Against the Deportation Machine

The first week of June was the European Week of Action to Stop the Deportation Machine and there were two demonstrations planned on Tuesday afternoon as a part of this, both at immigration reporting centres in London.  Both are ordinary looking office blocks, and you have to look very closely to find the small brass plates that tell you anything about what goes on inside. But if you are a refugee or asylum seeker a visit to either of them can be a very stressful occasion – and one that could end with you being put into a holding cell en route to forcible deportation to a country where you may face persecution, torture and even death if an official decides not to believe what you tell them.

Photographing demonstrations like this presents some problems. Firstly there usually isn’t a great deal to photograph – a rather anonymous building, a fairly small number of demonstrators and not a lot happening. Occasionally there are also people present who do not want to be photographed, at times because their own position as asylum seekers remains unresolved. And on this occasion things were not improved by some rather persistent light rain.

Communications House, more or less next to Old St tube station just north of the centre of the City of London is a place I’ve photographed several times, as there are regular monthly demonstrations here as well as the occasional special event.

© 2010, Peter Marshall

A little light relief was provided by the security men who came out and told the protesters that they had to remove the banners which they had taped to the wall of the building. One of them tried to tell me I couldn’t take his picture, but since I already had taken quite a few frames I didn’t really bother to put him right.  I left a little before the protest ended to have a coffee at one of my favourite cafes a short walk away, the Juggler, which has a gallery space where I’ve organised a number of shows in the past, most recently ‘Taken in London‘ last year.

There were rather more demonstrators later in the afternoon at Beckett House, next to London Bridge Station, and for a while it did stop raining, but remained dull and dreary. I’d got there around the time the protest was supposed to be starting and there was nobody there, and instead of waiting as I should have done I took a short walk around the area. More than 20 years ago I did a little research and wrote an self-published an A4 leaflet with an industrial archaeology walk of the West Bermondsey area just to the south (I printed and sold between 500 and a thousand copies – later made available on-line here) with a couple of photos and a bad photo-derived drawing, and I still like to have a look now and then to see how things have changed (and quite a lot has.)  The last time I paid a visit was for Zandra Rhodes’s birthday and a fashion show on Bermondsey St.

© 2009 Peter Marshall

As such diversions tend to, it took me a little longer than I expected and by the time I got back to Beckett House (named I suspect for Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, killed in December 1170 and made a saint rather than the Labour politician and one-time Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett)  things were in full swing and I had missed some of the action, with a possible sighting there of one of the new Home Office ministers. After our new election came up with the Lib-Con government, few of us can recognise any of those involved.

© 2010, Peter Marshall

This second ‘Against the Deportation Machine‘ demonstration was a slightly larger event, with around 30 people taking part, and became just a little lively when most of them decided to take a walk around the building and demonstrate in the car park at the back, so that those working on that side of it could see what was going on. The security men got a little worried at this, and came out and made the demonstrators leave, one lifting the gate barrier to make our exit easier.

You can read more about the two demonstrations and the reasons why people were demonstrating as well as see a few more pictures from Communications House and Beckett House on My London Diary.

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