Latest News from Positive Action in Housing

By Andy McSmith and Jerome Taylor
Published: 27 November 2007

The principle that everyone is entitled to their say, however obnoxious their opinions might be, was put to the test at the Oxford Union last night as hundreds of protesters gathered to voice their disapproval of the two men from the extreme right whom the illustrious debating chamber had invited there to speak.

One of the guests, the BNP leader Nick Griffin, heads an organisation that wants to see millions of people deported from the UK because they do not regard them as truly British.

He was due to share a platform with the historian David Irving, who has courted notoriety for decades by claiming that Hitler did not give the order to commit genocide, that there were no gas chambers and that six million Jews were not killed by the Nazis.

Scuffles broke out as anti-fascist groups yelled “Shame on you” at members filing into the union building, and the police shut the gates with the chamber only half full. While a handful of students crushed against the main gate to create a diversion, 30 others scaled the wall and barged past the tight security, occupying the area around the debating table until they were persuaded to leave.

“I hope we’re not giving Griffin further publicity by doing this,” said Peter Simpson, a student at Essex University who stormed the chamber, ” but history has shown that you need to draw the line with fascists. I think a lot of people are here because they know what happened in the Second World War and they don’t want it to happen again.”

Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP due to join the debate, criticised Thames Valley Police for “failing to put a cordon around the Union” , allowing the protestors to barge through.

“The failure of the police is outrageous,” he said as he told students in the chamber of plans to split the speakers after the university authorities decided it was too dangerous to walk Mr Griffin and Mr Irving across the quadrangle to the debating hall.

“The police have failed to provide for the safety of this event; failed to provide for the safety of this going ahead as planned.

“I’m very disappointed. The police imply that they don’t have enough resources to move people away from the perimeter or that it is not their job. ”

In order to get the debate under way, the speakers were split into two groups, with Mr Irving, jailed last year in Austria after pleading guilty to Holocaust denial, speaking in the main chamber, and Mr Griffin, convicted of incitement to racial hatred over material denying the Holocaust in 1998, in a cramped room in the main university building.

Warned to expect a maelstrom of abuse, they had avoided the main demonstration by arriving in separate black cabs, 10 minutes apart and 90 minutes early. The debate – on how far the freedom of speech should extend – finally started more than an hour late at 10pm.

Mr Irving defended accusations that his publications and speeces denied the existence of the Holocaust. “I still refuse to be bowed. I am not going to write what they want me to write. I’m going to write what I find in the archives,” he said.

Across the yard, Mr Griffin went head-to-head with two student debaters. ” The majority of racist attacks are on white people by members of ethnic minority communities,” he said. “Those people outside are a mob and they could kill. Had they grown up in Nazi Germany they would have made splendid Nazis.

“Any restriction on free speech is dangerous. You start by saying people should not speak and you end up with burning people at the stake. Free speech is an absolute, it is universal.”

Mr Irving, reported to have left at 10.45pm to a chorus of jeers from waiting demonstrators, said that disagreeing with some elements of the ” whole package” did not make him a Holocaust denier. He had been invited to speak at the Oxford Union seven times, he said, but security fears had put paid to any chance of appearing. Speaking at the Union was something he cherished, he added, saying that the most important thing that any student listening to him could do was to think for themselves.

The president of the Oxford Union, Luke Tryl, was unconvinced. “I think David Irving came out of that looking pathetic,” he said “I said in my introduction that I found his view repugnant and abhorrent because I wanted that on record.”

Outside, some protesters chanted “Kill Tryl”, to which the Union president said: “I don’t think they do their cause any favours by inciting violence. That is my only regret.”

Last night’s meeting breached an unwritten agreement observed for years by the mainstream political parties – not to give the far right a public platform. Instead, it fell back on a much older principle, summed up in a maxim attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Mr Tryl, who has been under intense pressure to cancel the event, defended the decision to go ahead. He said: “David Irving and Nick Griffin have awful and abhorrent views but the best way to defeat those views is through debate.

“I remain committed to the principle that free speech has to prevail. I really worry about how the far right has been able to portray themselves as free-speech martyrs and I hope that this sort of debate will help dispel that myth – to show that the liberal mainstream are prepared to take them on and beat them in debate.”

