Solidarity demo at Morton Hall detention centre
anon@indymedia.org (One of No Borders) | 16.12.2012 18:55
The latest in a series of solidarity demonstrations was held outside Morton Hall detention centre in Lincolnshire today. Two minibuses of people set out to let the nearly 400 detainees know that they have not been forgotten this winter. We spent over an hour moving round the perimeter chanting and making noise so that they would hear us. Some people climbed trees so that our banners would be visible to those inside.
When we got back to the main gate, prison guards and the police panicked and started shoving people off the road to make way for a Reliance transport van. Reliance are responsible for moving detainees around the detention system and to airports (although not directly from Morton Hall).
The indefinite detention of migrants has come under fire this week after the governments' own inspectors criticised the length of time people are being detained and how some detainees have "simply been forgotten". One Somali migrant has been held for 9 years after he completed his prison sentence.
It has also recently emerged that Lincolnshire could be marked for a second immigration removals centre. Officials have said that HMP Lincoln could be converted to a detention centre for migrants.
The intolerable conditions for migrants in detention have meant that unrest has frequently broken out in the detention estate over the years. The last solidarity demonstration at Morton Hall took place as detainees undertook a mass hunger strike and rooftop protest against their conditions.
anon@indymedia.org (One of No Borders)
http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/4022
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Support for Mass Immigration is RACIST!
17.12.2012 12:02
The results are tragic stories on a human level but to support/facilitate and campaign for mass immigration is racist- thev way forward is to campaign for localisation and support for local economies.
anon
I don't understand your argument
17.12.2012 15:46
I find it very hard to understand your argument. You say that "support for mass immigration is racist" but you do not justify this statement. In fact in your next sentence you say that this support "seves to mitigate the effects of the racist system known as globalisation" which would seem to suggest that it is anti-racist! You offer no evidence to support your claim that support for mass immigration is racist.
All of which is irrelevant to this demonstration which was not in "support of mass immigration" but a protest against the detention of migrants. Freedom of movement only leads to mass migration where there are are large disparities of global wealth. Indeed freeing people's ability to move to another country may serve to redistribute wealth to some extent.
In other words, supporting free movement is one element of the struggle for global equality and against a racist neo-liberal world order. Opposing "mass immigration" (in the global north) is an attempt to entrench global inequalities and maintain a white European racist system.
One of No Borders
It makes the effects of Globalisation easier to accept.
18.12.2012 12:25
anon
We do not live in utopia
19.12.2012 09:25
Apart from the obvious libertarian arguments against such police state policies, this system isn't working anyway. Although life is being made harder and harder for migrants to this and other rich countries, they still come and they still manage to make lives for themselves here. Migration is inevitable whilst geographical inequality exists. Trying to support it or defeat it makes only a minor quantitiative difference.
My position is that, whilst people still choose to migrate here, we should welcome them rather than repressing them or turning a blind eye to that repression. If they need to make a home in our communities then we should help them put down roots so that they can feel local whilst also bringing the benefit of their experiences from their first home. People all around the world hate the global capitalist system - this is a great opportunity for us to learn from struggles in other places.
One of No Borders
We should not run a mass immigration campaign is what I am saying
19.12.2012 21:26
anon