An early campaigner for women’s rights, philosopher John Stuart Mill argued 141 years ago that the treatment of women was the measure of any society’s civilisation.
By that measure, today’s Britain is a sorry place, as campaigners against the brutal treatment of female asylum seekers, the most vulnerable women in the world, have documented
Rape survivors, mainly from countries in Africa, make up over 70% of female asylum seekers. Instead of receiving solace and support, they face not only the nightmare labyrinth of gaining asylum status but are held in prison-like conditions.
Tomorrow a number of women who have survived the horrors of sexual abuse will testify in person at a meeting in the House of Commons organised by the All African Women’s Group and Black Women’s Rape Action Project.
Their meeting takes place just as Conservative leader David Cameron announced that his party would put a cap on immigration. Cameron was upping the anti-immigration propaganda, after the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, said that Britain’s population was growing too quickly.
Such calls, and their inevitable echoes as New Labour seeks to outdo the Tories in playing the race card, will only worsen the situation for the hundreds, perhaps thousands of women who are being detained.
Reports by organisations such as Amnesty International and the Refugee Council indicate that there may be around 25,000 asylum seekers held in UK detention centres, mostly under unbearable conditions.
The Yarl’s Wood removal centre, which holds 400 women and their families, has seen several hunger strikes and protests against what women describe as “the brutal, profit-oriented regime” run by the SERCO Group PLC and violent deportations by privatised security companies.
Idri Jawara, who will speak tomorrow, fled Gambia this year after being a victim of female genital mutilation, followed by rape and violent beatings. Her husband took her to a Sharia court, which found her guilty of “having a forbidden relationship” with a female friend. The court found her guilty and sentenced her to death by stoning on 11 May 2009.
When she sought asylum in Britain under the Refugee Convention, she was detained in Yarl’s Wood. Although the House of Lords held in 2006 that female genital mutilation is a form of torture, Jawara was put into the “fast track” process which gave her only two days to apply for asylum and six days to appeal a refusal.
“Like 98% of other applicants considered under the fast track, Ms Jawara was refused,” say the campaigners from Legal Action for Women, based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre.
Also like hundreds of other women, Jawara was left without legal representation, as her lawyer concluded that not having gathered any of the key evidence, her case had no merit. At this stage the Black Women’s Rape Project took up her case and she was finally released just before Christmas.
New Labour immigration officials have spoken proudly about their success in “removing” those seeking asylum in the UK. As the All African Women’s Group says, of the 42 million displaced people worldwide, “80% are women and children who are casualties of wars, many of which are fomented and supported by the British government.”
A World to Win salutes the courage of these women, fighting oppression in their home countries and against the cruel treatment they receive in the UK. In our forthcoming Manifesto of Revolutionary Solutions, we will argue for the immediate end to detention of asylum seekers and the principle of free immigration into Britain.
Meanwhile, we shed no tears over the departure of any bankers from the City of London.
Can You Hear us? Women’s uncensored experiences of detention and deportation, is in Committee Room 5, House of Commons at 6-8pm 14 January.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label asylum seekers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asylum seekers. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, October 19, 2009
Johnson's hypocrisy over BNP
When Alan Johnson, the home secretary, expresses outrage at the decision of the BBC to invite the neo-fascist British National Party on to its Question Time programme this week, you know something is not quite right. This is a stench of opportunist hypocrisy here that is overpowering.
Johnson condemned the BBC for giving the party a platform it doesn't deserve. "They are a white-supremacist party," he said. "They are an illegally constituted party. They should be confronted in argument. I've been doing that all my life. But I won't appear on this platform with the BNP, because you're talking about bringing them in, to be a legitimate political party, to sit on this platform."
Firstly, if anyone should come under fire it is Johnson’s own New Labour and not the BBC. The programme could not have gone ahead if Gordon Brown had, as leader of his party, decided that New Labour would hold to its position of not sharing a platform with the BNP. Instead, Jack Straw, justice secretary, is to appear with BNP leader Nick Griffin. Johnson neatly sidesteps that one, perhaps with one eye on a bid to take over from Brown sooner rather than later.
Secondly, Johnson is no position to lecture the BNP, as he and the government have pursued policies that have played right into its hands. The constant demonization of asylum seekers, through policies that have included vouchers, the denial of emergency housing and medical treatment, has fed the prejudices of the right-wing press and the BNP.
Only last month, Johnson himself expressed his “delight” at the “swift and decisive” action by French riot police against mainly Afghan refugees living in a make-shift camp near Calais. What Johnson denoted a “dignified success” was a squalid business, where distressed teenagers were confronted by uniformed thugs, as video reports like the one by Jason Parkinson show.
