Africa House is being slowly demolished on the heads of the occupiers…
24th October – summary of the past week and a half: The CRS have been gone from Calais for a few days, due to the general strike, protests and riots and 50 cops in hospital across various locations in France…
Instead, the PAF have been extraordinarily busy harassing migrants in their camps and squats, in the streets and on their way to England; a large number of injuries have been sustained by migrants such as bruises, cuts – often requiring stitches – broken fingers, damaged knees, dislocated wrists and ankles — the usual. One man had the skin of the palms of his hands peeled off after being dragged down a lorry by port security.
Africa House has been particularly targeted, withtwo big raids and several small ones.
On Thursday 14th PAF arrived 7.30 am, arresting nearly everybody who was in the squat. People living there say 40 arrests were made, but we were unable to count because they evicted us from the building.
Another big PAF operation took place on Friday 22nd at around same hour. We witnessed around 15 arrests. One activist was threatened and assaulted by cops because she would not leave the premises. The usual.
Several vans from the council arrived at 8am to carry on with the cleaning operation. Essentially, they are slowly demolishing parts of the buildings over the heads of the occupiers. No blankets were taken this time, though the Deputy Mayor and the owner of the building made an appearance. The police also smashed the glass in a room where people are sleeping.
The previous morning, there was a smaller and less well-organised raid on Africa House by the PAF (Police Aux Frontieres – border police) with about 9 arrests made. The PAF turn up every day in the morning and again in the evening – sometimes to arrest, or sometimes just to harass and make people run – they seem to have fun as they often laugh and sometimes play loud music in their vans and it may be the case that they are high on drugs…but this is just a supposition, there is very little doubt however that they are sick in the head. Similarly, in the park where migrants hang out (not having a place to go to), in the streets, and in every other squat and jungle, and at any time, they continually arrest at random. They are also still arresting people outside the PASS clinic where sick people wait to be seen, and at the food distribution place where there is and agreement with the local charities not to make arrests.
In the night between the 21st and 22nd , the PAF raided Palestine House. They only arrested two people but held them for 12 hours. Then on the morning of the 23rd they took nearly everyone.
The Sudanese jungle also receives frequent visits by police and is now all fenced up.
BAC, the criminal investigation police, identified and followed three No Borders activists on the street on the night of 22nd Oct. Considering that the majority of the migrants in Calais are refugees from some of the most dangerous war-torn countries in the world and most of those present in Calais at this moment come from Darfur, I really don’t know what it takes to wake up French public opinion.
English classes continue in Africa House and Palestine House with a great rate of attendance.