UKBA vans sabotaged in Salford
Monday, June 21, 2010

After an article was published by the Mule newspaper questioning the validity of celebrating Manchester Day while places such as Pennine House and Dallas Court exist, they are now reporting an act of sabotage on UKBA snatch squads in Salford on 'Manchester Night':

Manchester and Salford’s immigration reporting centre for people seeking asylum was attacked in the early hours of this morning by protestors. A group broke into the car park at Dallas Court where they sabotaged the vehicles used by the UK Border Agency’s notorious ’snatch squads’.

According to reports, the vans were immobilised and defaced with spray paint, while the access gate to the car park was also put out of action. Stickers reading “This vehicle has been tampered with” were left at the scene to notify staff.

In a statement the group said: “The action was taken in solidarity with detainee resistance. In the past months media reports have covered the hunger strikes in Yarl’s Wood, protests in Harmondsworth and struggles against chartered deportation flights. These are acts of resistance against an arbitrary system of control and surveillance policed by the UK Home Office and European immigration authorities.”

Dallas Court is home to officials from the UK Border Agency. The snatch squads which operate from the centre often head out in blacked-out vans early in the morning to detain those asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected. They are known for kicking in doors before the children go to school in order to catch the entire family at once. Asylum seekers are also made to sign in at Dallas Court at regular intervals, not knowing whether or not they will be detained on the spot.

When arrested, detainees are taken to detention centres such as nearby Pennine House, the holding facility at Manchester Airport, where they wait indefinitely until their cases are resolved. After long periods of incarceration, despite having committed no crime and having had no trial or sentence, most detainees can expect deportation back to the countries from which they fled.

This is the second time in recent years that Dallas Court has been targeted by campaigners seeking to obstruct dawn raids and disrupt the centre’s day-to-day activities, which today’s protestors described as a symbol of the “constant uncertainty and fear” that asylum seekers and migrants live under.

They said: “Every person has the right to fight against these conditions irrespective of circumstance, and as long as these policies exist people will struggle against them. New arbitrary controls such as the immigration cap proposed by the new government will only intensify resistance. Such resistance will centre on the frontline of border security at sites like Dallas Court and Pennine House.” Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 9:36 AM  

Labels: action reports

May Day Report
Sunday, May 9, 2010

Thanks to everyone who helped to make the day a great success. This was the first time in years that there was an explicitly anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist event on 1 May in Manchester - so we are glad it went well.

We only decided three weeks before May Day to call for an autonomous bloc on the annual trade union march and a post-demonstration get-together with the slogan 'You cannot represent us'. This was to counterbalance what we anticipated to be the complete dominance of electoral politics on 1 May in Manchester.




Anti-authoritarians, including from No Borders and the Anarchist Federation, had a decent presence on the march and in town early in the day, distributing lots of literature critical of representational politics. Due to the low profile of the march in Manchester, this was no easy task and we confirm our commitment to mobilise for it in the future.


Others had been busy all morning setting up marquees and a soundsystem on Birley Fields, Hulme. The Fields are due for development by Manchester Metropolitan University and Hulme residents have set up a campaign to save them. A speaker from the campaign described them on the day as 'the green lungs for the working people of the area'. The overwhelmingly positive response from Hulme residents to our presence there shows the great value of this land for the area.


With the rain staying away unexpectedly, the site quickly filled up towards the afternoon with over 200 people coming and going throughout the day. Due to the great work of a Manchester free party crew, music started bang on time at 3pm with a set by Attila the Stockbroker and David Rovics who kindly passed by on the way to their Bradford gig. They were followed by a diverse range of performers and bands from reggae via punk to folk until it got dark. An open-mic speakers corner between the acts saw people from various campaigns talk about government cuts to service and politics away from the ballot box.


The day ended with some impromptu fireworks and a great team-effort to restore Birley Fields to its original state. We are considering a similar event for May Day next year, so be sure to get involved.. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 4:37 AM  

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You cannot represent us - election count picket in Mcr
Thursday, May 6, 2010

no borders and friends presented a 'petition' to election candidates in Manchester Central at the start of the election count on 6 May.