A minority of the students gathered outside the building agreed with Mr Tryl. Kudzh Ranga, a black law graduate living in the city, said he supported the right of Mr Griffin and Mr Irving to speak. “Though I don’t agree with [Mr Irving's] stance on racism and the Holocaust I think it is only proper to let him come and address the general public,” he said.

But most students and protesters in the street vehemently disagreed. They included Jean Kaigamba, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. He said: ” I’m flabbergasted that people who claim to be intellectuals invite extremists in the name of free speech to give them a platform and let them air their perverted view.”

David Green, a former committee member of the Oxford Union, said he had resigned from the organisation in protest. “What the union is doing today is extremely irresponsible – namely giving prominence to Holocaust deniers, people who are completely discredited,” he said.

Exclusive by DAVID LEASK September 05 2007

The children of failed asylum seekers are being held alongside hardened criminals as Scotland’s Dungavel detention centre is increasingly used as a repository for dangerous foreign prisoners.

Families sent to the Lanarkshire secure complex are being forced to live alongside men convicted of anything from human trafficking to rape.

Some worried workers yesterday warned they no longer feel able to cope with the new mix of foreign detainees at the former hunting lodge after former home secretary John Reid’s drive to rid Britain of ex-convicts from abroad.

A source said: “We are not a prison. This facility was never built to hold prisoners, yet they are held here. It’s common knowledge that there have been sex offenders here. The simple fact of the matter is that children should not be held in the same area as prisoners.”

The Home Office last night declined to say how many of Dungavel’s up to 190 detainees were now ex-convicts awaiting deportation.

The source said the figure averaged around 85% and claimed staff, few of whom are from a prison background, lacked the skills or training to deal with them - or protect the children they also still care for.

Nervous staff last month called in the police on the night when 26 foreign national prisoners escaped from a similar facility in Oxfordshire.

There was no serious problem at Dungavel on the evening. But police showed up at Scotland’s only detention centre for foreigners, insiders said, in full riot gear. Strathclyde Police would yesterday only confirm they had attended.

There were 122 children detained at Dungavel in the first 11 months of last year, slightly up on the year before.

Their stays tended to be short, however, and they are held in a separate unit to single adults, including ex-convicts.

Sources, however, stress that it is not difficult for detainees from different parts of Dungavel to mix, especially during the day.

Ex-convicts held at Dungavel over the last year or so have included money-launderers, fraudsters, paedophiles and rapists, sources said. Child trafficker Gilbert Deya - the preacher extradited to Kenya who had claimed to be able to make couples fertile through the power of prayer - was a Dungavel detainee.

Last night Christina McKelvie, one of the SNP’s MSPs for Central Scotland, said: “Dungavel as it is currently used is not meant to be a prison and the staff are not meant to be prison officers.

“Questions have to be asked about the level of training which the staff have been given to cope with the detainees they currently find themselves guarding. Not only are those children now being kept in a place which is obviously unsuitable, they are now being kept alongside criminals who have a record of violence.

“There are some serious concerns about the detention policy being operated in Scotland as it is, but these revelations have taken those concerns to a new level. You would not, after all, put children in Barlinnie or Peterhead.”

Glasgow Labour MSP Pauline McNeill, who sits on the Education Committee, said: “Asylum seekers should not be treated in the same way as ex-offenders.

“Children should not be in the same place as offenders. And staff should be trained to deal with everything from a minor offender to a serious offender and, if they are not, that is extremely alarming.”

Veteran Dungavel campaigner and Green MSP Patrick Harvie last night said: “These suggestions, if true, indicate that ministers are obviously prepared to expose children and families to risks which would be utterly unacceptable elsewhere in society.”

The Prison Services Union, which represents workers at Dungavel, last night confirmed it had raised issues with the company that runs the facility, G4S. But Steve Farrell, the union’s Scottish organiser, said he felt staff were “second to none”.

Sources last night claimed Dungavel was looking after scores of serious ex-offenders with as few as five members of staff on duty at night. Neither the Home Office nor G4S would comment on that figure. A Home Office spokeswoman said staffing was “appropriate”.

