Act & Resist

New Internationalist, Oct, 2002

1 STOP DEPORTATIONS

'It only takes one passenger to refuse to be seated to stop a deportation happening. Stand up against deportations.' Campaigns like this are taking place in Australia, Britain and other European countries. Protesters in the Netherlands favour more extreme methods -- such as sitting on top of the plane to stop it taking off (see picture). Generally, passengers are urged to inquire about deportation policy when booking tickets and to boycott lines that help deport. Some lines, such as Virgin, have an anti-deportation policy. Lobbying of airline personnel -- from baggage handlers to pilots -- can also work. Deportees have even foiled deporting authorities -- and caused no small degree of embarrassment -- by stripping naked as a desperate last measure. A combination of direct action, local campaigns for specific individuals or families and more conventional legal appeal processes mean that thousands of deportations are prevented each year.

Links and contacts:

General: www.deportation-alliance.com

Australia: xborder on www.antimedianet/xborder/;> Web: www.rac-vic.org

Refugee Action Collective: Tel:(0)3 9659 3505

Britain: National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

Tel: (0161) 740 5197.

Web: www.ncadc.org.uk

Canada: Le Comite d'action des sansstatut.

Tel: (514) 996-2597

E-mail: cassdz@hotmail.com

2 CLOSE DETENTION CENTRES

Some of the most daring actions against the detention of refugees -- often imprisoned for years -- have taken place at Woomera, Australia. Protesters Cut through the fences and razor wire in a dramatic break-out of detainees in March 2002. Detainees have held powerful protests -- even sewing up their lips to express their despair at being detained indefinitely. Repeated actions have resulted in the escape of asylum seekers. In Britain a nine-year campaign to close Campsfield detention centre bore fruit this year with the announcement that the centre would close in 2003. But other larger detention centres are to be opened. In the US too there are official plans to build a series of privately run prisons for 'undocumented aliens' in Arizona.

Links and contacts:

Aotearoa/NZ: Human Rights foundation

Aotearoa New Zealand.

Email: humanrightsfoundation@xtra.co.nz.

Web: www.humanrights.co.nz

Australia: No-One is Illegal.

Email: nooneisillegal@netscape.net.au

Tel: (0)418 140 387

www.antimedia.net/nooneisillegal

Britain: Barbed Wire Britain at www.barbedwirebritain.org.uk

Canada: Inter-Church Committee for Refugees.

Tel: (416) 921-9967

US: Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants.

Email: iccr@web.net

Tel: (212) 254-2591.

Email: chri@itapnet.org

Web: www.itapnet.org/chri

3 SANCTUARY AND DEFENCE

Escaping persecution or poverty is itself a dangerous business for refugees. They may encounter considerable risks -- from the elements, from violence at the hands of border patrols or anti-immigration vigilantes or abandonment by people smugglers. Thousands die each year. On the Mexican-US border alone, about 2,000 undocumented immigrants have died from drowning, dehydration, accidents or attacks since 1995 -- and the number of fatalities is increasing every year. In a bid to save lives, water tanks have been erected by the Sanctuary Movement in Arizona, on both sides of the border with Sonora, Mexico. The tanks are placed near the desert tracks where, in summer, temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees Farenheit (40 degrees Celsius). Local churches have played a prominent role in the Sanctuary Movement for many years; the Catholic diocese spans the border.

Links and contacts:

Aotearoa/NZ: Refugees as Survivors (RAS) Centres Auckland.

Tel: (09) 270 0870

Fax: (09) 270 056.

Email:auckrascentre@xtra.co.nz

Australia: The Professional Alliance for the Health of Asylum Seekers and their Children

www.racp.edu.au/hpu/policy/asylumseekers/alliance.htm

Tel: (02) 9256 9600.

Britain: Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers.

Tel: 07941 566163.

Email info@defend-asylum.org

Web: www.defend-asylum.org

Canada: Canadian Friends Service Committee.

Tel: (416) 920-5213

Email: cfsc.office@quaker.ca

US: Sanctuary Movement.

Web: www.humaneborders.org

4 NO BORDER!

From Mexico to Poland to Australia, the No Border Movement in growing worldwide. The actions usually take place on international frontiers or at detention centres and involve setting up camps of hundreds or thousands of activists. This year there have been camps in Strasbourg in France, Jena in Germany, Wizajny in Poland, Imatra in Finland, and Woomera in Australia. Demonstrations against tightening border controls took place in Montreal -- where 1,000 Algerians were threatened with deportation due to new rules -- London and many other major cities. The main demand of the No Border movement is recognition of the human right to freedom of movement.

Links and contacts:

General: No Border Network.

Web: www.noborder.org

5 TACTICAL ART & MEDIA TOOLS

Using art and media, refugees and activists are challenging hostile and inaccurate portrayals of refugees with eye-opening events and representations. In Australia tactical media activists, in an exhibition called Borderpanic, projected a galleon on to Sydney Opera House to underline the message that (bar Aboriginal people) 'We are all boat people'. In Europe, movements like the francophone Sans Papiers or The Voice in Germany are refugee-run and control expression of their own issues. In Britain PhotoVoice gives refugee groups training in journalism and documentary photography. Their work includes working with Bhutanese youngsters living in refugee camps in the Eastern lowlands of Nepal as well as unaccompanied teenage refugees in East London. The aim is to shift the media bias, train potential refugee journalists and to syndicate their work. Some journalists are also working within the mainstream media to raise awareness and combat scapegoating. PressWise is a media ethics charity which has posted a worldwi de, country by country, code of journalistic ethics. Meanwhile refugees from Exiled Writers Ink are using the Internet to disseminate their work.