'You cannot represent us' was the message of the day, with politicians and candidates reminded that unpopular decisions affecting our lives will always be resisted. The picket was held right across the road from the entrance to the Town Hall where ballot boxes were brought in. Police tried to move people behind crowd barriers but failed.

The petition was actually a large wooden board that was used by people at the autonomous Mayday BBQ in Hulme as a message board to write down why they did not vote.

Some photos are here: Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 6:15 PM  

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No Deportations to the Congo!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Manchester No Borders supported Congolese asylum seekers who held a protest against forced removals in the centre of Manchester on Saturday 13th.

About 50 Congolese assembled at All Saints Park at noon, with a small number of supporters from socialist and anarchist groups. They danced and sang their way along Oxford Street, sitting down in the road at intervals in a symbolic 'die in.' The first die-in was outside the BBC building, in protest at its failure to give any coverage to the war in Congo.

You can find a series of photographs and more information about the protest here and here.

There is a video of the protest, with interviews, here. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 7:07 AM  

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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  

Labels: action reports

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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"Still Not Loving Tories - Still Not Loving Police"
Sunday, October 4, 2009

30 people picketed the entrance to Manchester Town Hall and leafletted top cops from around the country as ACPO members and senior Tories met to discuss policing strategies.

With banners, placards and speech bubbles, the group from Manchester No Borders said: Still Not Loving Police, Still Not Loving Tories - as we returned to the place where we had previously embarrassed council leader Richard Leese with a mountain of jumpers: see here.

A large police presence was nearby with some ten vans and 8 horses in Albert Square. Evidence gatherers also showed up for a while. For more pictures see the report on indymedia.

On Sunday evening, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) held a conference fringe meeting with shadow home secretary Chris Grayling MP in Manchester Town Hall. (Grayling was also the guy who compared Moss Side to The Wire, see here.

Outside, anti-authoritarian protesters held their own rally, and warned that a Conservative government could bring clashes with police not seen since the miner’s strike and the poll tax riots.

Fittingly, the country’s senior police officers were discussing strategies on “how to build public confidence in policing” after the criticisms they received over their use of stop and search powers, their handling of football matches and environmental protests, and the killings of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.

We maintain that this will be an impossible task to achieve under a new Conservative government. Have we really forgotten the policing of the miner’s strike and the poll tax riots?

As we see it, the police does not serve to protect communitites. It serves to protect the government of the time and to squash dissent against unpopular policies. And under the Tories there will be a lot more of these.

We are specifically thinking of home evictions, lay-offs and welfare cuts. All these will bring more protest, and if the police step in, resistance. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 1:31 PM  

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emergency protest at French Consulate
Friday, September 18, 2009

Manchester No Borders held an emergency protest at the French
consulate today, after French riot police have begun mass evictions
and arrests of refugees hoping to join the UK via the French port town of
Calais.




On Wednesday, French immigration minister, Eric Besson, announced that the
Calais area will be a ‘migrant-free zone’ by the end of next week. Large
areas of woodland, known locally as the ‘jungle’, where young men, many
still children, have set up temporary shelters are to be cleared and
bulldozed. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 6:54 AM  

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Calais: reports from the No Borders camp
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The transnational No Borders camp at the British Border in Calais has ended. Everyone who travelled there from Manchester has come back safely.

We have had a lot of fascinating encounters and experiences at the camp in Calais, which was situated very close to some of the ‘Jungle’ areas that are temporary ‘home’ to hundreds of refugees, right next to the E15 motorway which is the main route connecting Calais port to mainland Europe, and on the edge of the housing estates of the Beau-Marais neighbourhood. Just to the east of the city, our camp was inhabited by hundreds of activists from France, the UK and across Europe, and we were joined everyday by many migrants and locals.

We are planning a public event in Manchester very soon, where we will give report-backs from the camp, tell our stories, show our photos and films and discuss with all those who are interested how we can build more long-term strategies towards ‘a world without borders’.



Some 1,500 people took part in a transnational demonstration for freedom of movement on the Saturday.

There are many good reports of the camp and the demonstration on the internet already, so for now we just refer you to the feature article on Indymedia and the blog post by the South Wales No Borders group. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 12:39 PM  

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No Borders on Manchester May Day demo
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Several hundred people were on the annual Mayday march in Manchester on Monday. The Evening News has an account and pictures of the demonstration under the banner of ‘The Right to Work for ALL’. Called by No Borders and the AF, a group of about 50 anti-authoritarians also joined the march.



