Anti-ID card protest outside Newport Passport Office

Saturday 4th October at 2pm
outside the Passport Office,
Olympia House, Upper Dock Street,
Newport, NP20 1XA

From organisers:

'The new card will hold the holder’s photograph, name, date of birth, nationality, immigration status and an electronic chip with biometric details, including fingerprints and digital facial image. All indefinitely held on the UK Identity and Passport Service database.

Initially the ID cards will be issued to non-EU students and marriage visa holders then, foreign nationals wanting to enter the UK. From next year other foreign nationals living in the UK will begin to be issued with ID cards. These groups will be forced to enrol on the scheme and use the card, rather than their passport, for identification,

Once migrants have been used to test the scheme, in 2009 anyone, regardless of nationality, who works in an area the government deems “sensitive” such as airports will be required to have an ID card. From 2010, students will need ID cards to get a student loan and they will be available to the rest of us on a “voluntary” basis, with them being paired with passports in 2011.

It is patently clear that this card is the thin end of the wedge, the first blow in an attack on civil liberties we all enjoy. The government is open about their plans, it wants everyone in the UK tagged, numbered and repressed, using migrants as a testing ground for it’s authoritarian desire to increase the size of the surveillance state. The opposition to ID cards must begin now.'

Babi was Deported

from No Borders Wales

Just an update to say that after much lobbying, struggle, and effort from Babi and his supporters which continued right up until the last minute, he was removed from the country on a BMI flight out of Heathrow on Saturday.

A friend spoke to him when he phoned from Baku late on Saturday night.

No Borders South Wales would like to thank everyone who helped in the struggle to keep Babi safe in Cardiff, and we promise to keep you updated about his situation and anything we can do to help him now he is back in Azerbaijan. Keep checking the blog for updates.

The next No Borders meeting will be at 7.00pm in Riverside Community Centre, Brunel St, Cardiff on Thursday 25th September.

BABI MUST STAY IN THE UK!

This an urgent appeal: A treasured member of our community, internationally renowned artist and poet, Babi Badalov is due to be deported on Saturday at 8 am. He is currently imprisoned in Campsfield Detention Camp. To find out how you can help Babi, see here:

BABI MUST STAY IN THE UK!

Urgent - Take Action to Keep Babi Safe in Cardiff

Babakhan Badalov, (Babi) the openly gay, internationally renowned radical artist and poet from Azerbaijan was arrested yesterday morning while signing on at the UK Border Agency Offices in Cardiff and is due to be deported on Saturday.

'Babi went for his weekly sign-in with friends from the Keep Babi Safe in Cardiff Campaign.

When he did not come back out of the building campaigners became concerned and enquired after his well-being only to be told he had been detained and would be removed from the country as soon as possible.'

There is an emergency protest today at noon at the Borders Agency on Newport Road.

Please, please bombard the Home Office with letters, emails, phonecalls and faxes in support of Babi. Also contact any media, political and arts organisations that may be able to help publicise the Keep Babi Safe in Cardiff Campaign.

Information on how to help can be found here

Cardiff Zimbabwean Activist Speaks Out

Finally, a bold step is taken by Mr Brown, as it would seem, but lets pick up on the obvious: Halting deportations to Zimbabwe. What about those in detention? What does that mean for them? Nothing at all.

What does it mean for a suffering Asylum seeker? It means continue suffering while we try to get you back to Zimbabwe to a life you escaped 10 years ago. 10 years that you will never get back, to a home that is now foreign to you.

Basically, Mr Brown is not going to do anything positive for the Asylum seekers, the exit route has already been mapped out, keep them in Limbo, as long as it takes, until we can send then back.

But Mr Brown picks out the positives in all this. Failed asylum seekers get accommodation and shopping vouchers to keep them from being destitute. Some of the accommodation I have seen would not be suitable for a dead dog and this accommodation is not pro families. If you were single when you applied no consideration is made when you now have a family, thus you are forced to stay at a specified address while your family stays else where; with most abandoning the accommodation because partners can be forced to live in different cities. No one cares to address the family issue.

As for the shopping vouchers, let's see what one can do with £35 per week: buy food, clothes and all you need with just £140 per month? Because the shopping voucher is used in very specific shops and you have no actual money for local travel, all those asylum seekers walk because they can't afford to catch the bus. Imagine braving the cold and rainy weather on foot, well we are African so we must be accustomed to suffering even in places where things are meant to be easier.

The LEFT Alternative fights for unity between all workers - legal or 'illegal', migrant or 'native', locally and internationally. We support ALL anti-deportation campaigns.

Stand up to this tide of anti-Muslim hatred

It is now three years since the 7 July terrorist attacks on London that killed 52 people along with the four bombers. Those three years have witnessed a systematic ratcheting up of prejudice and hate propaganda against Muslims.

A new report by researchers from Cardiff University’s School of Journalism shows that recent years have seen a series of stories that paint Muslims as terrorists and extremists, or claim that Islam is incompatible with “Western values”. Only 5 percent of stories involving Muslims focus on the problems faced by the community.

