Posts Tagged ‘end detention’

Magna Carta, Cleaners & Detention – 2015

Saturday, June 15th, 2024

Magna Carta, Cleaners & Detention: 15th June is Magna Carta day and Monday 15th June 2015 marked 800 years since King John was forced by the barons to sign the great charter at Runnymede. Most years the date is mainly marked by a local fair on the closest Saturday in Egham High Street the nearest town to Runnymede, but in 2015 there were various more national celebrations.

Unless you were a king, archhishop or baron in 1215, Magna Carta was of little relevance to you. Contrary to popular opinion it gave no rights or protection to the common people and, as Wikipedia tells us had little immediate effect in any case, as “Neither side stood by their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons’ War.”

Magna Carta, Cleaners & Detention

Back in June 2012 I had sat around in a circle with the Diggers, then camped at Runnymede, on the grass next to the US Bar Association’s Magna Carta Memorial, where we had listened to a history lecturer from nearby Royal Holloway University about the charter and the lesser-known but more relevant to the common man ‘Charter of the Forest’ which came shortly after. It was at this meeting that plans were made to celebrate the event in 2015 with a people’s free festival in the woods on the hillside above Runnymede.

Magna Carta, Cleaners & Detention

Unfortunately the establishment thought otherwise and in a clear case of ignoring the rights supposedly granted to us in Magna Carta, police swooped on the eco-village where the festival was being prepared three days before, suppressing the event in an unfair, arbitrary and almost certainly illegal manner.

So while I might otherwise have been enjoying myself at the free festival, instead I travelled up to London to photograph several events there mainly connected with Magna Carta Day.

Truth & Justice Magna Carta Day Protest

Magna Carta, Cleaners & Detention

I began outside the Royal Courts of Justice where the Campaign for Truth & Justice was accusing the judiciary of unlawful convictions, false imprisonment, denial of access to court & perverting the course of justice over child abuse, forced adoption and paedophilia.

Magna Carta, Cleaners & Detention

Above their heads was a banner with its message superimposed on a St George’s flag citing Magna Carta. Some of those taking part had been victims of child abuse, while others claimed to have been treated badly in the family courts where gagging orders had been used to prevent them from talking about their cases or seeking any redress. And we have certainly seen many cases of miscarriages of justice – including the convictions of the Guildford Four (1974), The Birmingham Six (1975), The Maguire Seven (1976) and Judith Ward (1974) as well as many others which have received less publicity.

But as the trial and conviction of Carl Beech for perverting the course of justice and fraud in 2019 made clear, many of the allegations over paedophilia against public figures have been unfounded.

Voice for Justice UK Magna Carta Protest

From there I went to Old Palace Yard opposite Parliament, where the right-wing Christians For Justice UK were holding a Magna Carta Day rally against the increasing human rights legislation which right-wing Christians feel maginalises and prevent them expressing their faith.

I reported that I listened to “ two speeches which appalled me, and appeared to have no connection with my idea of freedom, reminding of various short-lived ultra-right political groups such as the Freedom Party, formed in 2000 by ex-BNP members” and concluded “that this was a rally that was protesting the freedom to be a bigot rather than any real idea of religious or other freedom.”

Cleaners International Justice Day

But the day was not simply about Magna Carta. The protest by the PSC trade union outside HM Revenue and Customs in Whitehall was one of protests in over 50 countries on the 25th International Justice Day for Cleaners and Security Guards.

This remembers the day in 1990 when Los Angeles janitors were brutally beaten up by the police during a peaceful demonstration against their contractor trying to get union recognition and better rights. Since 1990 this day has become international, spreading to over 50 countries and with protests -some very small like this – now taking place in over 70 cities around the world.

Close Yarls Wood, End Detention!

This was also the International week against detention centres, calling for the closure of all immigration detention centres with protests taking place in eleven cities in the UK, USA, Belgium, Greece and Spain.

The London protest was led by the All African Women’s Group who held a rally in Parliament Square before marching to Downing Street with a report on rape and sexual abuse in Yarl’s Wood.

Among the speakers was whistleblower Noel Finn, a former mental health nurse at Yarl’s Wood who revealed publicly details of the abuse of women there after his complaints through the proper channels at the detention prison were not acted on. A number of members of the All African Women’s Group spoke about their own experiences when held in the detention prison. Others who came to speak in support included MPs Dianne Abbott, Kate Osamor, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell as well as Antonia Bright from Movement for Justice, Peter Tatchell and Selma James.

The protest demonstrated in several respects the increasing limitations on our freedom to protest. Protests are now prohibited on the main grass area of the square and they had to hold the rally on the narrow pavement area, inevitably spilling over onto the roadway because of the large number of people present.

After the rally had been taking place for around 20 minutes a police officer came to try and stop them using a public address system, now illegal in the square without authorisation from the Greater London Authority or Westminster Council. They argued and refused to stop, and with several MPs waiting to speak the officer finally left.