The two lead banners of the autonomous bloc read ‘Fight Social Control’ and ‘We won’t pay for your crisis’, echoing our callout in solidarity with workers and communities who engage in direct action (successfully as the case of the Visteon workers shows).




Placards in the shape of speech bubbles also expressed anger at police brutality, not just at the G20, but with reference to the police killings of Carlos Giuliani at the 2001 G8, Charles de Menezes in London, the 15-year old anarchist Alexandros in Athens, and Ian Tomlinson.



For a Manchester demonstration that did not see much mobilisation this was a good turnout, both for the general demo and for the No Borders/AF bloc. [More pictures on indymedia] Thanks to everyone who came. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 3:04 AM  

Labels: action reports

Gaza day of action: BAE Systems targeted - TWICE
Wednesday, April 29, 2009

In response to a call by the UK No Borders network, it appears that the BAE Systems factory in Middleton/Greater Manchester had its entrances blockaded by two separate groups on the same day! Two unrelated posts on indymedia [2] take responsibility for actions that saw the gates to the factory locked with motorbike chains and bicycle D-locks in the morning of 27 April. BAE was also picketed by London No Borders.

Both groups refer to the No Borders call to 'break the siege of Gaza' by targeting those profiting from the border regime that prevents the free movement in and out of Gaza. No Borders had called for actions not in support of a supposed national collectivity, but simply in support of people's freedom of movement.



To hear it from those who took action:

People have a right to live without fear, racism and nationalism. Activists on the protest call for an end to border controls and act in solidarity with the international No Borders network.

The people driving the cars that will be delayed will almost certainly be grateful to have their jobs, anxious to keep them, even while they would probably have prefered to stay in bed. We are not attacking them. We are attacking the system that drives ordinary people to sell their time making the means to imprison and kill other ordinary people, in Palestine and around the world. Work or you're fucked: it's not a choice, it's a threat.

Well done!

No Borders UK called for action on the 27th April and an immediate opening
of Israeli and Egyptian borders with Gaza. Targets included those profiting
from the siege such as BAE, G4S, Caterpillar, EDO, Raytheon in solidarity
with groups in resistance on both sides of the border,Anarchists Against
the Wall, the "Sarvanim" Refuseniks of Israel, Free Gaza, and the
International Solidarity Movement. Freedom of movement for all!

On the 27th April BAE systems was the main target. The BAE factory in
Middleton, Manchester, was blockaded early on the morning of 27 April in
solidarity with the No Borders day of action to break the siege of Gaza...
a blockade that was later reinforced by another autonomous group! A
variety of locks and chains were used in order to seal off several
entrances to the plant and disrupt work.

The Israeli government is a customer of BAE, which makes border control
and surveillance systems as well as traditional weapons and the production
of military air 'solutions'. Gaza's borders have been closed since 5
February, 2009, following the Israeli attacks. These policies towards Gaza
are not only human rights violations, they are money-making opportunities
for companies like BAE.

In London No Borders activists also targeted BAE by conducting a picket
at the companies headquarters. The protest intended to draw attention to the British company’s profiting from the suffering and death of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and especially from the recent Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s sustained and
brutal military attack on Gaza which killed 1400 Palestinians and wounded
over 7000.

BAE, part of which was formerly the national company British Aerospace, is
a weapons manufacturer, and supplies components for combat aircraft used
by the Israeli military in offensive actions, such as Apache bomber-helicopters and F-16 bomber-jets. Last week, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary David Milliband officially admitted that Israeli weapons used in Gaza “almost certainly” contained UK-supplied components, and cited BAE’s involvement.

BAE receive subsidies from the UK government in the form of export credits
and promotion. Although British arms exports account for only 1.5% of UK
exports and 0.2% of British jobs, the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has
more staff working on promoting the arms industry than all other
industries together, and BAE tops the list of British companies receiving
export credits, meaning the government guarantees arms payments to BAE in
case a foreign client defaults.

