Campaign against detention of children
The UK Border Agency's new Welcome Centre may well be an improvement on what went before (Carols to celebrate South London Citizens welcome to refugees, By Ellen Teague, Monday, December 21, 2009).
Nevertheless, we should save our congratulations to the UK Border Agency, which this Christmas, as it does all year round, is holding children against their will in conditions proven to damage their health and sanity, with help from commercial contractors Serco and G4S (shares a solid buy for these uncertain times according to the Daily Telegraph.)
These children and babies have committed no crime. Their parents have only exercised their legal right to claim asylum.
The government pursues its punitive policy of dawn raids and detention even though, as the UK Border Agency's Dave Wood let slip in evidence to a parliamentary committee lately, absconding is not our biggest issue. It does happen but it is not terribly easy for a family unit to abscond. (Source: Hansard)
Seven friends working pro-bono on the END CHILD DETENTION NOW campaign urge people who mind about this to sign the on-line petition at number10, calling upon the government to stop the forcible arrest and detention of these children and their parents.
petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoChildDetention
There's a petition just for doctors at gopetition:
gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-administrative-detention-of-children-and-families.html
More than one hundred leading writers and illustrators, including Andrea Levy, Quentin Blake, Nick Hornby, Jacqueline Wilson, Benjamin Zephaniah, Kamila Shamsie, Ian Rankin, Carol Ann Duffy, Philip Pullman, Julia Donaldson, Beverley Naidoo, have called upon Gordon Brown to stop detaining children.
We call upon all Catholics to protest against the detention of asylum seeking children and their parents. Thereąs more about our campaign at ecdn.org.
Thank you!
Yours,
Clare Sambrook
Co-ordinator, End Child Detention Now