The centre was given a glowing report in May by the Chief Inspector of Prisons. He said it was was one of the “best-run” facilities of its kind, as stressed by a spokesman for G4S.

The spokesman for G4S said: “The report also commented that: Dungavel was an extremely well-run establishment, founded on very good relationships between staff and detainees’.”

Holyrood politicians and Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner, however, have previously heavily criticised the Home Office’s policy of holding children at Dungavel.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1664443.0.0.php

Over 100 people slept ‘rough’ on the streets of Glasgow in protest at the Westminster government’s brutal policy of forcing people into hunger and destitution in an attempt to force them to return to unsafe countries. This protest is Positive Action in housing’s contribution to the Still Human Still Here campaign to end destitution of refused asylum seekers, and ultimately bring change to legislation. Here, Robina qureshi, gives her recollection of the night.

When we first arrived at George Square to set up, i have to admit i got a bit nervous, thinking what’s the night ahead gonna be like, is it gonna be safe? But it was okay the more people began to arrive. Safety in numbers and to be honest there was no real trouble and the best defence was knowing how to handle people that got a bit verbally aggressive or troublesome. The stewards jackets provided by Unity and Raemond Bradford were a life saver and any potential tropuble soon backed off. So if your organising a sleepout in your city, remember stewards jackets are almost like police mens uniforms!!

Some of Glasgow’s indigenous scots and destitute asylum seekers also slept out with the protesters. This was actually great because there was a lot of conversation and sharing of experiences. One homeless scot, James, told me “there’s no houses for the people already here and its cos of ‘youse’ bein’ in our country”. “Naw”, i told him right back “if ‘youse’ sent ‘us’ back, you’d still be homeless - so don’t blame ‘us’ - blame the government”. J ames nodded aye and then we broke bread - i mean, sandwiches. Jamie O’Neill spotted destitute asylum-seeker Ibrahim from Kurdistan who sat a distance away from our base at first. Ibrahim had nowhere to stay that night and asked if he could spend the night with us. Towards the end of the night he ended up wearing a steward’s jacket and bewing at the heart of things. Jelina Rahman made marshmallows to sell as a contribution to the hardship fund and raised over £70 in addition to her sponsorship money. There was a good mix of asylum seekers, homeless sacots, campiagners, ordinary members of the public, faith leaders, politicians, journalists, actors, writers and musicians, nuns, tree huggers and even a fransiscan friar from Hawaii! Charity chief exec cath morrison came through from stirling to represent the Lilias Graham Trust which helps porr families requiring respite. SNP MSPs Bashir Ahmad, Sandra White, Bob Doris and willie Coffie also turned out to support the campaign and that was well appreciated.It was great cos there was so many people who were there cos they cared about the issue, many of whom didn’t know each other, and many of whom i had only ever ‘know’ via email.

The atmosphere was further buoyed by First Minister Alex Salmond’s statement in the Scottish Parliament earlier in the day that he wanted an end to dawn raids in Scotland. The previous Executive unfortunately paid lip service to the whole barbaric policy of dawn raids on asylum families and their children who live in permanent fear of being dragged from their homes, schools and community by heavy-handed snatch squads. Nothing changed and the Home Office or Borders immigration Authority as its now called is doubling the number of removals and carrying on regardless removing families on a ‘case by case’ basis without accountability or transparency. So we thank the First Minister for standing up for Scotland and the most vulnerable in our society.

When the speeches first began, the rain began dripping and then it started bucketing down - worst fear, was this going to go on all night?? So we all retreated to the marquee, people could barely be heard, we were all crammed in but it was a great atmosphere. As the speeches wore on, the rain subsided, the kettle was put on, and we shared drink and food, some of which was donated by the manager of a sandwich place with a french sounding name on condition that “you can’t say you got it from us!” Harvey brought a ton of food to share as well and some amazing fruit, including pink grapefruit and melon - thanks harvey!
Initially some of us were wondering whether we should really be sheltering from the rain when its a ’sleepout’ , but the action was symbolic and not lost on a single one of us. We all in our own way experienced a tiny, tiny bit of what it is to have no choice but to sleep on the streets. We are there in solidarity that was for sure and we all learnt a bit more about what refused asylum seekers are going through, being forced into homelessness in an attempt to drive them out of the UK back to unsafe countries. The rest of the evening was filled with talking about each others involvement with the whole asylum issue, talking to asylum seekers who were there and campaigners who are working at the sharp end in lobbying MP’s and MSP’s and helping with legal cases.

