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25.000 innocent people detained .../you have the newspapers you deserve

Chiara | 04.05.2006 00:19 | Anti-racism | Migration

While the racist lobby makes such a big fuss about a few ' foreign criminals' being let on the loose - and gets huge media attention, around 25.000 innocent men, women and children are detained in immigration removal centres - high security prisons in all but in name. Around 15.000 are deported every year, often to countries deemed too dangerous for Brithsh citiziens to travel to. Many are torture and rape survivors. What is the real scandal?

I always thought to be locked in a cell for months or even years was punishment enough and more then enough. Why should somebody be double punishd and deported as well after serving a sentence? Maybe because he's foreigner? Are British criminals less likely to re-offend? Do pepole have what they call equal rights or anything like that, or it is just empty words?

Chales Clarke I would love you to resign, not because you don't deport enough people, rather because you treat them worst than animals.

Think of that 6 years boy locked up in a detention centre, he was so terrified he could not stop cry, even in his sleep; the mother went crazy and started hiding under the bed, because she was seeing soldiers trying to kill her and her children...They are out of detention now, still fighting for their lives.

I am in contact with two former convicts who are in immigration detention and waiting to be deported. One was conviced for a crime he did not commit: now he got a deportation order to a country with appaling human rights records and has has been in immigration detention for over a year. He has been fighting against his deportation because he's terrified to be sent back.
The other man has been living in the UK for over 10 years, has brothers and sisters here but in his country he has nowhere and nobody to go back to. In prison he converted to Christanity, and he's now a nice guy, very pleasant, gentle and kind. He has just been given removal directions, maybe because he took part in the hunger strike. Both these men have been on hunger strike at Colnbrook, starting after the 8th of April protest against Harmondsworh and Colnbrook.

May be just a suspicion, but in fact a large number of hunger strikers have been given removal directions, often only two or three days in advance and just before week ends and bank holidays, when is next to impossible to get hold of solicitors. Some have been deported.

One man I was very closed to was deported a week ago, he called from the airport the last time. He was terrified. He called again when he arrieved to his country in Africa, than nothing. We haven't heard of him. We heard of other political opponents like him who were arrested and tortured after being deported to the same country.
My friend is a torture survivior. His family were persecuted on account of his political activities. Some were arrested, tortured and beaten. One died as a result.
A good solicitor made a fresh application for him, including the evidence of his family being persecuted, but the judge rejected everything, as he was deemed ' not credible' because he did not mention his scars at the first possible occasion... despite now having a substantial medical report written by a specialist. Does a scar cease to be a scar because it is not mentioned at the first hearing? Many torture surviuvors have been known to withold such information, for the reason they are too traumatised to talk about. Doctors and psychiatrists reckon it is part of their syndrome.
My friend was so good, helped so may other people in detention, he always had time for everybody and eveybody misses him terribly. I used to visit him as often as I could, otherwise we would phone each other every two or three days: if I don't call him he would call me, asking how am I and why I did not call, and if I could do something to help some other man ...He really stood up for himself and for others, he went on hunger strike twice, the first time after the suicide of Beretek Yohannes, the second after the 8th April.
I met after a first removal attempt: he resisted boarding the plane and was bruoght back, but the escorts beat him badly, he was bruised, couching blood and had one hand pernanently damaged.

That reminds me of another story, of a man who was deported to another African country. That man was also beaten at the ariport once, like many others who refuse to go because they are terrified to be sent back to their countries.
Than they make such a fuss about the Home Office not deporteing enough people, 'criminals' or failed asylum seekers...If you swallow something relly rotten and disgusting, nature will rid of it one way or the other.
The judge accepted this man was a torture survivor, but declared ' he was no longer in danger'. In fact the man was arrested immediately after being deported. After about three weeks he was released and got in contact. Later he went into hiding and crossed the border to a neighbouring country, were he is now living in absloute poverty.


Write to your favourite newspaper asking how do they define their priorioties, and why do they put mainly bullshit on the front page. Stop buying the newspaper altoghter. Use it as toilet paper.
Organise a picket of your favourite newspaper and ask to meet the editors. If it wasn't for large numbers of people buying their crap, and moronically repeating it, newspapers would have to either close down, or sell objective, good quality journalism. There are some good journalist who are writing about the inhuman treatment of asylum seekers. But to get anything published on the subject is really difficult. For one sporadic good article that comes out there are lots of crap articles spreading racist lies. So if you buy their crap, you have the newspapers you deserve.

Chiara

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