The siege continues.....freedom of movement for all!
Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 11:43 AM  

Labels: action reports

Pennine House protest: A reply to Woolas
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Last month, 100 people demonstrated outside Pennine House, a purpose-built immigration prison at Manchester airport where migrants are locked up even though they haven’t committed a criminal offence. In the ‘Big Issue in the North’, the immigration minister Phil Woolas has responded to the protest with a number of inaccuracies. Here we set the record straight.

“Pennine House has been there for many years – why they are protesting about it now, I’m not quite sure.”

It’s not really that surprising, is it? Since Phil Woolas got the job of immigration and borders minister, he has been the most draconian and arrogant member of Brown’s cabinet. Remember him declaring war on migrant communities and their friends? Well, that’s us fighting back.

“It reopened because the old facility was not fit for purpose, and was refurbished. I would have thought they would have agreed with that.”

How dishonest can you be? Woolas wants to detain and deport more and more asylum seekers and thus plans to expand the detention capacity by 60% - to over 4,000 places. Pennine House was not just refurbished but was doubled in size, from 16 to 32 places.

Sure it was also refurbished after even the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised it as a "poor" and "disrespectful" environment. There is finally a courtyard that received natural light, but the trade-off was that detainees can no longer receive visitors inside their living quarters but must meet their visitors in a special meeting room.

“I believe they think we should have no border control. I don’t think I can take that as a serious position.”

This is certainly a radical proposition. But it can’t just be reduced to a dislike of migration control. The border system that Woolas is in charge of is a mess – and it’s the most vulnerable who suffer most. This system can’t just be reformed; we need a complete overhaul of it. For us this means an end to all forms of authoritarian control – be they ID cards, the DNA register, police surveillance, or indeed the control of people’s movement.

“The people who are detained are people who have not co-operated with the judicial system. It is a relatively small number of people.”

An estimated 30,000 people are locked up in an immigration detention centre every year, including 2,000 children. This is not a small number, especially as it means that families, friends and communities are torn apart. And let’s remember that the majority of detainees have not committed any crime, have not had a trial or received a sentence.

Rather, they are arrested and detained when their asylum claims are refused, their visas run out, or they are otherwise deemed to "not have the right" to be in this country. This includes school and university students, migrant workers and families who have long been settled in the UK and who are often 'snatched' in dawn raids from their homes.

It is “not true” that vulnerable people are detained at Pennine House. “Sometimes they are dangerous people.”

Many asylum seekers and migrants lacking the right legal documents face a constant threat of being snatched by police and immigration officials in dawn raids or in swoops on their workplaces. Many have escaped violent conflict and war in their countries of origin and lived through traumatic journeys to the UK. Despite this, many display an amazing strength of character and sense of dignity. We are yet to meet a single immigration detainee who has been as dangerous to other people as the immigration and security staff accused of beating and torturing migrants in the back of Border Agency vans and in detention centres.

“They are people who have been judged not to have a legitimate immigration claim by the courts. That is not down to the government.”

The legal requirements for immigration claims as well as the decision to detain people in immigration prisons and to deport them are made by the government. The courts judge according to the law made by government policy.

“The facility is humane. It is subject to independent monitoring.”

A new lick of paint doesn’t change anything to the fact that locking up people who haven’t committed a crime can never be ‘humane’. We can only reiterate the call that we made with the demonstration: Abolish All Immigration Prisons!

Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 2:12 PM  

Labels: action reports

Report from Pennine House protest
Saturday, March 21, 2009

A huge police presence greeted more than 70 of us at Manchester airport on Saturday. GMP mobilised a helicopter, motorbikes and had dogs and horses on standby as we highlighted the whereabouts of the immigration prison Pennine House inside Terminal 2.

There's a BBC report here and pictures on indymedia [Town Hall|Airport]. Thanks to all those who came and made this a great success!

Read on for a report from the day:

On Saturday the 21rst of March, over 70 people from Manchester as well as No Borders activists from Leeds and Newcastle held a day of protest demanding the closure of Pennine house, an asylum prison located at Manchester airport.

After a rally in Albert square, where speeches against the detention prison were heard, the group split. Half cycled to the airport, taking with them an effigy of Immigration minister and Oldham MP Phil Woolas in a cage via bike trailer, to highlight the link between the government and the detention and deportation of thousands of migrants every year. The cycle ride was followed the entire journey to the airport by police vans, motorbikes and even a helicopter.

Meanwhile those travelling by train first stopped off at a demonstration organised by the local Congolese community, protesting against plans to deport many of them back to the Congo to certain death. After the rally members of both demonstrations went by train to the airport and linked up with the cyclists.

After arriving at Pennine house it became clear that the police were prepared for us. They had constructed a protest pen inside the detention prison car park and there were lots of police officers and FIT teams present. The group refused to enter the protest pen and ignored all attempts by police officers to make them do so. After spending half an hour listening to more speeches, chanting and flyering passers-by the group decided to leave the car park.

After leaving, the police attempted to contain the group and escort them back to the train station for “their own safety”. The group refused this and instead moved around the police line and made their way back to the train station and towards home. During this the police became physical with several demonstrators. Additional TAU vans, Dog and horse units were also called in but not deployed. Terminal 2 was closed during this.

This action was the culmination of several weeks of events aimed at highlighting the links between government migration policy, immigration minister Phil Woolas and Pennine house, located at Manchester airport.

Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 2:39 PM  

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Immigration Minister Detained
Friday, March 13, 2009

On Friday evening, 13 March, two dozen activists from Oldham and Manchester briefly occupied the constituency office of Phil Woolas, immigration minister and MP for Oldham and Saddleworth.

Read here a report on Indymedia

The mainstream media is also picking up the 'story', with such hilarious headlines as "anarchists hold minister hostage".

The Mirror
The Telegraph
The Daily Mail

Conveniently, most of them forget to actually mention why we 'detained' Phil Woolas for about 30 minutes, mirroring his policies of detaining migrants without prosecution, trial or sentence.

Read on to hear our views on immigration detention, Pennine House, and Phil Woolas.

2,500 people are currently detained in privately-owned immigration prisons in Britain. They are held for an indefinite period, but a significant number are detained for over 12 months. Never mind the debate on 42 days detention without charge for terror suspects. Here we have 30,000 people every year locked up without trial or sentence; 2,000 of them children.

Why? Because they (or their parents) were born on the wrong side of the border, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Zimbabwe or DR Congo that are being torn apart by atrocious wars, whose natural resources are being exploited by multi-national corporations, where human rights are a farce, where political activity is punished with torture or death.

It would be too easy to make Phil Woolas the sole responsible for this systematic imprisonment of asylum seekers. For a start there are the corporations that profit from the expansion and privatisation of the prison-industrial complex. The longer G4S, GEO or Kalyx can detain migrants, the more money they make. But the policy of immigration detention is also carried by a dominent nationalist ideology that is carried by all political parties.

As the recession leads to unemployment, forced evictions and community tension, Phil Woolas’s response has been nationalist too, reiterating the British jobs for British workers slogan. Migrants are not to blame for the recession, which has been caused by an economic system of exploitation, facilitated by the current and past political elite, and of which migrants are the first and most vulnarable victims.

We are now at a point in time where it becomes obvious that a response to an international crisis has to be international solidarity and cooperation. While the political elites conveniently blame immigrants for the recession, we take inspiration from the Greek insurgency after the shooting of Alexis, from protests that forced out the Icelandic government, from the student and workers struggles in France and Italy, all of which stood in solidarity with the migrant communities that had come under attack from their governments.

The protests against the G20 London summit at the end of this month are the first testing ground for a non-nationalist, anti-capitalist response to the crisis.
Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 4:12 PM  

Labels: action reports

Jumpers dumped on council leader: close Pennine House!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Yesterday (Tuesday) evening, Manchester No Borders interrupted a high-profile panel discussion with the leader of Manchester city council, Sir Richard Leese. We dumped 100 jumpers in front of the panellists of the event entitled ‘The Right to the City’ in a protest against exclusion, destitution and false imprisonment.

See more photographs here.

We intervened at a launch event for the University of Manchester’s new 'Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures’. The event aimed to discuss the concepts of ‘belonging’ and ‘exclusion’ with Richard Leese and speakers from Amnesty International and the Migrants’ Rights network.

Before Richard Leese started his presentation, No Borders took over the stage to read out a short statement instead, calling on the leader of the city council to close Pennine House, the immigration detention centre at Manchester airport. At the same time shopping bags filled with jumpers were emptied in front of him, making a considerable mount. Flyers informing the audience about Pennine House were handed out to the 150 or so people in the audience.

In a statement read out to the audience Manchester No Borders rejected the notion of ‘rights’ as “a politically and substantively bankrupt discourse”. Many people simply are not granted rights to the city, such as the migrants detained and held without charge at Pennine House.

Earlier this year Immigration Minister and Oldham MP Phil Woolas ‘unveiled’ the detention facility announcing: 'We will detect, detain and remove those who have no right to be here…This new facility will help us increase removals of those who have no right to remain in the UK.'

We also stated that for many who have been granted the formal rights to the city, these rights are empty signifiers, devoid of any substantive content. These include the pensioners, unemployed and homeless for whom having the rights to the city means very little when they lack the material means for a dignified existence.

The presentation of the 100 jumpers to Richard Leese was a symbolic demand
that Manchester City Council clothe the right-less and provide decent levels of material and social support.

---------------------------

More protests over the issue are planned. Tomorrow/today, we are inviting everyone to come and help plan protests at Pennine House detention centre. 4 March, 7pm, Friends Meeting House, Manchester.

A demonstration has already been announced for the weekend of 20/21 March. Protests against immigration prisons will also take place at Yarlswood detention centre in Bedford, organised by London No Borders.




. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 4:44 PM  

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The Right to Work?!
Saturday, February 28, 2009

A few people from Manchester No Borders supported a demonstration by the new Student Action for Refugees (STAR) group at Manchester University on Friday. A large banner and some 15 people with flyers informed students of their 'Let Them Work' campaign.

As STAR wrote:

The protest will launch the Manchester branch of STAR’s national campaign ‘Let Them Work’, to give asylum seekers the right to work during the asylum application process. The campaign is being supported by the Refugee Council and the TUC. Currently the UK’s draconian asylum system prohibits those applying for refugee status the right to work in the UK, leaving many feeling depressed and demoralised. … It is estimated that several thousand failed asylum seekers live in Manchester, deprived of the right to work, to get basic public services, and live a life of dignity.

We fully support the demand for the Right to Work as it would fundamentally change the living conditions of thousands of people seeking asylum. But we need to remember that asking more rights from the state can at best be a limited strategy.

Just as the folks from No One Is Illegal, we believe that no forms of immigration control can be ‘fair’ or ‘just’. At the centre of all migration management systems lies the desire to distinguish and divide between ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ legislation, ‘genuine’ and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, the ‘legal’ and the ‘illegal’, the ‘citizen’ and the ‘non-citizen’, ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’, those with rights and those without…

The Right to Work will almost inevitably lead to new groups of ‘rightless’ people and to new forms of exclusion and exploitation. New divisions will appear between ‘categories’ of asylum seekers and other migrants.

Similar points are raised in a new pamphlet on ‘amnesties’ (pdf) just published by NOII.

Therefore we have to connect the demands for practical improvements with a clear rejection of all divisions between citizens and non-citizens and all forms of immigration control. We cannot stop at the Right to Work but must declare: Freedom of Movement for All - No One Is Illegal! Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 2:03 PM  

Labels: action reports

Report from Liverpool anti-ID demo
Wednesday, November 26, 2008

20 students and No Borders/anti-ID campaigners from Manchester made their way to Liverpool on 25th November, the day that the government introduced ID cards for non-EU nationals living in the UK. There they joined a group of 30 Merseyside activists outside Reliance House to protest at the introduction of compulsory ID cards for international students and non-EU spouses on that day.

Reliance House is where interviewing, photographing and fingerprinting will take place from 4th December before being issued with a biometric ID card. It is also Liverpool’s reporting centre where those seeking asylum have to ‘sign in’ on a regular basis while their claims are being processed. If their claims fail they can be held, without prior notice, in the immigration detention facility in the same building for up to 7 days.

It is thus imperative to make the connection between ID cards and the assault on the rights of non-EU nationals wanting to live, work and study in the UK. People from Manchester No Borders had brought along placards and banners proclaiming that “no one is illegal”. Where the state reinforces the division between legal and ‘illegal’ people our solidarity must extend to those most affected by the scheme.