I met with actor Davy McKay during the evening, who earlier had texted me a quote asto why he was attending, ‘to be or not to be thats the question’ - i changed it to ‘to be there or not to be there, etc etc’. You didn’t did you? I did! i protested. Our chair, iain whyte was on top form and chatted the night away with his old pal Bob Holman. Tom Sheilds the Herald columnist turned out too. i like Tom, he’s dead supportive has great ideas, but i never know waht to say to him. A man of few words but it was great he turned up . The glasgow Girls turned up too and stayed the night. Aneela turned up too with her other half Andy, who i didn’t recognise atall cos of his cool hairstyle, he kept smiling at me but i was clueless, i told him jokingly he looked like a male model who was on big brother but had the second person to be evicted he took it well! Things settled down eventually with some people sleeping under the stars of george square and others in the tent. Others still sat on benches and around monuments listening to music. I went back to my place for a bit to pick up a toaster and some bread, butter and marmalade. I came back and Mannie from Kingsway and tim, who used to work for the CAB joined in making tea and hot toast for everyone as sunrise came at 4.31 am. A few words of thanks were said by Iain and we all went our separate ways.

Brodie, who i met for the first itme earlier in the evening, has given his account of the night, on his blog - so feel free to read it.

Jamie ll post some pictures soon, in the meantime im off to bed.

Please feel free to recount your experience of last night by adding your comment. we’d love to know.

Report claims overcrowding and staff abuse are driving asylum seekers to desperate behaviour

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday May 20, 2007
The Observer

Hunger strikes, rioting and self-harm are now endemic in Britain’s biggest detention centres as detainees become increasingly desperate about living in what they claim are deteriorating conditions.
At Yarl’s Wood in Bedfordshire, more than 100 women are refusing to eat, and there have been recent reports of major disturbances at Lindholme, South Yorkshire, and at Colnbrook in Middlesex.

Self-harm is particularly acute at Yarl’s Wood, which reopened in September 2003 after half of it was gutted by fire during rioting in February 2002. It now houses hundreds of women, many of whom have attempted to claim asylum in Britain after fleeing war zones.

Amid growing concern over Britain’s overstretched asylum system, the campaign group Liberty will call tomorrow for the Home Secretary, John Reid, to order a public inquiry into the large-scale riot at Harmondsworth detention centre in west London last November.
If Reid refuses, the group says that it intends to seek a judicial review of his decision on behalf of seven detainees it is representing - an unprecedented move that would see Britain’s immigration system placed under scrutiny in the courts.

‘Well-documented abuses at Harmondsworth detention centre sparked the disturbance in November,’ said Liberty’s legal officer, Alex Gask. ‘These men deserve a public inquiry into the ill-treatment they faced; anything less could result in legal action.’

The deteriorating situation in the detention centres has sparked a surge in self-harm, according to campaigners. Every other day detainees harm themselves to such a serious degree that they require medical treatment, according to the National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns. Between April 2006 and March 2007 there were 199 attempts to self-harm that required medical treatment.

An investigation last year into conditions at Yarl’s Wood found 70 per cent of women at the centre had reported rape, nearly half had been detained for more than three months and 57 per cent had no legal representation.

Conditions have not improved, according to campaigners. Assaults are said to be commonplace. One woman was stripped and thrown naked into a van taking her to the airport for deportation only for the pilot to refuse to allow her to fly as she had no clothes.

The women also allege staff regularly refer to them as ‘black monkey’, ‘nigger’ and ‘bitch’. They claim vital faxes from solicitors are going missing and information on basic legal rights is being withheld. Detainees also complain they are given days-old reheated food in which they have found hair, dirt and maggots.

Campaigners are also concerned about conditions at Harmondsworth, where detainees rioted after being banned from watching news coverage of a damning report on the centre.

