Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Solihull protest against the imposition of biometric ID cards on migrants

Noborders Birmingham | 26.11.2008 10:37 | Anti-racism | Migration | Birmingham

Yesterday Noborders Birmingham protested against the imposition of biometric ID cards at the UK Border Agency Office in Solihull. They were met by a puzzling disproportionate police response at Dominion Court, 41 Station Road, Solihull - around 12 police officers, including 3 police vans and an evidence gatherer. This may have something to do with the policing of a previous protest around the corner at Sandford House, the home office reporting centre, where hundreds of Congolese demonstrators facing mass deportation occupied the main road  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2007/04/368076.html

UK Border Agency Office at 41 Station Road Solihull
UK Border Agency Office at 41 Station Road Solihull


'We can facilitate your protest'
'We can facilitate your protest'

Mobile Community Police Station
Mobile Community Police Station


Evidence Gatherer
Evidence Gatherer

Call 0870 606 77 66 to book an appointment
Call 0870 606 77 66 to book an appointment

Solihull Environmental Health Officer on his lunch break
Solihull Environmental Health Officer on his lunch break

Failure to register with the police - £5000 fine/6 months in prison
Failure to register with the police - £5000 fine/6 months in prison


A banner proclaiming 'Freedom of Movement for All' was held by the entrance of the UK Borders Agency Office. The police offered to 'facilitate' our protest by a seemingly polite offer to arrange for a metal barrier to hang our banner from. However, we realised that the six foot high hedge in front of the building would make our protest invisible to almost everyone, so instead we hung our banner by the main road and distributed around 600 leaflets to some very interested members of the public.

Following a concerned report from a dedicated community police officer earlier in the day, two equally committed council workers from the environmental and health department at Solihull Council turned up in their lunch hour to ensure that the literature being distributed was of a political, rather than commercial, nature and thus would not run afoul of local bye-laws on littering/flyering (no one seemed quite sure). This follows several other incidents known to us in central Birmingham where council officials have attempted to apply similar bye-laws (with accompanying threats of fines and court appearances) to dissuade people from handing out political literature. It has been noted before that the parliamentary legislation which serves as the basis of these bye-laws specifically exempted materials of a political nature. The council workers also showed some interest in the banner, raising concern over the manner of its attachment to some local shrubs and something else about private property, but in the end they seemed to decide that neither the public nor the shrubs were at any risk (potential, real, or otherwise) and returned to what remained of their lunch hour.

Two students from Pakistan informed us that they had to book an appointment to begin the biometric ID card process and they couldn't return home until this had been completed. They claimed today they were told by staff that they would be required to give blood samples and have iris scans for their biometric cards so if they committed any 'crimes' in the UK they could be identified immediately. It appears that the private company contracted to the tune of £5.6 billion, and entrusted with sensitive biometric data, are already doing their best to impress upon applicants that ID cards will be effective at 'fighting crime'. Liberty, the civil liberties and human rights organisation, have already expressed concern about the Government’s ability to safeguard individual’s intimate details on the National Identity Register after Government departments last year lost 30 million pieces of personal data, including those of 25 million child benefit claimants. 'We have ID cards in our country but they aren't biometric' said one of the students. 'It feels very discriminatory that we are being targeted first. Why aren't they processing UK nationals first?' The international students also pointed out that this was costing them a great deal of money. Not only did they have to pay exorbitant fees for their courses but on top of that they have to pay £300 for their visas and now they have to pay for their biometric ID cards and they are only permitted to work 20 hours a week. They also added that these measures would serve to put overseas students off studying here citing Australia as a more welcoming alternative.

The use of foreign nationals as guinea pigs for the more widespread introduction of ID cards is a strategy to run a testbed for the technology on people without a voice. It has become apparent that the government is likely to pick off certain sections of the community in Britain one at a time. This divide and rule strategy has been used throughout history, most notably by the Nazi regime in Germany.

When the British government came for the migrants,
I remained silent;
I was not a migrant.

When they came for the airline workers,
I remained silent;
I was not an airline worker.

When they came for the convicts,
I did not speak out;
I was not a convict.

When they came for the health workers,
I did not speak out;
I was not a health worker.

When they came for the students,
I did not speak out;
I was not a student.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Noborders Birmingham
- e-mail: noborders-brum @ riseup.net

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. "Blood test"?!!??!! — Shit!
  2. Blood Test? — Di.R.K. now known as the Count Vlad Tepes
  3. Blood samples taken for DNA fingerprints? — No Borders, No Bosses!
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech