Manchester Stop G4S Campaign invites you to join our demonstration
Join Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Women Asylum Seekers Together and Public Sector workers who face privatisation of their jobs.
April 17th is an international day for solidarity actions with Palestinian prisoners.
Our demonstration is in solidarity with all political prisoners, including refugees who have committed no crime held here in Britain . They have all suffered at the hands of the private security firms: G4S in Palestine and Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow airport; and SERCO at Yarl’s Wood Detention centre.
Manchester City Council has contacts with both G4S and SERCO
We are specifically targeting G4S for its complicity with the criminal practices of the Israeli state. Palestinians are illegally held, many without charge or trial, in Israeli jails where physical violence and torture is commonplace. G4S provides services to the Ketziot, Damon and Meggido prisons and the Jerusalem (Russian Compound) and Kishon (Jalameh) detention facilities
Palestinian Women Political Prisoners.
We will highlight the plight of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons and in particular Lena Jarboni, and specifically G4S complicity in their torture and suffering.
Currently there are 21 Palestinian women political prisoners in Israeli prisons. Most of them are in HaSharon prison in Israel . The British private security contractor G4S provides the full security system at HaSharon including the central command room for the entire prison. The transfer of Palestinian prisoners from the occupied West Bank and Gaza to into Israel (to HaSharon Prison) is illegal under international law and constitutes a war crime, G4S is complicit in this by the services it provides to HaSharon Prison.
Before being brought to prison the women have to endure weeks, sometimes months, of torture at one of Israel’s interrogation centres to extract confessions from them – usually the infamous ‘Russian Compound’ in Jerusalem or the notorious Al-Jalame torture den – both these facilities are also secured by G4S.
The occupation has again extended the detention of Palestinian prisoners lawyer Shireen Issawi (and her brothers Shadi and Medhat), she was arrested on 6th March 2014 and her next hearing is on 26th March. We are also campaigning for her (and her brothers) immediate and unconditional release.
Yarl’s Wood detention centre shames Britain
Hundreds of female asylum-seekers are housed in Yarl’s Wood. They have done nothing wrong, so why is the British state locking them up?
Women detainees and ex-detainees have been coming forward to speak out about the abuse they suffered and witnessed, and to demand redress. The racist and sexist regime, of legal, psychological and physical abuse which women frequently describe as mental torture at Yarl’s Wood, has been covered up for far too long. The women imprisoned in Yarl’s Wood are systematically set up for abuse by the fact that they are treated as liars, who must prove themselves truthful whilst being detained indefinitely.
By law the ‘burden of proof’ in the asylum & immigration system means they are guilty until proven innocent. The women in Yarl’s Wood have between them successfully escaped every kind of abuse and violence that women commonly face around the world – rape, sexual abuse, forced marriage, Female Genital Mutilation, trafficking, domestic violence, child abuse, anti-gay persecution. It is known that violence against women and girls is common worldwide. Yet their claims are routinely disbelieved, and their credibility attacked. Is it any surprise that they be targeted for sexual abuse by guards in detention? The sexual abuse and its cover-up that was publicly exposed by The Observer (14/09/13) are the inevitable products of this regime.
Harmondsworth Detention Centre.
Recently Nasser Al-Mosaawi a Kuwaiti Bedouin was beaten up by G4S guards in front of everyone in Heathrow airport, while trying to remove him.
Meanwhile four G4S guards are finally facing prosecution for the manslaughter of Jimmy Mubenga was unlawfully killed on a deportation flight to Angola while in the custody of G4S officers who held him down, impeding his breathing, and failed to offer resuscitation when he collapsed.
But G4S the company will not be charged. That is simply outrageous as the abuse of prisoners by G4S is systematic not simply a problem of rogue guards.
What Can We Do
Working together, we can make G4S a live issue in our dealings with Local Authorities, NHS employers and Commissioners, or anyone else involved in procurement. We cannot tolerate a regime in which Best Value means cheapest, anti-union, poor terms and conditions – and conflicts with union policies.
Getting rid of G4S will result in real solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners.