Continued opposition to Arora Hotels planning application
Monday, January 4, 2010


We recently posted here news of a planning application by Arora International Hotels for the conversion of the Mercure Hotel, Crawley into an Immigration Removal Centre.

We now heard that the planning meeting has been put back till 25 January. Ahead of this, an to send a message of condemnation, No Borders activists paid another short visit to the Arora branch in Manchester city centre.

We were awaited by a security guard and the hotel manager who somehow seemed to expect our return. There is still time to oppose the planning application by contacting Crawly Council or Arora Hotels. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 1:01 PM  

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Playwright Lydia Besong arrested at Dallas Court
Thursday, December 10, 2009

This article has been taken from The Mule website.

Supporters of Lydia Besong are demanding her immediate release after she was detained this morning by immigration officials. Lydia, a playwright and human rights activist seeking asylum in the UK, was snatched this morning while signing in at the Home Office Reporting Centre Dallas Court in Salford.

There will be a vigil his Saturday (12 December), 3pm at Friends Meeting House behind the Central Library.

Campaigners are asking people to contact the Home Office urging Lydia’s immediate release and quoting HO Ref: B1236372

FAX: Home Office on 0208-760-3132

Email:

CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk; UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk;

Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

and cc admin@rapar.org.uk

For further information contact:

* Richard Goulding at RAPAR 0161 834 8221
* 07776 264646
* RAPAR’s Press Officer Kath on 0161-225-2260 or kath.northernstories@googlemail.com
* or admin@rapar.org.uk

She is now being held in a detention centre in the south of England from which the Home Office plan to deport her on 21 December to Cameroon, where she is wanted by the authorities who previously tortured her for her political views.

Lydia and her husband, Bernard Batey, were told at the end of October that they must leave the UK. The couple fled Cameroon in December 2006, having been jailed and tortured for being members of the Southern Cameroon National Council, a party declared illegal by the government. As well as being tortured during her time in prison, Lydia was raped by one of the guards. When she escaped she and Bernard sought asylum in the UK, where they have lived ever since.

Lydia is a writer, whose debut play “How I Became an Asylum Seeker” was staged by Community Arts Northwest (CAN) on 3 December to a full house at the Zion Theatre in Hulme. She wrote the play partly to find a way of coping with her horrific experiences, and to raise awareness about asylum. She is also on the Management Committee of Woman Asylum Seekers Together (WAST).

More recently Lydia has been working alongside RAPAR and Commonword collecting stories about those living in destitution in Manchester. Commonword’s Artistic Director, Pete Kalu, said, “Lydia has been a tremendous resource in helping us to find new pathways to new writers in communities.”

Lead Artistic Manager for CAN Jasmine Ali said, “Lydia has been an inspiration for the artistic team with her dedication and commitment to the project. Without her contribution WAST would not have had the confidence to devise and perform their play to a wider audience.”

On the morning of 19 November Lydia signed in at Dallas Court to be told that she and her husband were now required to report every week to the centre on Thursday mornings. Lydia was detained this morning, on the third Thursday of the new conditions. Campaigners working on Lydia and Bernard’s behalf feared officials would arrest them at the Reporting Centre, as this tactic is often employed by the Home Office to stop any intervention by supporters and friends.

The campaign to stop the couple’s deportation has gained much support, under the umbrella of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. Both current and former MPs, Paul Rowen and Sir Cyril Smith, are backing their constituents along with Reverend Graham Lindley, Parish Priest at St Anne’s Church in Rochdale. Paul Rowen has been contacted by her supporters and is working with lawyers to secure her release.

Robert Sharp, of English PEN, the charity which campaigns for writers and playwrights internationally, is also calling for Lydia’s immediate release.

“This is a blow for freedom of speech. With this detention, Lydia’s fledgling literary career will be cut short. It is astonishing that the UK plans to deport someone who has been seeking refuge from a government that attacked her just for exercising her right to freedom of expression,” he said

Richard Goulding from RAPAR told MULE, “Lydia has now been transferred away from Manchester, presumably in the south of England. We guess Yarl’s Wood but we don’t know for certain.

“The reason it’s happened this week is because she had her play with a full house at the Zion Centre last week, and we don’t think they’d dare do it then. Now they’ve tried to do it with as little fuss as possible.”

In light of Lydia’s detention a vigil has been organised for this Saturday (12 December), 3pm at Friends Meeting House behind the Central Library. In a message encouraging people to attend, campaigner Tom Lavin said, “The Home Office’s deportation strategy is very pragmatic and public pressure makes a big influence on their decisions.”

This has recently been proven by the release of the Mansour family following a judicial review just hours before their scheduled flight back to Cairo.

Talking to MULE, Lydia’s husband Bernard was clearly distraught, “We’re fighting but the system is too much, we can’t go home but the government is trying to force us.

“I’m really confused. I don’t know what she’s going through now. She has to fight, we are going to fight you know. My wife is just my life and we have to fight for our lives.

“But at the moment we don’t know where Lydia is. I’m still waiting for the solicitors call.”

Goulding added, “It’s kind of a waiting game now, but we urge people to come along at 3pm on Saturday to show solidarity and to send emails of support.” Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 1:43 PM  

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No Borders Fundraiser
Sunday, November 22, 2009

No Borders invites you to a fundraiser night at the Corner in Fallowfield, this Wednesday, 25 November.

Come at 7 to hear updates from what's happening in Calais, and we're showing the latest No Borders films until about 9.

After this, it's a night of Dub, Dance Hall, Reggae and Ska from the Cool Runnings DJs - until 1am.

FREE entry/donations towards No Borders

The venue: The Corner, it's right next to Trof in Fallowfield, where Landcross Road meets Wilmslow Road. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 3:43 PM  

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Arora Hotels: one for the 'City of Shame'?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

* Arora Management Services Ltd plans to turn its four-star Mercure
Gatwick hotel into an immigration detention centre.

* Campaigners vow to target Arora and Mercure until the plans are dropped.

Arora Management Services Ltd has applied to Crawley Borough Council for planning permission to turn its four-star Mercure Gatwick Hotel into an immigration detention centre. If the planning permission is granted, the hotel will be converted into a secure prison and the 245 bedrooms into single and family cells.

Established in 1999, Arora International Hotels is one of the UK's fastest growing privately owned hotel companies, with six luxury hotels in and around Heathrow and Gatwick airports and one in Manchester city centre.

Like other private companies that run privatised detention centres across the country, Arora is trying to sell its plan by arguing that locating detention centres at airports would make deportations easier and less costly for the government.

Anti-detention campaigners have already held two protests at Mercure Hotels in London, demanding that Mercure/Arora drops its plans to turn one of its hotels into an immigration prison. Hotel staff and guests of the Arora branch in Manchester were leafleted by members from Manchester No Borders. London No Borders are calling for a demonstration outside Crawly Town Hall on 7 December, when the Council will discuss the planning application.

The Manchester Arora Hotel is on Princess Street, around the corner from Manchester Art Gallery. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 5:42 AM  

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On class and migrant solidarity
Wednesday, October 21, 2009

This is an article that we wrote after the Calais No Borders camp. It addresses some of the criticisms we received from some anarchists in Britain. The text was published in Black Flag magazine no.230 with the title 'In defence of migrants'.

On class and migrant solidarity

“Riot police stop anarchist assault on Britain's borders” was the Daily Mail headline about the No Borders camp in Calais. What happened at “Britain’s borders” and what has anarchism got to do with it?

While the quiet camp passed unremarked, newspapers from the Guardian to the Telegraph ran vivid features on what the camp encountered, documenting migrant lives in Calais with varying degrees of sympathy. These were prompted by government talks and the opening of the UN office, but reflected and refracted our experiences. In Calais, the externalisation of the British border to France creates a situation of direct struggle between authoritative oppression and people who do not obey these restrictions. On their way to Britain, thousands camp in the vicinity of Calais restricted in their agency by oppressive state policies.

In solidarity with those enacting their opposition to control and global inequality by moving across borders in search of better lives, the No Borders Camp aimed to demonstrate (and act) against the state’s hegemonic and arrogant claim to control the movement of people. The No Borders position and anarchism share a mutual enemy: borders as institutionalisation of authority.

Alas, upon our return from the Calais No Border camp we noticed a surprising development. While in continental Europe anarchists mobilise in solidarity with migrants facing the xenophobic responses to the recession (at the Calais demonstration there was a large turnout of French anarchist groups and CNT syndicalists), in the UK some anarchists have begun to question the fundamentals of that solidarity. To us it seems like this is the result of a false opposition of class and immigrant solidarity.

The 'English' anarchists – of that identity they seem to be proud – write on blogs and discussion forums that they will stand in defence of the working class when the “liberals” of No Borders abolish immigration controls in favour of capitalist exploitation. There is Matt D., member of the IWW and Liberty & Solidarity who blogs at ‘workers self organisation’. He draws a distinction that could have come straight from a primitivist or gated-communities pamphlet: “no borders… or community control of resources”. The No Borders position for him is “un-anarchist” as it “can only be realised if some large international body enforces it”. Or take 9/11 Cultwatch writer Paul Stott who finds it hard to believe that anarchists would “travel to another country” in solidarity with migrants rather than staying here in solidarity with workers facing recession. Even Class War founder Ian Bone on his blog defines class struggle in national terms: “it’s our England we will fight for”. Paul Stott again adds to this a typical expression of labour movement nationalism: “Is there anything more likely to drive down existing wages than mass immigration?”

