Cockles: white hot
You know, I think I just had my faith in human nature restored
The estate became home for hundreds of families escaping persecution and torture in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, Uganda and Congo. Most had their request for asylum in the UK turned down, and when the Home Office began coming to the estate at 5am to remove them, Donnachie and the rest of the residents looked on in horror. “It was like watching the Gestapo – men with armour, going in to flats with battering rams. I’ve never seen people living in fear like it,” says Donnachie. “I saw a man jump from two storeys up when they came for him and his family. I stood there and I cried, and I said to myself, ‘I am not going to stand by and watch this happen again.’”
She got together with her friend Noreen and organised the residents into daily dawn patrols, looking out for immigration vans. When the vans arrived, a phone system would swing in to action, warning asylum seekers to escape.
The whole estate pitched in, gathering in large crowds in the early-morning dark to jeer at immigration officials as they entered the tower blocks. On more than one occasion, the vans left the estate empty – the people they had come for had got out in time and were hidden by the crowd. The estate kept this up for two years until forced removals stopped.
But what happened on the Kingsway is not unique. Over the past few years there has been a growing resistance to the government’s attempts to deport failed asylum seekers. From Manchester, from Sheffield, from Belfast, from Bristol, the Home Office is being bombarded with requests from British people all over the country asking for asylum seekers to be given another chance.
(via Jamie)
Posted on June 15th, 2008 at 11:31am under Cockle warming
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• 3 Comments |
That is indeed a hear warming story, it is also harrowing, the part about men jumping out windows to escape (obviously demonstrating the legitimacy of their claims, i mean, who jumps out of a window if not to avoid certain death). Let’s just hope that the CPS doesn’t prosecute the other estate residents for aiding and abetting so-called «criminals».
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“Let’s just hope that the CPS doesn’t prosecute the other estate residents for aiding and abetting so-called «criminals».”
I suspect that will depend on which way the vote goes in an up and coming by-election. If Murdoch’s stooge wins we won’t be that many incremental steps away from being bar coded at birth.
That’s such a bittersweet article.
On the one hand, it’s a stark reminder of quite how grim life can be for Asylum seekers. But on the other it’s a reminder that people will look out for each other – even people that the white, educated, middle-class person inside us would associate xenophobic The Sun sound-bites. It’s good to be reminded of the creeping class condescension.
Loving the site btw,
Tom
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