And when the protesters tried to had in a letter at Downing Street it was initially refused. Apparently you now need to give a week’s notice to hand in a letter. After some discussion a police officer agreed to take the report and ensure it was delivered to No 10. I don’t know whether it did eventually get there.

Close Yarls Wood, End Detention!
Cleaners International Justice Day
Voice for Justice UK Magna Carta Protest
Truth & Justice Magna Carta Day Protest

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Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood – 2015

Tuesday, November 7th, 2023

Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood – On Saturday 7th November 2015 Movement for Justice organised a large protest with other groups to show solidarity with the women locked up inside Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre and to demand that all such detention prisons be shut down.

MFJ Meet To March to Yarl’s Wood – Twinwoods Business Park

Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood

Yarl’s Wood was built on a former wartime airfield in remote countryside five or six miles from the centre of Bedford, perhaps chosen in part for its remoteness, which makes it difficult for visitors or protesters to get there.

Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood

But Movement for Justice – MfJ – and others had organised coaches from around the country, including eight from London as well as one from Bedford Station to bring people with others arriving by car, taxi or bicycle. The road leading to the prison is private, but people were able to meet on a public road around a mile away outside the main entrance to the business park there.

Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood

While we were waiting for everyone to arrive there was lively rally with a great deal of dancing, singing and chanting, keeping everyone’s spirits high, and keeping us warm as a chilly wind with occasional spots of rain swept across the open site on top of a high plateau.

Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood

Among those at the protest were many immigrants who had themselves been detained at this or other detention centres around the country while waiting for a decision to be taken on their asylum claims. Sometimes this takes several years and those who are taken to prisons such as these are held indefinitely, never knowing if or when they will be released or taken under guard to be forcibly deported.

Movement For Justice at Yarls Wood

Many inside have fled their countries after violent attacks including sexual assault and rape and deserve humane treatment not imprisonment. Few if any pose any real threat and could be housed outside, often with friends or relatives in this country. If they were allowed to work many would make a positive contribution. They would also be much more able to contact their solicitors and collect information to support their asylum cases than from inside the detention centres where access is limited.

Instead the Home Office locks them away and sometimes seems to have forgotten them and lost the key. One woman was detained for a couple of days less than three years before being released – after which she returned with the MfJ and spoke at protests which give those still inside some hope and remind them that they have not entirely been forgotten.

More at MFJ Meet Outside Yarl’s Wood.

MfJ ‘Set Her Free’ protest at Yarl’s Wood

As well as MfJ, Sisters Uncut, Lesbians & Gays support the Migrants, All Africans Women’s Groups, Glasgow Unity and others had come to join in the protest. Eventually with around a thousand people gathered it was time to march, though a few coaches had not yet arrived.

We set off on the long walk to the detention centre, with banners and placards, a short distance along the road and then down the public footpath which runs through a couple of fields and across another track, and into a field on the north side of the prison, about a mile from where the campaigners had gathered.

Here there was a fairly steep rise a few feet up a hill from the 20 foot high fence around the detention centre and from the top of this we could see the upper floor windows, some of which had women at them, though only through the dense thick wire grid of the upper half of the fence.

The windows do not have bars, but only open a few inches, but this was enough for the women inside to put their hands through and hold towels and clothing to greet the protesters. Some managed to hold out messages: one read ‘We came to seek Refuge. Not to be locked up’ and another ‘We are from torture. We Need Freedom’.

The lower 10 feet of the fence is made of stout metal panels, and beating or kicking on these makes a very loud noise. Later some protesters brought up rope ladders so they could hold placards and banners on the more open top of the fence so they could be seen by the women inside.

The prisoners are allowed to have phones which they need to contact their solicitors and advisers over their cases and some were able to use these to communicate with the protesters and to have their voices relayed over the PA system the protesters had brought.

There was a heavy rain shower during the protest, and the ground which was already muddy and with large puddles became very treacherous and getting up from the concrete and narrow flat area at the bottom of the fence became difficult. But soon the sun was back out again.

Most of those who spoke at the event were former detainees, some of whom had friends who were still inside the immigration prison.

The protest was still continuing when I had to leave and the low winter sun was beginning to make photography more difficult. It seemed a long and rather lonely journed as I made my way back to the road, boots heavy with mud. But I was free to go, while women who had come to this country seeking asylum from danger and violence in their own countries were still locked up by a hostile and unfeeling government.

More at MfJ ‘Set Her Free’ protest at Yarl’s Wood.

