Campsfield Hunger Strike Ends

press release, 10 August 2010, from Campaign to Close Campsfield

The hunger strike at Campsfield, which began on the evening of Sunday 1 August, ended yesterday morning, Monday 9 August. The protest ended as it began, in a disciplined and collective fashion.

A spokesperson for the campaign to Close Campsfield said:

“This was a most significant protest by detainees at Campsfield. It was organised, dignified and disciplined. The detainees’ statements were telling and moving and provided specific information as the basis for their complaints. Protesters showed courage in making their protest and in particular in speaking, without concealing their identities, to radio and television outlets.”

“There is nothing like hearing the voice of someone suffering in detention, to bring home to the public the systematic abuse of human rights and mistreatment that goes on in our name in Britain’s detention centres. The Campsfield detainees are to be thanked for bringing this to the attention of politicians and the public. I am sure the detainees will be pursuing their complaints with the authorities.”

Twelve people cycled and drove from Oxford to Campsfield last night to express solidarity with the detainees who had been on hunger strike for over a week.

Statements by detainees and hunger strike bulletin:
http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk

Share
August 11, 2010 | | Tags: | No Comments »

War On Terror Bollocks

You can hear my version of the ACPO Talksport terrorism ad that ASA banned at AudioBoo (or below), it was late is all the mitigation I can offer…

PS. Ooh I think this is the one they are letting continue, albeit without my interjections.

Share
| | Tags: , , | 3 Comments »

Of Mercenaries & Warlords

(Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai will set a deadline for disbanding all private security firms, his office said on Tuesday, but the U.S. military played down the announcement and said no decision had yet been reached. The push to scrap the firms, which compete for billion-dollar contracts and employ up to 40,000 people, is linked to Karzai’s ambitious 2014 timetable for Afghan forces to take over all security responsibility from foreign forces. ”This is a plan that is being seriously pursued and this program will be implemented at any cost,” Waheed Omer, Karzai’s chief spokesman, told a regular news conference. Omer said Karzai has met commanders of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and others in the sector since Saturday, when he launched some of the harshest criticism yet of security contractors…

Karzai’s government tried unsuccessfully last year to register the firms, find out the amount of arms they had and where they came from, and how much money the industry was worth, an Afghan security source has said. The U.S. State Department said last year it would review its use of contractors at overseas embassies after a scandal over sexual hazing by security guards at its Kabul mission. Washington has also said it did not know how many contractors, of all kinds, it employs in Afghanistan.

Now one might also contemplate that Karzai is a friend of  warlords & fundamentalists and is in power because we decided to support a fraudulent election result, so what would this change mean? Probably less random killing and corruption and more focussed…killing & corruption but with the money to pay for it going not to overseas corporations but to him and firms he licenses. In theory though if there was working governance that makes them at least a bit more accountable than mercenary firms and less liable to kill Afghans because they look like Afghans. But score settling and power struggles of the narco warlords and extremists can be subsumed into ‘security’ albeit no longer filling western mercenary firms balance sheets (business being business though some may stay on under new bosses and others will look for work elsewhere, so some other place will have the pleasure of ex military chancers shooting everything that doesn’t pay them, usually in the wake of a Western war, so unfortunately a desire from the mercenary sector for more strife).

Share
August 10, 2010 | | Tags: | 6 Comments »

Burma’s ’88 Uprising, 22nd Anniversary

Waihnin Pwint Thon CiF- On 8 August 1988, my father, Ko Mya Aye, led thousands of students on to the streets of Rangoon as part of a wave of a million people, who gathered to peacefully protest against the ruling military junta. The protests were put down by the most brutal means, and organisers such as my father were beaten, tortured and jailed.

These protests were repeated in 2007 by defiant individuals who desired democracy so fiercely that they were prepared to risk their liberty and lives a second time. Individuals such as my father who, as part of the iconic Generation 88 students group he co-founded, again helped orchestrate mass protests on the very same streets of Rangoon, this time as part of the so-called “saffron revolution”.

Both times the events offered hope to the long-suffering people of my homeland. Both would end with the Burmese authorities ruthlessly quashing dissent. By the end of the summer of 1988, more than 3,000 peaceful protestors had been killed.

In 1988, my father was arrested and given an eight-year jail sentence. In 2007, his sentence was 65 years. Without a regime change, I will never see him again.

MORE

Share
August 8, 2010 | | Tags: , | 2 Comments »

Friday! Underworld- Always Loved a Film

This is your summer Choooon! Right here, shiny summery pop dance joy!

Share
August 6, 2010 | | Tags: , | 7 Comments »

100 Detainees On Hunger Strike At Migrant Prison

More than 100 detainees at Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre have gone on hunger strike. They stopped accepting meals last night. It is understood they are protesting over conditions at the Kidlington centre.

That is from the local paper Oxford Mail, the story goes on to qoute Jonathan Sedgwick, UK Border Agency deputy chief executive, however I am not repeating his spin here and neither should the paper do so without some critical fact checking. Detainees do not all have easy access to legal aid or 24 hr medical aid and sly inferences the hunger strike is fake by alluding to vending machines is now an established UKBA smear to avoid the full impact of hunger strikes and the conditions and practices that lead to them. I would point them to, for example Refugee & Migrant Justice, for some counter comment oh but they are shutting down because the government (-s, started by New Labour finished by the ConDems, see how that works, democracy mmmmm) engineered their bankruptcy…

But should an alert Oxford Mail writer happen this way, perhaps contact NCADC or Free Movement for some detail not from the UKBA’s executives.

PS. Campaign to Close Campsfield have a press release.

Share
August 3, 2010 | | Tags: | 1 Comment »
Newer Entries »