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BID and Liberty call for an end to intrusive GPS monitoring

This has direct impact on time-served prisoners who are ‘released’ on immigration bail. QARN signed the letter:

14 June 2021: from BID and Liberty: Our letter, signed by 42 organisations, was covered in an article below in the Guardian

The most recent Home Office bail policy sets out its plan to transition from radio frequency
monitoring to GPS monitoring for people on immigration bail. Whereas radio frequency monitoring can verify whether a person is where they should be at a given time, GPS monitoring provides 24/7 real time location monitoring, tracking an individual’s every move: it tells you where someone has gone, where they have shopped, what GP’s practice they have been to, and much more. Those who are being monitored in this way do not know when the ordeal will end because there is no time limit for how long people will be tracked.

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Aspen cards and surveillance of people in the asylum system

Reports coming in from around the country about serious delays in the changeover of ‘Aspen’ card provider on 21 May 2021, leaving people destitute; see the Home Office ‘fix’ as an attachment below … but people are still without money for food two weeks later.

Updated 14 June 2021: Faith is still waiting … see the post below of 7 June 2021.

11 June 2021: Independent: Fifty Charities Urge Home Office to Act on ‘Crisis’ in Asylum Support Payments

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Concerns about the use of army barracks etc.

This post is being updated with reports of atrocities around the army camp accommodation, and other Home Office plans to accommodate people in new sites:

You can write to your MP in support of the #CloseTheBarracks campaign.

This post is being updated with reports of atrocities around the army camp accommodation, and other Home Office plans to accommodate people in new sites:

Updated 14 June 2021: Hansard: Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation, Volume 696: debated on Thursday 10 June 2021

Extracts: Chris Phelps: ‘The current arrangements on the site are due to run until September. No decision has been made beyond that, but I assure my hon. Friend that he will be closely engaged with at all stages as any further decision is taken.’

There are some deeply troubling aspects the this Hansard session, and also some excellent points made.

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Campaign against the multinational Mitie recruitment of workers in the new women-only detention facility, Hassockfield

Dear friends,

Abolish Detention, which is campaigning to prevent the opening of a detention centre in Hassockfield/Medomsley, is asking for support for a campaign against the multinational Mitie which is running adverts to recruit people to run its new women only detention prison near Durham. Mitie was condemned by the prison inspectorate in 2016 which said its immigration detention centres were “dirty”, “rundown” and “insanitary. It is one of  the UK’s biggest detention profiteers: it runs the two Heathrow detention centres and has a £525 million deportation “escorting” contract with an annual turnover of £2.2billion.

Please join the campaign and take action – see below for what you can do – thank you.

Global Women Against Deportations

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Artin Irannejad – Kurdish toddler washed up in Norway – UK hostile environment – no safe passage

7 June 2021: Widad Akreyi: Artin: The Drowned Kurdish Boy Found in Norway. He and his family fled oppression in Iran. Their journey ended when a crowded boat sank in the English Channel. But Artin disappeared in the waves. After 67 days his corpse was found in Karmøy, Norway. Our tragedies never end…

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Solidarity in the Hostile Environment: what can we do?

5 June 2021: Following our course on Understanding the Roots of the Immigration System, Woodbrooke and Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network hosted a day on 5th June: ‘Solidarity in the hostile environment: what can we do?’   https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/product/solidarity-in-the-hostile-environment-what-can-we-do/  We were joined by people with lived experience of the asylum system.

This is a summing up of the day. A report/ artwork representing the day will be available later:

This morning we listened to people who have direct experience of the hostile system:

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Refugee Week 2021: We cannot walk alone

If you have a Refugee Week event that you want us to mention below, please do contact us at info@qarn.org.uk.

From Refugee Week organisers: Theme of Refugee Week 2021: We Cannot Walk Alone

There is a moment in Martin Luther King’s historic ‘I have a dream’ speech when he turns his attention to the White people who, realising their destiny and that of their Black fellow citizens was intertwined, joined the movement for equal rights.

“They have come to realise that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom,” he said. “We cannot walk alone.”[…]

The theme of Refugee Week 2021, ‘We Cannot Walk Alone’, is an invitation to extend your hand to someone new. Someone who is outside your current circle, has had an experience you haven’t, or is fighting for a cause you aren’t yet involved in.

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The Walk: Hope. Too BIG to ignore.


Updated 14 June 2021: The Walk Education Programme

From July to November 2021 a giant puppet of a 9-year-old Syrian refugee girl called Little Amal will walk from the Syria-Turkey border, across Europe to the UK, travelling 8,000km to focus awareness on the refugee crisis.

Before, during and after her journey Little Amal will connect people from refugee and non-refugee communities through creative learning projects to help forge lasting bonds of friendship. The Walk‘s Education programme will be developed by, with and for each community, responding to local realities with a focus on bringing people together through projects that transcend borders, culture and language. Working with all age groups, we aspire to build a programme of workshops, performances and apprenticeships that celebrates migration and has the potential to empower what might otherwise be a lost generation of refugee children: https://www.walkwithamal.org/education/

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