Of course, it’s alright to send thousands of troops to invade Afghanistan. When a few hundred people turn up seeking asylum and refuge from that poor, war-ravaged, corrupt country, they are treated as if they were a major threat to “our way of life”.
The tone was set early on in the history of New Labour. David Blunkett, a former home secretary, claimed in 2002 that asylum seekers were “swamping some British schools” and that there was a case for educating them separately. He won the backing of the then prime minister Tony Blair – and no doubt of the BNP too!
Johnson claims that the BNP is not a “legitimate party” and should be denied access to the BBC on that basis alone. Agreeing to that point of view, however, would allow the political establishment and the state to decide who and who is not “legitimate”. Once you go down that road, anti-capitalist groups and parties could, for example, at some stage also be designated beyond the pale.
It is actually the break-up of “legitimate” parliamentary politics, in particular the transformation of New Labour into an openly capitalist party, that has fuelled the growth of the BNP’s influence and support. As the expenses scandal demonstrates, this process is continuing apace, with or without the BNP appearing on Question Time.
The political establishment has no answers to the destabilisation produced by the coincidence of the demise of traditional politics with a profound economic crisis. The democracy they allegedly promote is hollowed out and is now under open attack from the extreme right-wing. You can only counter that threat by extending and renewing democracy in new ways, setting out to transfer actual power at the level of the state into the hands of ordinary people. That’s the best way to fight the BNP.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Johnson condemned the BBC for giving the party a platform it doesn't deserve. "They are a white-supremacist party," he said. "They are an illegally constituted party. They should be confronted in argument. I've been doing that all my life. But I won't appear on this platform with the BNP, because you're talking about bringing them in, to be a legitimate political party, to sit on this platform."
Firstly, if anyone should come under fire it is Johnson’s own New Labour and not the BBC. The programme could not have gone ahead if Gordon Brown had, as leader of his party, decided that New Labour would hold to its position of not sharing a platform with the BNP. Instead, Jack Straw, justice secretary, is to appear with BNP leader Nick Griffin. Johnson neatly sidesteps that one, perhaps with one eye on a bid to take over from Brown sooner rather than later.
Secondly, Johnson is no position to lecture the BNP, as he and the government have pursued policies that have played right into its hands. The constant demonization of asylum seekers, through policies that have included vouchers, the denial of emergency housing and medical treatment, has fed the prejudices of the right-wing press and the BNP.
Only last month, Johnson himself expressed his “delight” at the “swift and decisive” action by French riot police against mainly Afghan refugees living in a make-shift camp near Calais. What Johnson denoted a “dignified success” was a squalid business, where distressed teenagers were confronted by uniformed thugs, as video reports like the one by Jason Parkinson show.
Of course, it’s alright to send thousands of troops to invade Afghanistan. When a few hundred people turn up seeking asylum and refuge from that poor, war-ravaged, corrupt country, they are treated as if they were a major threat to “our way of life”.
The tone was set early on in the history of New Labour. David Blunkett, a former home secretary, claimed in 2002 that asylum seekers were “swamping some British schools” and that there was a case for educating them separately. He won the backing of the then prime minister Tony Blair – and no doubt of the BNP too!
Johnson claims that the BNP is not a “legitimate party” and should be denied access to the BBC on that basis alone. Agreeing to that point of view, however, would allow the political establishment and the state to decide who and who is not “legitimate”. Once you go down that road, anti-capitalist groups and parties could, for example, at some stage also be designated beyond the pale.
It is actually the break-up of “legitimate” parliamentary politics, in particular the transformation of New Labour into an openly capitalist party, that has fuelled the growth of the BNP’s influence and support. As the expenses scandal demonstrates, this process is continuing apace, with or without the BNP appearing on Question Time.
The political establishment has no answers to the destabilisation produced by the coincidence of the demise of traditional politics with a profound economic crisis. The democracy they allegedly promote is hollowed out and is now under open attack from the extreme right-wing. You can only counter that threat by extending and renewing democracy in new ways, setting out to transfer actual power at the level of the state into the hands of ordinary people. That’s the best way to fight the BNP.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
Monday, July 14, 2008
The privatised hell of Britain PLC
A secret document has revealed the shape of things to come as jobs and livelihoods are threatened by economic meltdown. Global corporations will be employed by the government to break strikes under the guise of carrying out public services and responding to national emergencies.
Global Solutions, aka Group 4, is to be awarded a £100 million contract to act as a strike breaker, should the fire services be involved in industrial action. The plan which came to light over the weekend, and is due to be approved in the autumn, means that Group 4, will receive a one-off up-front payment of about £10 million, to be followed by £9 million a year over the life of the 10-year contract in return for supplying a pool of staff as cover.
