UK Indymedia - Leeds Bradford Indymedia

Detention protests met with brutal assaults

18-06-2009 16:08

Update: More than 40 women in Yarl's Wood continue their hunger strike for the 5th day [more].

A mass hunger strike by families detained at Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire has been met with violent assaults on men, women and children by Serco security guards who mange the prison on behalf on the UK Border Agency. The detainees started the hunger strike on Monday and staged a sit-in in the corridor over their inhumane conditions.

Meanwhile in Brook House, the newly opened detention centre at Gatwick airport, a 'disturbance' broke out on 12th June and a fire was set by rioting detainees in the exercise area causing some damage.

A solidarity protest outside Serco's offices in London (22 Hand Court, Holborn, WC1V 6JF) has been called by No Borders London in support of the Yarl's Wood hunger strikers on Friday, 19th June, from 12noon. Activists from the Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) gathered outside government offices in Newcastle on Wednesday to protest against racism and all immigration prisons.

Links and sources: No Borders UK | NCADC | TCAR

Welcome to former users of IMC York

23-05-2009 10:18

Indymedia York has merged with Indymedia Leeds/Bradford. The York site will remain as an archive for a short time but will not accept any news postings. If you want to publish or read news from York and its surroundings, you are in the right place.

Largest Shareholder Barclays and Top Investors Dump HLS

17-05-2009 23:12

This week it was announced Barclays and four other large investors dropped all shares in Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), Europe's largest and most exposed vivisection laboratory. LSR stock owned by institutional shareholders has now fallen to 12%, placing HLS $4 million below the NYSE minimum listing standard for market value (the only stock exchange listing the company, a major target in the campaign to close HLS).

Following a legal challenge against the CEO's proposal to purchase all of the outstanding LSR stock, an intense global campaign and recent repression against SHAC in Birmingham, a total of 797,284 shares have now been sold. Barclays Global Investors, Barclays Plc, Hartford Investment Management Company, Rice Hall James and Associates LLC, Bank of New York Mellon and Wells Fargo sold all their shares, of which over 400,000 were held by previously largest shareholder Barclays.

Barclays campaign: Global (Videos) | London | Direct action | SHAC topic page

Mersey May Day Solidarity Raises £300 For Sacked Visteon Workers

06-05-2009 01:42

£300 was raised on Merseyside this May Day weekend, in solidarity with sacked Visteon car parts makers who have now been blockading three UK sites for more than a month.

Norwegian Whaling Ship Scuttled

28-04-2009 21:07

"We came to Henningsvaer. We saw the Skarbakk. We sank the bastard" - Agenda 21

On the evening of April 23rd, the Norwegian whaling ship The Skarbakk was scuttled by environmentalists in the Lofoten islands, Norway, using the name of a 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment. The conference detailed action proposed for a sustainable 21st century, with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society promising Norway that if they did not comply with international conservation law, then they would sink their whaling ships.

This was not an empty threat, with Captain Paul Watson supervising the sinking of two ships; the Nybraena in 1992 and the Senet in 1994. The anonymous and covert goup Agenda 21 then took over with the scuttling of the Elin-Toril in 1996. In a communique last week, the activists reported they flooded the engine room of The Skarbakk by using an adjustable spanner to open the salt-water intake valve; "to delay the killing season and to protest the continued illegal export of whale meat to Japan."

Links: United Nations Agenda 21 | Sea Shepherd Conservation Society | Ocean Defence topic page

Scarborough Climate Action Network opens community resource centre.

22-04-2009 16:21

After being inspired into action by the fight against global climate chaos, the Scarborough Climate Action group have opened "Green Planet", a community resource centre for education, information and participation on the east coast of Yorkshire.

They aim to provide a central point for people in the local area to find out how they can make positive changes to their environment, as well as providing an autonomous space for people to use the internet, meet like-minded people and get directly involved with the newly burgeoning Scarborough activist networks.

A Conspiracy too far?

17-04-2009 15:51

In one of the best reports on the incident so far, Daithai asks some pertinent questions about the police raid involving more than 200 officers from Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire and British Transport Police which saw 114 people arrested for conspiracy at the Iona School in Sneinton Nottingham shortly after midnight on Monday.

Veggie Pride UK

11-04-2009 13:28

Veggie Pride UK 2009 Veggie Pride UK will be a fantastic fun-filled festival and carnival procession, celebrating and promoting compassionate, healthy, eco-friendly vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. Taking place in Birmingham City Centre on Saturday 16 May 2009. It`s the first event of it`s kind in the UK!

Transport is being arranged from the Leeds/Bradford area as well as from other locations from around the country.There`s only 5 weeks to go, so get your coach seats booked soon! See also their Urgent Appeal for Funds.

Abolish All Immigration Prisons

17-03-2009 21:17

Last Friday evening, two dozen activists entered the offices of Minister for Immigration and Borders Phil Woolas in Oldham, ‘detaining’ him for about 30 minutes. The campaigners included members of No Borders Manchester, No One Is Illegal and the Anarchist Federation . The action intended to mirror the government’s practice of detaining migrants in ‘immigration removal centres’ without trial or sentencing, for indefinite periods of time. This was the second time since his appointment last year that the immigration minister has become the target of an action by No Borders, after a member of the group pushed a custard pie in his face last October .

On Tuesday morning, 20 anti-deportation campaigners blocked access to the Tinsley House immigration detention centre near Gatwick airport. Activists used d-locks and superglue to blockade the entrance gate for several hours. The action aimed to prevent the forced deportation on a charter flight of approximately 50 Iraqi refugees from the UK.

Groups affiliated to the UK No Borders network are now calling for demonstrations against immigration detention on Saturday 21st March. A protest march will lead from Bedford to the Yarl’s Wood detention centre, which was half destroyed by fire in 2002, following an uprising ignited by the ill-treatment of a sick woman by guards. Transport is available from London. Solidarity demonstrations are planned in Manchester and Edinburgh. The demonstration in Manchester will be going to the newly-expanded ‘Pennine House’ detention facility at the airport. The campaign to close this prison has achieved a high profile recently after the invasion of Phil Woolas’s offices and an intervention during a speech by Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese. In Edinburgh, campaigners will picket the private security company G4S. G4S profits from running immigration prisons in the UK, including Brook House, Dungavel near Glasgow and Pennine House.

Links: Tinsley House blockade | Photos 1 | Phil Woolas Detention | Custard Pie

New Coal Digs In

02-03-2009 12:46

Climate Rush tackled more climate criminals last week when the UK coal industry got together for their annual 'coal awards'. In a protest timed to coincide with the UK Coal hosted awards, around 15 climate activists paid a visit to their Doncaster headquarters, dressed in Edwardian style complete with red sashes with the words 'No New Coal' written across them. A banner reading 'Leave it in the Ground' was suspended across the entrance.

In London, the dirty coal pushers shied away from confrontation with the modern day climate suffregette movement, abandoning their booking at the plush Landmark Hotel and scuttling off to Lords cricket grounds instead. At the hotel, around a hundred activists rushed inside through a fire exit and began an alternative awards ceremony to highlight the ecological damage that the coal industry is inflicting on the environment. After being ejected from the hotel, a couple more attempts were made to gain entry and one arrest was made before the alternate awards continued outside. The Landmark hotel management were less than happy about the righteous fury brought down on them by the climate criminals promised not to accept bookings from such damaging industries again.

Coal represent 50% of the electricity production in the UK and its greatest contribution to CO2 emissions so the coal industry has seen increasing attention from activists in the UK (and beyond). Last month activists and local resident disrupted work at the Rosewell open-cast coal mine in Midlothian, operated by Scottish Coal , and another protest stopped work at UK Coal owned Shipley open cast coal mine in Derbyshire. In the US capitol on Monday, 2,500 protesters blockaded the gates of a coal fired power plant for almost five hours.

Events

Detention protests met with brutal assaults

Welcome to former users of IMC York

Largest Shareholder Barclays and Top Investors Dump HLS

Mersey May Day Solidarity Raises £300 For Sacked Visteon Workers

Norwegian Whaling Ship Scuttled

Scarborough Climate Action Network opens community resource centre.

A Conspiracy too far?

Veggie Pride UK

Abolish All Immigration Prisons

New Coal Digs In

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