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Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

Tuesday, October 11th, 2022

My day in London on Saturday 11th October 2008 – 14 years ago

100 Days to stop Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Grab! Shell Centre

Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

The ‘Hands of Iraqi Oil’ coalition including Corporate Watch, Iraq Occupation Focus, Jubilee Iraq, PLATFORM, Voices UK, and War on Want and supported by the Stop the War Coalition protested at the Shell Centre against plans to had over most of Iraq’s oil reserves to foreign companies, particularly Shell and BP.

Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

From 1961 on the Iraqi government took increasing control of the oil industry in Iraq, finally nationalising it it 1970. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq it provided 95% of the government’s revenues.

Iraq Oil Grab, Freedom, Rosary Crusade & More

Any lingering doubts about the true reason behind the US-led invasion were dispelled by the grab for the country’s key national resource, a move strongly supported by expert consultants supplied by the UK and US who previously worked at a high level for companies like Shell and BP who drafted the bill for the giveaway which is opposed by Iraqi trade unions and oil experts.

The protest took place at the start of the final 100 days of George W Bush’s administration and began at Shell’s UK headquarters on the South Bank before the samba band, ‘oil workers’ and other demonstrators with a huge and grotesque US Vice President Dick Chaney set off to make their way to BP’s HQ in St James’s Square and on to the US Embassy. But I needed to go to another protest.

Bush & Cheney’s Iraq Oil Grab

Freedom not Fear 2008 – New Scotland Yard, Victoria St

Freedom not fear 2008 events were taking place in over 20 countries to demonstrate against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses, organised by a broad movement of campaigners and organisations.

In the UK the main event was at New Scotland Yard in London, opposed to the restriction of the right to demonstrate under SOCPA, the intimidatory use of photography by police FIT squads, the proposed introduction of ID cards, the increasing centralisation of personal data held by government, including the DNA database held by police, the incredible growth in surveillance cameras, ‘terrorist’ legislation and other measures which have affected our individual freedom and human rights.

Although police handed out notifications under the SOCPA legislation warning them that protesting in the zone around Westminster they were in was illegal, neither the police nor the demonstrators seemed to be taking this very seriously in the 45 minutes or so I was there or when I briefly returned an hour later.

Freedom not Fear 2008

Rosary Crusade of Reparation – Westminster Cathedral

Half a mile or so up the road people were gathering outside the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral for the Rosary Crusade of Reparation, one of the larger walks of public witness by Catholics in London.

The Rosary campaign was begun in Austria in 1947 by Franciscan Fr Petrus Pavlicek who prayed for his country to be freed from its communist occupiers and it attracted half a million supporters. The first annual parade with the statue of Our Lady of Fatima wasin 1948 in Vienna on the feast of the Name of Mary, Sept 12. This feast celebrated the defeat in 1683 of Turkish invaders surrounding Vienna by Christian armies who had prayed to the Blessed Virgin.

The London procession takes place on the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the final appearance of Our Lady at Fatima in October 1917, close to the end of the First World War. Those present saw the sun dancing around in the sky, and she promised peace and an end to war if men showed contrition for their sins and changed their lives.

This was the 25th annual procession in London, starting from Westminster Cathedral and making its way to a service at Brompton Oratory. The statue of Our Lady of Fatima was carried by the Catholic Police Guild and two thousand or more Catholics walked behind saying Rosary and singing hymns devoted to Mary.

This year’s procession had as its special theme atonement for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill then passing through Parliament.

Rosary Crusade of Reparation

Parliament Square

I left the procession as it started off and walked back past New Scotland Yard to Parliament Square, where several protests were taking place. Tamils were calling for an end to genocide in Sri Lanka and for an independent state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

In the centre of the square was a small protest by London Against Detention demanding an end to the detention of asylum seekers and the closure of immigration detention centres.

And Ben and Ben of ‘Still Human Still Here” were approaching the end of their two week protest in Parliament Square over the scandalous treatment of asylum seekers who are being forced into abject poverty in an attempt to drive them out of the country. They spent two weeks in a tent in the square living on the emergency rations that the Red Cross will supply to these inhumanely treated asylum seekers.

Brian Haw was then still in the square, then in his seventh year of long-term protest. As usual I went to talk to him, and was there when a man came up to laugh at him and insult him. He smelt strongly of alcohol, was talking nonsense and acting unpredictably. One of Brian’s supporters stood between him and Brian who was filming him. I put down my bag as I took photographs in case I needed to step in and help, but fortunately he eventually moved away.

Danny was lying on the grass and called out to me as I walked past after talking to Brian. He told me he had been on hunger strike for two weeks demanding a proper investigation into his case. He claims to have been abused by police and social services following an incident in which as a seven year old child in Llanelli he was implicated in the death of a baby brother but I found it hard to make much sense of his allegations.

While I had been talking to Danny I’d seen a group of people on the street opposite carrying placards go up Parliament Street and I’d later caught up with them at the top of Whitehall. I found they were Obama supporters hoping to find and persuade Americans here to register and vote in the election.

Parliament Square

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