Tagging Asylum Seekers

sufi

lala
did you know that ALL new asylum seekers to the UK are now being fitted with electronic tags, so they are efectively under curfew (unless they can prove medical condition or being a torture victim) this scheme was pilotted over the last few months and is rolled out NOW.
The immigration system has been on a mission of degrading and humiliating refugees for so many years now with the results that refugees are arbitrarily detained, dehumanised , in atrocious conditions in legal limbo not to mention of course dying in thousands on the borders of prosperous countries all over the world...

this government of course congratulates itself on reducing numbers of asylum applications whilst attacking the geneva convention from all sides, :mad:
do we give a fuck? even if not for their sake, in context of our own rights we should pay attention to treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, who've already been subjected to compulsory ID cards by this government; where their rights go, ours follow :(
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It seems as though years of negative press and scare stories aimed at Middle England have totally shifted the debate about asylum seekers so that the only vote winning aim is to decrease the number of foreigners entering the country. Despite evidence to the contrary and the skills shortage people believe that we're being swamped by people of the "wrong" colour and "wrong" culture. It does my head in when I go home and hear my Gran (in all other ways completely lovely) saying some of the stuff she does when the news is on.
You're totally right about "where there rights go ours follow" as well.
 

ripley

Well-known member
sufi said:
did you know that ALL new asylum seekers to the UK are now being fitted with electronic tags, so they are efectively under curfew (unless they can prove medical condition or being a torture victim) this scheme was pilotted over the last few months and is rolled out NOW.

That's freaking nuts. So degrading. When I read the title I thought it was an exaggeration or something. These are tags that broadcast? good god. Talk about dehumanizing. Why not make them wear a big yellow "A" and ring a bell wherever they go?

(and yeah, I know I'm speaking from the US and from Boalt Hall Law School, home of John Yoo. I feel like spitting when I see him. If I'm stuck in an elevator with him I'm going to have to ask him what the f*ck's his problem.)

And so many folks need asylum right now.. the outbreak of gay-killing across the world and especially in the middle East (and the UK refusing them asylum despite religious law MANDATING the murdering of gay people).. to boast about reducing numbers, blech!
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
There was an article on the killer combo of foreigners (including asylum seekers obviously) and ID-cards (with the passive tags called RFIDS) in the Grauniad last week.
It was extremely obscurely worded (like the author was afraid of putting the whole picture together in clear text).

Basically the idea is to get public support for tagging and giving asylum seekers ID-cards first (no problem when you have the redtops on the case), then for the ID-cards to be rolled out to the British public (no problemo - the powers that be are waiting for "the perfect terrorist attack" - ie an attack which kills just enough people to get everyone really scared, but small enough so not hundreds of people are killed (in which case Iraq might come back on the agenda again).

Once you have all this in place you can make progress on tagging us Europeans who are here in the UK as well. All bases covered - if you don't have a trackable ID-card you are "non-citizen" and can be arrested on the spot.

It will be then be a case of forcing you to carry the ID-cards at ALL times wherever you go. And if you obstruct you must be doing something wrong and it will simply be a case of making it an arrestable offence to not carry one (with penalties less than two years so it can be passed without the troubles of Parliament&the House of Lords). With Labour-Stasis we are looking on between five to ten years time. And the population will be ready for it - the kids are already being trained - fingerprinting in schools and free Oyster cards.

There's a thread somewhere else on voting Tory or not. Well if I could vote in UK elections I would seriously consider it. The Tories have promised to scrap ID cards in 2010.
 
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don_quixote

Trent End
i understand what youre saying ness, but won't there be too much of a revolt if that happens? i can easily see those against the scheme boycotting it in protest and if 5-10% of the population are breaking the law what kind of law is it?

furthermore the tories propose to detain all asylum seekers, although i guess this is only detaining asylum seekers and pretending they have freedom
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
I see no revolt? Apart from a couple of journalists and from
organisations like Liberty and sites like The Register.

Apart from that - the sleeping arrangements of your
foreign minister seems to make bigger headlines.

Latest in BigBrother creeping in on us
- CCTV in classrooms (register)
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
don_quixote said:
5-10% of the population are breaking the law what kind of law is it?

cf speeding, tax evasion, underage drinking, drug use, sex amongst teenagers ... I'm pretty sure more than 5% of the population breaks one of those laws every week, yet they're in place and plenty of people get charged under them. I don't think disobedience is the answer to getting a law overturned.

Ness' worries are well founded - I share many of them, and that's why I want to vote Labour out by what ever means, but look at the reluctance there is to vote Tory round here. There'll be no revolt.
 
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ripley

Well-known member
Rambler said:
I don't think disobedience is the answer to getting a law overturned.

depends on the law, doesn't it?

many of the laws that are broken every day have to do with cultural or physical-psychological/identity-based practices - intellectual property law is broken all the time because most people don't really think of ideas or music as property (often including those who technically 'own' it), and those laws sometimes change in relation to people's real needs. I don't think this is necessariliy a bad thing.

Or what about anti-sodomy laws.. or to go farther back, in the US at least, taking that attitude in re: the civil rights movement we wouldn't have gotten very far. Sometimes disobedience is the only way to get a law overturned.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
Alright, fair enough. But mass disobedience is, at least, at its most effective when it's big, it's visible, and it's going to draw news reports. Not carrying your ID card doesn't seem like that kind of protest to me.

