some shelter from the rain, have moved elsewhere due to excessive police harassment and repeated destruction of tents and blankets.

Squats: still here. Africa house has been razed to the ground. Ethiopia house still here but under attack by the CRS. Recently evicted, everybody who did not manage to run or hide arrested and all blankets and people’s property destroyed. People returned having nowhere else to go. Calais Migrant Solidarity and than Salam gave them new blankets and warm clothes. Later the police returned and arrested people again… and again
Another large squat inhabited by Egyptians, Palestinians and other Arabs plus many Afghans is also under attack.

CLIMATE JUSTICE = NO BORDERS
NO BORDERS DAY OF ACTION
14th December Copenhagen
MEET AT 11:00 @ rÅDHUSPLADSEN
AND MARCH TO THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

http://climatenoborders.wordpress.com/

COME TO CALAIS FOR CHRISTMAS!
From the 21st to the 1st January
We are planning to have celebrations, tours of jungles and squats, films, workshops and a surprise party!

NO BORDERS; NO NATIONS!

Calais Migrant Solidarity activists
- Homepage: http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com

Bristol No Borders Winter Do! – Food and Films

As the days get shorter and the wind gets stronger ……..

Bristol No Borders takes its turn in hosting the Sunday vegan cafe at Kebele social centre

Sunday 6th November @ Kebele, 14 Robertson Rd, Easton BS5 6JY

As well as a delicious vegan roast dinner, something to wash it down with, and an opportunity to hang out socially, we’ll be film screening….

From about 6pm – set vegan meal, for a requested donation of 2 quid. All proceeds to cover costs of meal and pay the bills at kebele social centre.

From 7.30pm – “In This World” (2002) – Pashtu/Farsi with English subtitles.

This intimate, yet hard-hitting, response to mainstream UK immigration debates follows two Afghan teenagers as they escape from the Shamshatoo refugee camp in Pakistan, along the smugglers’ route known as The Silk Road.

Travelling through Iran, Turkey, Italy, and France, Jamal and his cousin Enayatullah embark on a desperate journey to freedom. Short on money, lacking proper papers, and forced to travel in trucks, lorries, and shipping containers.

Shot on digital video, “In This World” is styled as a fictional documentary, using voiceover narration and real characters and locations (including the infamous Sangatte camp). The predominantly improvised script creates a powerful piece of guerrilla filmmaking, with two engrossing performances from the non-professional leads.