Some mention in the news:
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/11/25/protests-in-city-over-id-cards-100252-22330184/
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2470740.0.Protests_as_first_ID_card_scheme_launched_in_Britain.php
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/11/26/protesters-say-no-to-introduction-of-id-cards-for-foreign-students-64375-22341365/


No Borders! No Nations!
No One is Illegal

(During the picket of Reliance House, some first contact was made with individual No Border activists from Liverpool, Merseyside and North Wales. If you are from this region and want to get active in a No Borders group, please email us, so we can get you in touch). Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 5:43 AM  

Labels: action reports

Solidarity with migrants on hunger strike in Greece
Monday, November 24, 2008

A member of Manchester No Borders reports on a hunger strike by migrants in Chania, Greece that they have been involved in supporting. On Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 15 immigrants from North African Countries (Algeria, Morocco etc.), active members of the Forum of Immigrants of Crete, went on a hunger strike. The hunger strikers are all residents of Chania and they demand residence permits, which will allow them to continue living in Greece legally. At least one striker has now been hospitalised. Although No Borders calls for an end to borders and therefore an end to the need for papers, we will always support those brutalised by the system in demanding a recognition of their existence and their humanity! The migrants latest public statement is as follows:

"We are migrants, members of Crete Forum of Immigrants, living in Greece. We entered the country illegally, as the majority of immigrants do, since the political and institutional regime in Greece does not allow people seeking a better life in Greece to stay there legally, in the country, that is, where they live, work, and raise their children. Since we were eligible to do so, we applied for residence permits in compliance with the law currently in effect; however, residence permits were denied to us, under the pretext that our passport had been issued after 2004, although we had applied for it at the embassies of our respective countries of origin in Athens long before 2004. We then followed the routine legal process of applying for the cancellation of the rejection in the Greek courts, but our demand was rejected all the same. Each one of us paid thousands of Euros during this process. Many cases have yet to be tried in court, and this delay is forcing us into “clandestine” status. For the police authorities, none of our documents has any validity, so that the prospect of finding ourselves in detention rooms or deported is extremely likely, since this has already happened to people like us.

Existing migration policies and laws clearly aim at our marginalization, promoting ignorance not only of the problems we are dealing with, but also of our social existence as a whole. Faced with that, we have decided to take this drastic action to raise awareness around our issues and difficulties.

We claim the right to live and work under decent conditions.

For a migration policy that will guarantee the legalization of all migrants living in Greece and their meaningful integration into the Greek society:

* it is vital that the injustice of us being held hostages of an unfair legal status, ends. The current regime either excludes us from legalization processes, or threatens us with“legalization” in the terms of Fortress Europe.

* It is vital that the renewal of residence permits be disconnected from the possession of a certain number of revenue stamps. This is extremely unfair for migrant workers, for whom informal labor, with no insurance whatsoever, is the rule and the only option. This regulation forces us into buying extra revenue stamps with their cost burdening exclusively the migrant worker.

* It is vital that the right to family unification be disconnected from proving a certain – high – annual income, since this requirement forces us into vouching virtual incomes from rural jobs – and into paying high taxation.

* It is vital that the cost for the residence permit issue fees be lowered, and that it corresponds to the real cost of the bureaucratic process.

* It is vital that municipalities employ more people for work in the issuing and renewal of residence permits. Furthermore, it is unacceptable that the essential information for applying is not available in the migrants’ own languages. The Forum of Migrants of Crete has already pledged to assist Municipalities in making this possible.

* It is vital that the detention and deportation of minors ceases.

* It is vital that all children born in Greece be allowed to be registered in municipality tolls, obtain certificates of birth, and be granted Greek citizenship – as happens in the rest of the EU.

* It is vital that international human rights conventions and treaties be respected in Greece.

We demand that residence permits are issued immediately for all those who are eligible for them according to the law (hundreds of migrants in Chania alone).

(…)

We are appealing for active and daily support and solidarity to all migrants living in Chania and the rest of Greece, to all democratic and aware Greek fellow-citizens. We want all society to be on our side. We need it.
(...)
We ask for the support of political and cultural collectives and societies in Chania, the rest of the country and abroad, because we know that our struggle concerns everyone.