In any case there couldn't be a wider gulf than the hopelessly apathetic British public and the 1950s civil right movement. :(
 

corneilius

Well-known member
According to The Power Inquiry http://www.powerinquiry.org the 'apathy' of the UK citizen is an illusion, a smokescreen if you will.

They say this because there are 20 million adults who are involved in actions ranging from emailing MPs, to visiting prisons, to community volunteering, to protest atcivism and lobbying. That's 20 million people who each week give some of their time to the community.

In the report they say that many people in the UK are definitely interested in having a say in politics, in governance, yet because they feel that the current set-up deprives them of a voice, they don't bother ... elections are not enough, we need a constant input from local community levels, right through to government, a decision making process that is meaningful for people at the local level.

The Power Inquiry makes some excellent suggestions as to how that say can be achieved.

They also note that the only people to object to thier proposals are party politicians.....
 

corneilius

Well-known member
tagging

Just to note that I totally disagree with tagging asylum seekers, as described above. It is dehumanizing, and it is the beginning of a process that will dehumanize us all. These kinds of processes have been engaged many times in our sad history. It was not much fun being Irish in London in 1979.

I like the suggestion that we might pre-empt it and all wear yellow triangles ..... there's a great song by christy moore called "yellow triangle" ... that warns of this type of dehumanizing behaviour.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
thanks for posting that Sufi, powerful stuff.

has anyone seen the front cover of the Daily Express today?

the usual from them, alas.
 

corneilius

Well-known member
Tag The politicians!

I have a suggestion!

We must ask that all public servants be tagged, so we can monitor rheir movements, and they should also be fitted with a video/sound lapel cam/mic whilst they are on duty - all of them, from the Prime Minister down to the local councillors.

After all thay are supposed to be working for us, and they surely would have nothing to hide!!? And we have a right to know what thay are doing on our behalf, with our money, on our payroll. While they are 'on duty' of course.

I mean nobody wants to see a 'big brother TV style' version of their private lives, just what they get up to while at work ... and if they can do the same to us it makes the whole thing transparent. There are no technological impediments to this. And I can't think of a decent excuse, one that would counter the argument for the need for transparent government, given what goes on - corporate lobbying, peerages for cash, etc., etc.

The tech could be set up so that when anyone wearing it went to the loo, etc., or was on a break, the cams would switch off! Thus protecting their genuine privacy.

We could promote it as a massive citizen based campaign for transparent government, with the data available to joe public, for a small fee, to cover the cost to joe public. heh he he heh.

Any suggestion for the title?
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
well at finally the left/centre papers are catching on -
both the Indie and The Guardian have been running longer
pieces on civil liberties in the last couple of weeks (Observer
email conversation with Blair yesterday, front page of the Indie today).

Now all that's needed is for the red tops to catch on that we are all
going to get tagged like cattle for 24x7 monitoring by the RFIDs that will be fitted on the ID-cards (Wired) and monitored by an ill-specified and overexpensive system that will likely fail (Register) (just like those NHS computers). Hopefully then the whole thing can be scrapped (or at least the IDea of tagging every citizen).
 

sufi

lala
http://www.noplaceforachild.org/

campaign against the detention of 2000 kids under immigration law each year,
which happens in an arbitrary and indefinite way without similar rights of habeas corpus to detention for those in remand or convicted, often as a result of decisions of junior or admin immigration staff :mad:
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
VeriChip thinking of RFID-tagging US "migrant workers" (The Register).

VeriChip chairman Scott Silverman's appearance on American TV this week has raised fears of the introduction of RFID technology.

According to RNIF, he "bandied about the idea of chipping foreigners on national television Tuesday".

RINF said Silverman appeared to be emboldened by the Bush Administration call to know "who is in our country and why they are here".

With the recent Home Office troubles here in the UK I guess that if VeriChip were to make
a call to No 10 they would find listening ears.
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
In "UK marching towards the new North Korea" (we are watching) -

The head of the London Met wants to take DNA from all newborn babies (and all the deceased).

One of Britain's top police officers has called for DNA to be taken from babies.

Commander Dave Johnston said this would build up a database to solve crimes and prevent others from happening.

Despite growing fears that the authorities are increasingly intruding on British citizens, he said samples could also be taken from Britons renewing passports and from migrants arriving here.

Mr Johnston's comments come just weeks after Prime Minister Tony Blair said he could not see any reason why everyone in Britain should not be on the DNA database.

Mr Blair said there should be "no limit" to the number on a database, suggesting that even those not accused of any offence should volunteer their genetic data.

Opposition MPs and civil rights groups have previously accused the Prime Minister of a "sinister" attempt to turn every citizen into a suspect.

They should certainly take Mr Johnston's DNA. They might find the "idiot gene". It seems like he wants a "debate", since there are "lots of issues around this , including human rights issues. That's the debate I want."

That's not what he wants. He wants a 24x7 fully monitored society, where we are checked&monitored from birth to when we become stiffs. Kim Jung-Il would have been proud of you Dave.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
yeah he was on the radio last night - plus this weekend we get some minister saying that we should take the passports of and electronically tag people who do not pay child benefit. oh man oh man.
 
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