State repression of asylum seekers can intensify only so much before the fear and weakness wrought by the brutality of dawn raids and deportations gives way to anger, organisation and resistance. In April and May around a dozen families were dragged from their homes, including those with small children. But all of the last five families to have been snatched and incarcerated in detention centres have been returned to Glasgow following successful campaigns.
Mobilising around the demands of an end to dawn raids and deportations, and the right to work, hundreds of asylum seekers and supporters have taken to the streets of Glasgow in recent months in a series of protests and marches. Unity – the Scottish Union of Asylum Seekers has been at the forefront of this new movement. Formed in February this year (see FRFI 190), the advanced nature of this organisation is being demonstrated time and again.
On 8 April, Unity organised a march of around 400 asylum seekers and supporters from the Home Office Immigration Centre on Brand Street to Glasgow city centre. They were undeterred by the Labour-controlled council who attempted to ban the march and the police who persuaded Glasgow Trades Hall into banning the meeting that was to end the march. The RCG had a lively contingent on the march and the ‘Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!’ banner was proudly carried by Algerian and Turkish asylum seekers.
Steps are also being taken towards the creation of wider working class unity. In response to the deportation of the Argavan family to Turkey in February 2006, asylum seekers and friends and supporters from the working class area of Cranhill, Glasgow demonstrated on 15 April. Members of the Scottish Parliament, Rosie Kane (Scottish Socialist Party) and Sandra White (Scottish Nationalist Party) spoke alongside an asylum seeker representative from Unity. The RCG gave a message of solidarity, focusing on the link between the British Labour Party’s war against the oppressed people of Iraq and attacks on asylum seekers and workers in Britain.
With the support of Unity, FRFI has called a further demonstration on Saturday 27 May in Glasgow city centre, demanding the right to work and an end to dawn raids. The only way to win the just demands of asylum seekers is through building a movement of consistent protest, willing to mobilise on the streets.
Joseph Eskovitchl
Organising to defend asylum seekers in Tyneside
Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) was formed in November 2005 by asylum seekers, refugees, and local groups and individuals. FRFI has been playing a major role in the organisation of TCAR. TCAR has held regular pickets of North Shields Immigration Service Reporting Centre and organised two prominent demonstrations: a ‘Right to Work’ demonstration in Newcastle on 11 March and a ‘Big Noise Demo’ against detentions and deportations outside North Shields Reporting Centre on 5 April.
On 4 May at 6am Mariam Nandawula, a Ugandan member of TCAR living in Woodlands Crescent was snatched from her home together with her five-year-old son Jonah by around 10 immigration police and taken to Yarl’s Wood detention centre. She was told she would be deported two days later. Woodlands Crescent is on an estate that was due for demolition, but was re-opened to house asylum seeker families. FRFI had recently done a door-to-door paper sale there to mobilise for a public meeting on racism, which several residents then attended, subsequently becoming involved in TCAR and beginning to organise on the estate to defend against attacks, both from individual racists and the state. Another member of TCAR on Mariam’s estate saw the raid and sounded the alarm. After two days of work and phone calls by hundreds of people, the airline KLM made the decision not to carry Mariam on the scheduled flight. Following this, a new solicitor was found and a fresh asylum claim is now being lodged for Mariam and Jonah.
Tyneside Community Action for Refugees can be contacted at: [email protected]
INTERVIEW:
It is abundantly clear to asylum seekers that the oppression they face in Britain has its roots in the same imperialist system that forced them to flee their home country in the first place. FRFI spoke to Ntuntumuna Mavuala an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
FRFI: Can you tell us about your current situation?
NM: I launched a fresh asylum application last year and I still haven’t heard anything from the Home Office. This is my fourth year since first claiming asylum in 2002, and I have been destitute without NASS support since 2004. I have been dispersed to the South East of England while my family is in the North East, yet they wouldn’t accept me as my wife’s dependant.
FRFI: Why do you think it’s important for asylum seekers to organise?
NM: I think it’s important for asylum seekers to be organised because the government is using the issue as a political scapegoat. They manipulate asylum and immigration laws, which are already racist, according to their political need. They treat people just as numbers, not as human beings. So as the problem is political, we need to oppose it with a political solution as well.
FRFI: What made you decide to get involved with FRFI?
NM: I recognise my struggle and the struggle of my country in the work the RCG is doing. I fled the oppression in my country, which is caused by Britain and its allies through our government. I was a leader of the student union of the main university back home, organised lots and lots of protests and negotiations between universities and government. After university I ended up running a voluntary organisation against human rights abuses which were happening daily. I came to Britain for safety, but I find myself in another oppression as black, as an asylum seeker, and as a working class man. I don’t have any other choice than to carry on with my fight. The RCG is the only place for me to materialise this fight. As long as I am still breathing, I won’t give up the fight.
Support asylum seekers in London – demonstrate at Communications House!
In Glasgow, Tyneside, Manchester and elsewhere, regular pickets of immigration reporting centres are ensuring that anyone working or living nearby is made aware that these are places of fear for asylum seekers. However the central London reporting centre at Old Street goes mostly unnoticed. A few demonstrations have taken place there, organised by No Borders and others in 2004 and, most recently, Global Women’s Strike in April 2006, but there is currently no regular presence. FRFI London has therefore decided to initiate regular monthly demonstrations from June until September, after which we will hold a meeting of everyone who wants to be involved to assess progress and decide on future action.
Protest at UK Immigration Service, Communications House, 210 Old Street, London, EC1V 9BR (nearest tube: Old Street) Mondays 5 June, 3 July, 7 August, 4 September 1-2pm. For further information phone 020 7837 1688 or email [email protected]
FRFI 191 June / July 2006
