A group of protesters unfurled a banner reading "Stop Deportations" and heckled councillors at the Election of the Lord Mayor today at the Town Hall. The action was done by a group from Oxford No Borders standing in the public gallery.
Banner drop from public gallery
The incoming Mayor, Alan Armitage, works as a member of a panel recommending judges on whether to deport foreign national prisoners. The protesters pointed out that this term is used in a blanket way to demonise and criminalise migrants even for such minor offenses as not having the correct papers.
"This two-faced hypocrite will visit community groups as Mayor while at the same time recommending that some of their members be deported." said Bernadette Greenway, "A vote for him is a vote for a racist system."
The meeting had to be adjourned while security guards ejected the activists. Some councillors later came outside to discuss the issue, and several expressed gratitude at being alerted to it, having previously been unaware.
NOTES
[1] Oxford City Council currently has a policy calling for the closure of Campsfield, the Immigration Detention Centre near Kidlington which is a key part of the deportation process. In contrast, Councillor Armitage is directly implicated in Britain's racist immigration system; the protesters argue that this role is incompatible with Council policy.
[2] Asylum seekers are frequently detained at random at all stages of the asylum process, and detention is used commonly before deportation. Many are refugees fleeing danger, torture, poverty and even death from countries such as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. They are held without charge, without time limit, without proper reasons given, and without proper access to legal representation. Deportation charter flights to countries such as Afghanistan have been repeatedly cancelled recently as a result of the spiralling security situation in the country, although ironically it is the safety of those carrying out the deportations that seems to be the concern, rather than that of the deportees.
"This two-faced hypocrite will visit community groups as Mayor while at the same time recommending that some of their members be deported." said Bernadette Greenway, "A vote for him is a vote for a racist system."
The meeting had to be adjourned while security guards ejected the activists. Some councillors later came outside to discuss the issue, and several expressed gratitude at being alerted to it, having previously been unaware.
NOTES
[1] Oxford City Council currently has a policy calling for the closure of Campsfield, the Immigration Detention Centre near Kidlington which is a key part of the deportation process. In contrast, Councillor Armitage is directly implicated in Britain's racist immigration system; the protesters argue that this role is incompatible with Council policy.
[2] Asylum seekers are frequently detained at random at all stages of the asylum process, and detention is used commonly before deportation. Many are refugees fleeing danger, torture, poverty and even death from countries such as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. They are held without charge, without time limit, without proper reasons given, and without proper access to legal representation. Deportation charter flights to countries such as Afghanistan have been repeatedly cancelled recently as a result of the spiralling security situation in the country, although ironically it is the safety of those carrying out the deportations that seems to be the concern, rather than that of the deportees.
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
open letter to Cllr Graham Jones
25.05.2012 23:14
We are emailing you to continue our dialogue from earlier.
A number of the things you said were quite inconsistent. You said you
leaned towards an open door system, but you also spoke approvingly of the
brutal and restrictive immigration system in this country, saying that it
granted refuge to many asylum seekers.
We want to be clear. We oppose all immigration controls; all borders. It
is physically and logically impossible to impose them, without inflicting
suffering on vulnerable people who have harmed no-one. In fact, these
controls are intended to inflict suffering; to be "tough"; to mollify
racist agitation and tabloid xenophobia: that is a matter of public
record! You cannot have your humanitarian cake, and ignore its racist
ingredients.
It is not for the system to grant people refuge or allow people to stay.
It is for people to move as they wish, stay as they wish and act in
solidarity with others to do the same, and to oppose the attempts of
others to restrict these freedoms. No Borders as a movement exists to
oppose immigration controls where they exist.
You referred to your friendship with Alan Armitage. If you want to be
loyal to your friend, that is your choice. But you don't get to do it and
have a clear conscience on the issue of asylum and immigration at the same
time - however many times you have visited Campsfield and however many
times you have been nice to individual asylum seekers. Your friend
recommends that people are deported. He plays an active role in deporting
people. We oppose all deportations, so he doesn't get a free pass by
arguing that he doesn't recommend deportation in every case.
You will find a copy of our press release here:
You are welcome to circulate this to your colleagues.
Yours,
One of Oxford No Borders
(Part of the international No Borders network)
Some of OxNB
Councillor Jones' reply
26.05.2012 09:36
I can't address you by name since you don't identify yourself. I also note that this is not a private conversation, since you have posted your letter on the Internet. I will follow your lead therefore.
I do not 'lean' towards an open door system, it's my ideal. How one gets there is another matter!
Firstly, please do not put words in my mouth. I have never spoken approvingly of any brutal system. I am proud of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, I am a supporter of Amnesty International, and I abhor all abuses of other human beings.
Now to the arguments. Systems do not operate independently of people, they are designed and operated by people.
Loyalty is a human virtue which is not a matter of choice. One speaks as one finds. I judge Alan Armitage to be a man of integrity and humanity, who lives out his belief in fairness and impartiality, and whose internationalism led him to forsake his former party for ours. The preamble to the constitution of the Liberal Democrat Party speaks of the protection of the individual from the state; that no one shall be enslaved.
I greatly regret the discontinuation of appointments of lay members to immigration and asylum tribunal panels, since they provide a leaven to procedures which are only as good as the people who operate them. I believe there are serious questions over the quality of some of the personnel charged with operating our current system, as well as questions over the system itself.
Finally, and this is why I'm afraid we're not going to agree on the substance, deportation is an issue which transcends immigration and asylum, and extends into other areas of the law, including crime. The privilege and challenge of your generation is to develop the burgeoning corpus of international law so that we come to have global citizenship to match our increasing (and for me, welcome) global governance. That must include the guarantee of fair trials under free judiciaries for all accused of breaking the law, in whatever jurisdiction. That is the best way to protect the rights of people facing deportation, from this country or any other, so that they face no greater risk than, say, a UK citizen arrested in Oxford and taken to stand trial in London.
Best wishes
Graham Jones
Graham Jones
Alan Armitage used to be a Tory
26.05.2012 17:12
Turns out he used to be a Tory, apparently:
researcher