It is no surprise that this media assault has been accompanied by an increase in physical attacks on Muslims in Britain. These attacks typically go unreported by newspapers that are only too happy to devote endless space to elaborate descriptions of terrorist plots based on little more than a spook’s imagination.

Meanwhile crazy “clash of civilisations” rants that were previously confined to the fringes of the right are now considered respectable middle class opinion. The novelist Martin Amis fantasises about “strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan”, while the Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh states that “Muslim men are entitled to beat their wives... such barbaric treatment of women has been imported and thrives here.”

The real “barbarism” going on here is one that is perfectly compatible with “Western values”. The current campaign against Muslims is all but identical to that waged against Jews in the first half of the 20th century. That antisemitism opened the door to the Holocaust. And today’s Islamophobia is potentially no less deadly.

Justice for Ama Sumani - End Deportations

AMA SUMANI CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCES DEMONSTRATION IN HER MEMORY
Assemble 1 pm, Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street, Saturday 19 April

Supporters and friends of Ama Sumani, who died in Ghana on March 19th after being removed from the University Hospital of Wales whilst receiving treatment for cancer, have called a demonstration in her memory.

Campaigners hope that the event will be both a tribute to Ama and a message to the authorities that this kind of situation must never be repeated.

“This protest is important because we have to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again” said Janet Symmons, Ama's friend and co-ordinator of the campaign. “Ama's tragedy touched a lot of people, but it is important to understand that there are hundreds of people in similar situations right now. I know a Zambian lady who has a baby daughter with brain damage, a Cameroonian boy with Hepatitis – all have the threat of deportation hanging over them.”Ama Sumani had contracted cancer whilst living in Britain and required dialysis after her kidneys became damaged.

Despite protests that Ama would die in Ghana due to a lack of necessary medical resources, Ama was removed from hospital at 8am on January 9th and had been deported from the country by mid-afternoon.

The decision was condemned by the likes of medical journal The Lancet and Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan, and thousands of pounds were donated to help pay for Ama's medical care.

Despite this, Ama died just hours after hearing that doctors who could treat her had been found. She was just 39 and left two orphaned children, a daughter and son aged 16 and seven.

Karen Tyre, a local government worker and trade union rep who had been involved in the campaign, said that “Ama's deportation shows just how cruel politicians can be when dealing with human life. It was a disgrace that local MP Alun Michael, rather than condemning this appalling act, chose to defend the actions of the Immigration Service.”

She continued: “To them, Ama was a statistic, a number, but for millions of people who learned of her plight she was a real person who was ignored by those who had the power to help her. This event will be a chance for people around the country to come together in memory of Ama and say 'never again'.”

Organisers of the event, including African groups, refugee support groups and trade unionists, hope that they will bring British people and migrants closer together.

The demonstration will take place on Saturday April 19, exactly one month after Ama passed away. It will assemble at 1pm at the Aneurin Bevan statue on Queen Street. Speakers and supporters will be announced soon.

Ms Symmons summed up the appeal to people by saying: “I remember the case of the terminally ill woman who was denied the right to travel to Switzerland so she could take her life painlessly. Yet Ama wanted to live and she was sent away. This is not the way to treat human beings, so please join us and help get the message out.”

Simultaneous No Borders Blockades to Prevent Dawn Raids on Asylum Seekers

PRESS RELEASE: 18.12.2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STARTS

“No Borders” Activists Prevent “Dawn Raids” on Children Protesters from the No Borders network are currently blockading the bases of Immigration Enforcement Officers in simultaneous actions across the country, stopping them from entering or leaving in vehicles. The protesters are currently blockading immigration reporting centres in Glasgow, Bristol and Portsmouth.

The protesters have been there since early this morning, and they have said that they will stay there until they can ensure that today, families throughout the country will be safe regardless of where they come from.

The protest coincides with the UN International Migrant's Day. In response to the growing number of attacks on family homes by the Borders and Immigration Agency, the No Borders network have taken action to expose and prevent the sinister tactic of “dawn raids” employed against families and young children.

In Bristol, the protesters were in place in time to obstrtuct bemused immigration officials, whose vehicles are now trapped in the car park. A frustrated police officer on the scene was heard to say, “how did you know a dawn raid was happening this morning?”

Dawn raids are used to gain custody of whole families in order to imprison them. Every day, doors are kicked in and families are snatched from their beds and taken to detention centres, where they are punished for seeking refuge in this country. They are taken away from their houses, jobs, schools and communities – their lives. Immigration Enforcement Officers come in the middle of the night as the children and their parents sleep in bed, and have not left to go to school or work. It also ensures no witnesses are present. There are no official statistics as to the number and regularity of these raids because the government will not release the figures. But the fleets of vehicles which have been blockaded this morning and the harrowing personal accounts of families indicate large-scale capacity.

Today No Borders have highlighted just a few of these bases, which are hidden around the country.