Because we know that what threatens the society at large is racism, oppression, exclusion and discrimination, it is not us.” .

http://www.clandestina.org/EIDHSEIS/2008/EIDHSEIS_NOVEMBER_2008_27.html

Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 8:21 AM  

Labels: action reports

Report from No Borders gathering in Newcastle
Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Last weekend, a gathering of No Borders activists was held in Newcastle with groups and individuals from Brighton, Bristol, South Wales, London, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow taking part. Altogether, about 50-60 people attended.

Saturday began with report backs from local groups, giving us an impression of the activity of the No Borders network. Opposition against ID cards and the IOM, and actions against deportation airlines and immigration snatch squads, are as much part of the No Borders agenda as is solidarity with detainees, deportees and migrant workers.

The international dimension of the network was stressed when people told of large-scale blockades of a detention centre in Belgium, of Hamburg airport to stop deportations, and of the attempt to dismantle a detention centre in Denmark. No Borders activists have also made connections to campaigners in Northern France to highlight the situation of hundreds of refugees trapped in Calais.

On Sunday, the need to develop No Borders politics was stressed in a discussion on 'who are our allies'. While tactically, and on a local level, coalitions with reformist and traditional left groups could be useful, the network was described as firmly anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian. A working group was formed to make these ideas available in an easily accessible guide to No Borders politics.

The next gathering is proposed for February/March 2009 in Bristol. www.noborders.org.uk. Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 6:45 AM  

Labels: action reports

"You can't do this... he's a government minister"
Friday, October 24, 2008

The immigration minister Phil Woolas was first asked for his passport, then given an 'eco-nationalist award' and finally had a pie thrown in his face by a group from Manchester No Borders. This came in response to his plans of more stringent population controls as announced in the national press. We also denounced his attempts to scapegoat immigrants for the ongoing economic and ecological crises.



Here is a short video of the stunt:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CF5vF5oMu6I

Find below the text for the leaflet that was handed out to the stunned audience at Manchester University where Woolas was speaking.

We are pleased to present the very 1st No Borders ‘eco-nationalist award’ to the recently appointed Minister for Borders and Immigration, Phil Woolas. He thoroughly deserves it.

In the past week alone, Woolas has received the admiration of every right-wing tabloid columnist out there. His most recent remarks that echoed the National Front’s antiquated “British jobs for British workers” slogan and pandered to the fear that “Britain is full up”, have rightly been recognised for bringing the debates on the environment and on immigration together.

Sure enough, he was Minister of State for the Environment just before the recent reshuffle. As soon as taking over office as immigration minister he loudly proclaimed a change of policy: “It’s too easy to get into this country in the past and its going to get harder”.

Pointing to the looming recession and the job market, Woolas asked that employers should hire British job-seekers first, before considering new immigrants. He also suggested that the population in Britain should be capped at 70million.

Responses

The BNP was delighted with Woolas’ tough talk, but maintained it’s the only party to deliver the necessary policy changes. The anti-immigration think tanks Migrationwatch and Optimum Population Trust welcomed the remarks, since only a reduction in population numbers could save both the economy and the environment (and where better to start than with the foreigners?). The tabloids had enough material to print headlines such as “Immigrant jobs shocker” on a daily basis. And the Tories were gobsmacked that once again a Labour minister is more right-wing than them.

A few lonely Labour MPs cried out that Woolas was “pandering to the right-wing extremists”.

‘Overpopulation’

Woolas, of course, hasn’t just pandered to the extreme right, but the those neo-Malthusians who cry “overpopulation” at every possible opportunity, especially when it comes to fears over climate change. The argument goes that Britain would be unsustainable in terms of ecological well-being, food production, housing and energy needs if it was to allow population figures to rise above a certain limit.

The argument is spurious. It both helps to protect the status quo from criticism and constructs vulnerable social groups as legitimate targets of control. Instead of acknowledging the unprecedented global disasters that come with capitalism, the ‘overpopulation’ argument asks not for a new form of social organisation (that might see land and resources accessed and shared more evenly, contributing to a more sustainable future) but takes the shameful route of scapegoating immigrants and those who are seeking a better life.

for more info on the ‘overpopulation’ argument check our article here
Read more!

Posted byManchester No Borders at 10:43 AM  

Labels: action reports