6000 dead and nothing said: 'Of a total 37,000 migrants who in 2006 tried to reach Spain's Canary Islands from Africa, an estimated 6,000 died on the perilous sea voyage, making the death toll close to one in six, according to Spanish officials. Immigration services say they recovered 600 bodies but reckon the actual death toll is ten times higher. A total 31,000 migrants survived the journey, the officials said'. More details here.
Mexican border dead remembered: 'Migrants’ rights groups in Tijuana are replacing the 1,000 wooden crosses they’ve affixed to the U.S. Mexico border fence during the last eleven years. The crosses which represent migrants who’ve died crossing the California Mexico border are rotting due to sun and rain... Aproximately 4,000 migrants have died crossing the U.S. Mexico border in the last 11 years'. More here
DEMONSTRATE OUTSIDE HARMONSDWORTH AND COLNBROOK DETENTION CENTRES
11.30 am SATURDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2007
They are moving. They are crossing mountains, rivers and oceans. Risking their lives in leaving their homes, crossing borders and in entering the UK. Asking for a place to exist and to live with dignity. Yet people who flee poverty, war and injustice throughout the world are deemed illegal – forced to work for low wages in precarious conditions and locked in detention centres, deprived of their freedom to move.
There will be a demonstration at Harmondsworth & Colnbrook Detention Centres (they are next door to each other) on Saturday 10th February. The call for this has come from London No Borders, but we want to make it a huge event. We have already started approach other organisations about this.
There isn't a huge amount of time once the festive season is over, so we have called a Planning Meeting on Saturday 6th January to plan and organise this successfully. This will be at the Transport and General Workers Union Offices, 128 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8TN at 3pm. 5 minutes from Holborn Tube Station.
Report from UFCW Union:
United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) members working in Swift and Company meatpacking plants are reporting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents marched into plants Thursday morning with military weapons, herding, segregating, and terrorizing workers. Plants and plant gates were locked down.
"The display of force by ICE agents is totally outrageous," said Mark Lauritsen, International Vice President and Director of the Food Processing, Packing, and Manufacturing division of the UFCW. "We believe they are victims of wholesale violations of worker rights. In effect, ICE is criminalizing people for going to work."
No Borders London has called another demonstration at the headquarters of Kalyx, the private company that runs Harmondsworth immigration detention centre. We will be demanding that closure of the centre and supporting the detainees who demonstrated in defence of their freedom in late November.
Details: Monday 18th December, 4:30 - 5:30pm at Kalyx, 25 Chapel Street, NW1 5DH (Edgware Road Tube Station).
Extracts from What really happenened at Harmondsworth? - article in the Guardian this week:
'Millions of pounds' damage was caused as fires were lit, windows smashed, walls knocked down and security cameras wrenched from the walls. All four wings of the privately run facility - through which more than 2,000 failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants pass each year - were affected
There have been several more actions in support of Harmondsworth detainees, following their recent revolt.
No Borders London joined 80 demonstrators protesting outside Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centres on Sunday the 3rd December 2006 (picture above; report here).
Three days later, 25 people joined another solidarity demo at Communications House in London, called by London Fight Racism Fight Imperialism (report here).
On the 1st December, Leeds No Borders held a solidarity vigil for Harmondsworth detainees outside of the Waterside Reporting Centre (where practices in a recent prison inspectorate report were also declared unfit for purpose). Report here.
Italy
Italy's largest migrant detention centre at Crotone was occupied by anti-racists last weekend, while others blocked the road from the centre to the airport in south-west Italy. More on this story at Indymedia
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358175.html
Australia
30 detainees are staging a protest at the Baxter Immigration Detention Centre in South Australia. A Baxter detainee says a group of detainees blocked the front gate of the detention centre, and others are on a hunger strike, following suicide attempts by six detainees in the past week. Western Australian human rights group Project SafeCom said detainees had tried to hang themselves, while others had slashed themselves with broken glass and mirrors. The Centre is run by UK-based GSL Ltd. More on this story at Melbourne Indymedia
