70+ people joined a No Borders London demonstration this afternoon outside the London offices of Kalyx, the private company that runs Harmondsworth Detention Centre. The action was in solidarity with this week's uprising by detainees at Harmondsworth. It featured a lively contingent from Justice for Cleaners, making explicit the link between the detention and deportation of migrants and the exploitation of migrant workers in low paid, dirty and dangerous jobs.
The No Borders leaflet declared:
SOS Freedom! Solidarity with Harmondsworth Uprising!
Chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, describes Harmondsworth Detention Centre as having slipped into a "a culture wholly at odds with its stated purpose"
The problem with Harmondsworth and other Immigration Removal Centres is not any shortcomings with respect to their stated purpose, but that they exist in the first place. They reflect the inhumane system of migration controls that locks up refugees and migrants just because they try to make a life here.
Wednesday's revolt by Harmondsworth detainees shows that people, regardless of their desperate situation, will always struggle for their human dignity. A human dignity denied by a system which makes people illegal so as to control them and keep us all in a state of fear.
Kalyx is a private company profiting from the public panic. Its part of the Sodhexo “Empire” which makes money out of exploiting people and disposing of them; these are the ultimate traffickers in human misery.
We are in solidarity with all migrants and refugees and their desire for freedom. We hold Kalyx and the Home Office responsible for the sufferings of the detainees and demand that they are brought to account.
No Borders is calling for a protest outside the headquarters of Kalyx on Edgware Road this Friday, 1 st December 2006 from 3.30pm to 5.30pm. 25 Chapel Street NW1, Nearest tube Edgware Rd.
NO BORDERS CALLS FOR THE CLOSURE OF ALL IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTRES
NO BORDERS DETAINEE SUPPORT GROUP PROVIDES PRACTICAL SUPPORT TO REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS IN DETENTION AND/OR THOSE THREATENED WITH DEPORTATION, AND WORKS TO EMPOWER
THEIR STRUGGLES INSIDE AND OUTSIDE DETENTION CENTRES.