The company would then be called on in scenarios such as pandemic flu, a catastrophic incident or industrial action. And, as Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack has warned, the taxpayer will foot the bill for replacing the fire services with privatised strikebreakers. The FBU is coincidentially gearing up for industrial action in London following attempts by the employers to impose a pay cut.
Group 4 has done extremely well out of New Labour, and now has 30,000 employees and a turnover of £1.1 billion. It has become the largest “security solutions” company in the UK. The company is not alone in cashing under this government, however. New research reveals that a staggering one third of all the UK’s public services are now carried out by the private and voluntary sectors – double the level when New Labour came to power.
The study commissioned by the government from economist DeAnne Julius shows that the government has encouraged the handover of public services to global corporations at such a rate that they the sector has now overtaken the United States as a share of gross domestic product. Total spending on private and voluntary provision has nearly doubled from £42bn in 1995-96 to over £79.4bn at in what amounts to a massive transfer of wealth to companies.
DeAnne Julius is Chairman of Chatham House and a non-executive director of BP and the pharmaceutical corporation Roche. She also serves on the advisory boards of UK and US hedge funds and is vice president of the Society of Business Economists. She was an advisor to British Airways and Shell and a former director of the services company Serco. The incestuous relationship between the government and companies like Serco, BT and Capita will be cemented further this week as business minister John Hutton goes on a trade mission to the United States to promote their services.
Outsourcing is not simply a cash-cow to increase corporate profits. There are other, equally sinister aspects. The effect of outsourcing can be seen clearly in the prison and immigration services, where seven out of the ten main immigration detention centres in the UK are run by private companies for profit under contract to the Home Office. They maximise profits at the expense of the human rights of the detainees.
A report today by the law firm Birnberg Peirce, Medical Justice and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns exposes how private security guards have abused hundreds of failed asylum seekers during their violent removal from Britain.
The report's authors conclude: "We have found an alarming and unacceptable number of injuries have been sustained by those subject to forced removals. This dossier provides evidence of widespread and seemingly systemic abuse of one of the most vulnerable communities of people in our society, who have fled their own countries seeking safety and refuge."
This is just one example of what happens when big business and the state join together under the executive director of Britain PLC, one Gordon Brown.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win Secretary
Global Solutions, aka Group 4, is to be awarded a £100 million contract to act as a strike breaker, should the fire services be involved in industrial action. The plan which came to light over the weekend, and is due to be approved in the autumn, means that Group 4, will receive a one-off up-front payment of about £10 million, to be followed by £9 million a year over the life of the 10-year contract in return for supplying a pool of staff as cover.
The company would then be called on in scenarios such as pandemic flu, a catastrophic incident or industrial action. And, as Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack has warned, the taxpayer will foot the bill for replacing the fire services with privatised strikebreakers. The FBU is coincidentially gearing up for industrial action in London following attempts by the employers to impose a pay cut.
Group 4 has done extremely well out of New Labour, and now has 30,000 employees and a turnover of £1.1 billion. It has become the largest “security solutions” company in the UK. The company is not alone in cashing under this government, however. New research reveals that a staggering one third of all the UK’s public services are now carried out by the private and voluntary sectors – double the level when New Labour came to power.
The study commissioned by the government from economist DeAnne Julius shows that the government has encouraged the handover of public services to global corporations at such a rate that they the sector has now overtaken the United States as a share of gross domestic product. Total spending on private and voluntary provision has nearly doubled from £42bn in 1995-96 to over £79.4bn at in what amounts to a massive transfer of wealth to companies.
DeAnne Julius is Chairman of Chatham House and a non-executive director of BP and the pharmaceutical corporation Roche. She also serves on the advisory boards of UK and US hedge funds and is vice president of the Society of Business Economists. She was an advisor to British Airways and Shell and a former director of the services company Serco. The incestuous relationship between the government and companies like Serco, BT and Capita will be cemented further this week as business minister John Hutton goes on a trade mission to the United States to promote their services.
Outsourcing is not simply a cash-cow to increase corporate profits. There are other, equally sinister aspects. The effect of outsourcing can be seen clearly in the prison and immigration services, where seven out of the ten main immigration detention centres in the UK are run by private companies for profit under contract to the Home Office. They maximise profits at the expense of the human rights of the detainees.
A report today by the law firm Birnberg Peirce, Medical Justice and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns exposes how private security guards have abused hundreds of failed asylum seekers during their violent removal from Britain.
The report's authors conclude: "We have found an alarming and unacceptable number of injuries have been sustained by those subject to forced removals. This dossier provides evidence of widespread and seemingly systemic abuse of one of the most vulnerable communities of people in our society, who have fled their own countries seeking safety and refuge."
This is just one example of what happens when big business and the state join together under the executive director of Britain PLC, one Gordon Brown.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win Secretary
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