We do welcome discussion and criticism, even and especially of the fundamentals of our theory and practice. We are not shy of debate and hope that in the near future we can continue and exchange with the ‘English’ class struggle anarchists. For now, in the constraints of a short article, we want to briefly respond to four frequent statements from within that movement that we have disagreed with.

1. No borders would benefit capitalism

You will have probably observed that, today, movement is increasingly free - just so long as it is profitable. To say that capitalism would benefit from no borders is to overlook the role border control has served and continues to serve in the maintenance of an exploitative status quo. It is one of the primary means through which labour-power is disciplined and global divisions of labour, privilege and power are enforced. At the border the abstract logic of profit confronts the lived reality of our lives. Hence the border, like the factory, is both a site of suffering and a vector of antagonism.

2. No borders is utopian

Yes, but only if you think like a state. ‘But how can you make this work, its unmanageable, its not practical,’ the anxious statesman will cry. From the perspective of the state, no borders is indeed utopian – a place that could not be. For us, no borders is an axiom of political action, a principle of equality from which concrete, practical consequences must be drawn. It means recognising, on the basis of our equality, solidarity in struggle irrespective of origins. There is nothing less utopian and nothing more immediately practical than this.

3. An anarchist society would have community borders

The border traces a threshold of inside and outside. What is outside is perceived as dangerous and a threat to the inside, hence the ‘need’ for a border. The security that the border offers is essentially imposed externally and with reference to this threat. But there is another kind of security, one created internally through cooperation and mutual support. There is nothing in this kind of security which necessitates the exclusionary and violent practices of bordering. It is this latter kind of cooperative security which we are hoping to create.

4. National culture should be reclaimed

The nation state is a modern/recent form of sovereignty based (not solely) on forms of cultural nationalism which in turn are achieved through the glorification of typically 'English' traditions and stereotypes. We do not aim to undermine or ignore the history and traditions of struggle in the UK. Rather our aim is to undermine static conceptions of culture or community that create imagined divisions between 'us' and 'them'; divisions that have very real consequences for those who find they cannot, or do not want, to fit into these rigidly defined identities.

For us it seems that rather than attempting to transcend notions of class (domination), this new 'English' anarchism appeals to an affirmative cultural identity of class. We feel that we need to abandon such sociological concepts of class for revolutionary perspectives of social struggle. Not everyone sees the distinction between class struggle and migrant solidarity. Let's conclude with a comment by 'Alessio', who defends the no borders position in a reply to Paul Stott: “As the 'English' anarchists ponder on their next move, it seems like every other anarchist movement across Europe strides confidently forward. I see a pattern emerging here, maybe we should be more confident in anarchist politics and how we express them rather than continuously feel that we should pander or apologise to certain sections of the class in the UK.”
. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 4:21 AM  

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Target Brimar
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Manchester has got a new anti-militarist campaign. It is being launched on Saturday with a national demonstration in Chadderton, at the head office and main production facility of Brimar Ltd.

Brimar manufactures specialist screens and viewing equipment, mostly for military purposes. They are used by the British army in Afghanistan, the US army in Iraq and the Israeli army in Palestine.

No Borders activists will support the demonstration on Saturday at 12noon. You can find out how to get there and more information on the campaign website .

See you there!. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 3:10 AM  

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Do you remember this banner?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009



We made it our group’s banner 2 years ago, and took it to pretty much all the demonstrations and actions we attended.

We also took it to the Calais No Borders camp last June. This is where it got confiscated by the French CRS riot police during a leaflet distribution in the town centre. All people who took part in the (apparently illegal) flyering session got arrested, some quite brutally.



Manc No Borders people got away with it that time (though 3 of us were detained for no obvious reason a couple of weeks ago in Calais). But our banner couldn’t be rescued. There was a dramatic-looking photograph in the local paper the next morning, with two anarchists from Lille running away with the banner from a group of riot cops.

That landed them with the charge of ‘rebellion’ (as far as we understand it that’s similar to ‘resisting arrest’ over here). They were in court in Boulogne today, and we’re still waiting to hear if they got sentenced. What we did hear however was that our banner was used in court as evidence against them! And it’s never to be returned.

We’ve already made a replacement for it, which we took to London last week for a picket of Becket House reporting centre:



There’s a report and more pictures of the picket on indymedia. So look out for it on future demos and come join us.
. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 2:11 PM  

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