The Liberty report, to be published tomorrow, contains a clutch of testimonies from detainees about the conditions in Harmondsworth before the riots. One man interviewed for the study told how he was taken to the centre’s medical clinic suffering from a bad back. ‘They just abandoned me,’ the man said. ‘There was no doctor and, when I asked where the doctor was, the detention officers laughed at me … One of them stepped on the hem of my trousers to make me fall over. He then started laughing and called me a “fucking negro”.’

Solitary confinement as a punishment for speaking out at Harmondsworth is common, according to Liberty. ‘If we made a complaint we would be given a warning,’ one man known as ‘K’ told Liberty. ‘If we were given three warnings, we would be put in an isolated cell. We were scared of making complaints against officers because we expected to be treated badly if we did. We were treated like pigs and very unfairly, as if we were serious criminals.’

A spokesman for Kalyx, which runs Harmondsworth, declined to comment. Serco, which took over Yarl’s Wood on 26 April, denied conditions had deteriorated and said that many of the detainees’ original concerns had been addressed.

A Serco spokesman said staff had been praised by the prisons inspector for their good relationship with detainees. ‘We take any complaints seriously,’ he said.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2083892,00.html

The arrival of asylum seekers in Glasgow’s poorest areas has fostered a new community spirit

On the doorstep of Yoker, a deprived area to the west of Glasgow, is the biggest private regeneration programme in Europe. Along the banks of the Clyde, luxury apartments and penthouses are being sold for upwards of a quarter of a million pounds. Shipbuilding was big here until the 1980s. Then long-term unemployment hit, and never left. From the windows of Yoker’s Plean Street high-rises you can see the north bank of the Clyde glitter in the mid-morning sun. But across the street in Kingsway, another deprived area, the residences are not so plush. A lot of the flats there lay empty and were considered “hard to let” - until the asylum seekers were moved in.

Last week, an Algerian woman and her baby were subjected to a sickening assault on a cycle path in Yoker. Eight days later she went to the police, who announced that they believed the attack to be racially motivated. Two things are out of character here. Usually you have to drag the authorities kicking and screaming into admitting any racist motivation for an assault. Secondly, the attack is not characteristic of the attitudes of the local community, despite its many social problems.

Since 2000, the government has forcibly dispersed hundreds of asylum seekers to the area. It made sense. Put asylum seekers into the flats no one else wants to live in, and the council benefits from the council tax revenues. There were inevitable racist tensions, and the usual myths about the incomers getting free fridges. But then something remarkable happened. Locals and asylum seekers began to interact. They stood together at bus stops, and their kids sat side by side at school. They played - and fought - together. Before people knew it, locals and asylum seekers were in and out of each other’s homes.

And then the realisation dawned that these new neighbours didn’t have it so easy after all. Firstly, they are forbidden to work, forced to live below the official poverty line, and are subject to the xenophobic rantings of the tabloid media and Westminster. Secondly, locals witnessed first hand the terror tactics of dawn raids, taking place on their doorsteps, as battering rams were employed and children screamed while being dragged from their beds, their parents handcuffed, in the very early hours.

Immigration snatch squads, escorted by police, have conducted a series of dawn raids on Scottish asylum families over the past few years. Finally, last October, local people gathered alongside asylum seekers early one morning in Kingsway in peaceful protest at the raids. At around 6.30am an immigration snatch squad turned up to take another family. Over 150 members of the community linked arms and demanded the squad cease immediately. After a 40-minute standoff, the chief of police announced there would be no raid. To this day, the community has been on constant vigil in the hours before dawn.

The arrival of asylum seekers in Glasgow’s most deprived areas has given back a sense of community in a way no government initiative has ever done. Scotland has the fastest declining population in western Europe. Despite a Fresh Talent initiative that seeks to attract 8,000 new workers every year, the Scottish Council Foundation issued a report last month saying we need 13,000 new migrants. Right now, we have 1,100 established asylum-seeking families living in Glasgow who are part and parcel of our communities. We do not take kindly to the barbaric policy designed to send away Scotland’s future lifeblood.

The attack on a young mother was a shameful thing. But let us not lose sight of how the communities in Kingsway have found their sense of community and condemned this attack on ‘one of their own’.

· Robina Qureshi is a human rights campaigner and director of Positive Action in Housing www.paih.org

Robina Qureshi
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2056067,00.html