Simon Summerhill of the No Borders network said, “we are here to expose what the government is doing – breaking down doors and snatching children from their beds in the middle of the night. Some children go to school, others go to prison. Immigration officers regularly target the vulnerable- families, children and the ill or traumatised, in order to boost their official figures of deportations.”

Asylum seeking children are denied the human rights that all other children have. These rights include the right to go to school, the right to privacy, the right to family life (as established by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). Under UK laws, children seeking asylum can be sent to jail and are often denied the right to education.

No Borders maintains that a legal system which divides between children that have human rights and those that do not, is institutionally racist. To deny a child the right to education because of their background is racist, just as to deny an adult the right to work because of their background is racist.

Nikki Dickinson of No Borders: “This is institutionalised child abuse. They take kids who have already been traumatised and cause them even more distress. The effects of snatch raids, detention and deportation on children are unmeasurable. The families have often been settled in an area for years, and their removal affects the community around them- family members left behind, friends and teachers at school, neighbours.”
ENDS

Notes to editors

1.No Borders is a coalition of groups who argue against all immigration controls and that freedom of movement is a basic human right.
2.The Scottish Executive Cabinet has recently announced its total and fundamental opposition to dawn raids - to any kind of forcible removal of children - and to detention of children. They also called for an amnesty, but they were rejected by Westminster.
3.For updates on the blockades, or for an interview with a No Borders activist, call: 07527463767

Cardiff RESPECT believes that workers of different countries have more in common with each other than their rulers. We believe that racism is a tool used by our rulers to divide and rules us. We defend the rights of migrants to live and work in this country free from harrassment.

Support Constance Nzenu's Anti-Deportation Campaign

The rich are allowed to move to which ever country will give them the biggest tax break but poor and working class people face demonisation and harrassment. Cardiff RESPECT says: No deportations!

Constance arrived in the UK in April 2005. Her asylum claim has been rejected and she is now facing imminent removal to Cameroon, the country from which she fled.

Constance left Cameroon because she was being forced into an arranged marriage that she did not want to engage in. Constance was living a happy life in Cameroon; she had completed her second degree in Law and was about to enroll for her PhD until the direction of her life was taken out of her hands.

Her father had made an arrangement with his friend for Constance to marry him in exchange for a large amount of money. Constance was not consulted in this matter. The man she was being forced to marry was from a different tribe. He is a Muslim. Constance is a Christian. She would be his third wife.

The condition on which Constance was to enter into this marriage was that she would undergo Female Genital Mutilation, which is widespread among Muslim communities in Cameroon.

Nationally, the United Nations estimates that about 20 percent of women in Cameroon are victims of circumcision, which can be carried out at any stage: at birth, during early childhood, in the course of adolescence, just before marriage or after the birth of the first child.
http://medilinkz.org/news/news2.asp?NewsID=1660

USA Report on Human Rights Practices:

Cameroon 2006

“Cameroon law does not prohibit female genital mutilation (FGM), Internal migration contributed to the spread of FGM to different parts of the country. The majority of FGM procedures were clitorectomies. The severest form of FGM, infibulation, was performed in the Kajifu region of the Southwest Province. FGM usually was practiced on infants and preadolescent girls. Public health centers in areas where FGM is frequently practiced counseled women about the harmful consequences of FGM; however, the government did not prosecute any persons charged with performing FGM. The Association of Women Against Violence continued to conduct a program in Maroua to assist victims of FGM and their families and to educate local populations. During the year breast ironing emerged as another form of violence against women, practiced in an effort to protect prematurely well-developed young girls from predatory older men. NGOs were leading public awareness campaigns to combat this practice.”

Constance refused to enter into this marriage and the matter was taken to court by the ‘fiancé.’ Constance similarly refused to go to the court hearing because she knew, from her education in Law in Cameroon, that the outcome of the case would be in the man’s favour.

Constance then left her family where she had been living, a search warrant was issued and the police became involved. Her Father also put an announcement out in a national newspaper offering a reward for anyone who returned her to the family because if the marriage didn’t go ahead they would owe the ‘fiancé’ the dowry money and be shamed within the community.

If Constance is forced to return to Cameroon she faces an uncertain and unhappy future: there will be recriminations from the police, the court, the ‘fiancé’ and her family, all because she refused to engage in the arranged marriage and the consequences of this marriage.

Constance would like to be free of persecution in Wales where she now lives; allowed to remain in Britain and become a European citizen in order to be able to work her way up in life and bring up her British born child in a Human Rights friendly environment.

‘Friends of Constance and Andrea’ are now campaigning to keep them in Cardiff.

Constance Nzeneu is an asset to the Cardiff community where she has lived for 2 years and three months. Her son Andreas was born here. Andreas’s father is German. He works in between Germany and the UK, and they have an ongoing relationship.

In the years she has lived in Cardiff, Constance has actively participated in the community and has made many friends here. She is an active member of the Heath Evangelical Church and Refugee Voice Wales and she has volunteered for Displaced People In Action and Black African Women Stepping Out. All these organisations have valued her contribution highly.

For more information about how you can help Constance, see here