| For Immediate Release Saturday 16 July 2022 PRESS RELEASE: Protests across Britain take place today, as Trades Union Congress (TUC), Care4Calais & Stand Up To Racism, Care4Calais, alongside 11 unions and other campaigns and refugee rights organisations back 19 July Twitterstorm (11am – 12 noon) and workplace day of action in #StopRwanda campaign to oppose Rwanda offshore detention as court heating is postponed Protests took place in towns and cities across Britain today, Saturday 16 July (pics HERE – can use and credit: Stand Up To Racicism) against the widely condemned government plans for offshore detention in Rwanda. The protests – with prominent support from Ricky Tomlinson as well as Mick Lynch the leader of the RMT and a whole host of trade unionists at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and the NEU executive – hit Nottingham, Coventry , Dudley, Cambridge, Norwich, Manchester, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Shrewesbury, Harlow, Tower Hamlets east London, Lewisham south east London, Stoke and elsewhere, called as part of the #StopRwanda campaign, launched by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Care4Calais and Stand Up To Racism, and backed by eleven trade unions including the PCS that has led in the legal challenge alongside Care4Calais, as well as a whole host of refugee rights organisations, campaigns and faith groups. This coalition of forces launching a #StopRwanda campaign at a meeting on 24 June had called a major protest at Royal Courts of Justice on 19 July, the planned date for a hearing in the legal case to determine whether the Rwanda policy is lawful. Earlier this week, the hearing was reconvened for new court hearing date, on or after 5 September. The planned protest is being organised for this date, when the case is back in court, and will take place from 9am onwards with a major rally 1pm to 2pm, Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London, WC2A 2LL Today’s day of local protests sees anti racists, trade unionists and refugee rights campaigners across Britain on the streets to demand that the plan to deport refugees to offshore detention in Rwanda is scrapped. Demands also include scrapping the government’s Nationality and Borders Act. The protests, as well as the online and workplace day of actionand Twitterstorm (11am – 12 noon) set to go ahead on 19 July, are also about letting those faced with being forced onto detention flights to Rwanda know that there is widespread opposition to the policy, that they have the solidarity of many across Britain, and that the fight will continue to stop the flights and send a message that all refugees are welcome. On Tuesday 19 July, the TUC, Care4Calais and Stand Up To Racism, backed by a coalition of unions and campaigns, are asking peopme to join an 11am -12 noon Twitterstorm, with workplace gatherings, and individuals, holding up posters for selfies and sharing your pictures on all social media platforms, especially Twitter, with #StopRwanda 👉🏿For a list if where local protests outside London are taking place today, Saturday 16 July – see www.facebook.com/StandUTR/events Clare Moseley, Care4Calais CEO, said “We know that many people oppose the shockingly brutal Rwanda plan and we are delighted to see so many of them making their voices heard today. “We have seen up close the human cost of locking people up and telling them they will be sent to Rwanda. From suicide attempts to hunger strikes it was harrowing. We now have six weeks to show the government that this cruel plan is not what the British public wants.” Mark Serwotka, PCS union general secretary, said “PCS is proud to support this legal challenge on behalf of our members in the Border Force. “It’s time for the government to show humanity to the people who come to our shores for refuge, and to start to engage seriously with sorting out the asylum system so refugees are treated fairly and according to the law.” Wilf Sullivan, TUC Race Equality Officer, said “Most people believe that we should offer refugee to those fleeing war and persecution. “But the government’s Rwanda plan tears up the promise that this country made after the Second World War to give protection to those fleeing oppression. “The national day of action is an opportunity for us to stand up against this policy and say not in our name.” Weyman Bennett, co convenor Stand Up To Racism, said “Johnson, Patel and the government – and we know that every candidate in the Tory leadership race supports the heinous Rwanda detention policy – is hellbent, despite the incredible growth of an anti racist movement in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and opposition to racism, to intensify their racist hostile environment for refugees and migrants and make people in the most desperate situations seeking safety into the scapegoats for a crisis and attacks on living standards that they did nothing to cause.” “The PCS and Care4Calais did brilliantly in their joint legal challenge against Priti Patel’s horrifying ‘pushbacks’ in the Channel that would undoubtedly lead to more needless deaths. “Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Act that threatens the citizenship of some 6 million people in Britain. The act’s assertion of a two tier system that defines anyone arriving via ‘illegal’ routes, which is the vast majority, as undeserving refugees and removes their right to asylum, represents a step change and full scale assault. As many charities and organisations have pointed out, it is in breach of international human rights law. “That’s why Stand Up To Racism is joining PCS, Care4Calais and all anti racist and human rights motivated opposition in challenging the unthinkabley cruel, callous and deeply ideological plans for offshore detention in Rwanda, and why we are intensifying our fight and organising the wider anti racist movement across Britain to scrap the Nationality and Borders Act. “One year one from the magnificent mass action in Pollokshields, Kenmure Street, we have seen similar mass actions in Edinburgh, Hackney and now Peckham. Through mass protest and the legal challenge by Care4Calais and PCS union, pressure has been built that has seen the first flight stopped. Amidst continuing protest, a mounting campaign, and a government in a state of internal collapse weighted by scandal after scandal, we see the court hearing planned for 19 July to decide whether the Rwanda plan is lawful had been kicked down the road till 5 September or after. “We must keep up the pressure, we can stop offshore detention to Rwanda, and make the Nationality and Borders Act unworkable, but it will mean a mass campaign, it will mean escalating protests, and it is vital that the trade unions take this fight into workplaces everywhere and onto the streets. We are organising to prepare in every area for this kind of response to the Home Office and its attacks on out neighbours.” For more information, interviews and further quotes: info@standuptoracism.org.uk |
