Lebanon Campaign



Cambridge Stop the War collected 2000 names on a petition calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. Cambridge Stop the War handed the petition to David Howarth MP who signed the petition and agreed to arrange for representatives from Cambridge to deliver the petition to 10 Downing Street. The date set for this is the 18th of October.

Respect fully support the demands of the Stop the War coalition and are continuing our campaign for justice and the right to self determination for the Palestinian people.

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Respect for employees and detainees at Oakington


Amicus members staged a one day strike at Oakington Detention Centre near Cambridge on Tuesday 22nd August.

Amicus members, employed by the Refugee Legal Centre (RLC’s) to provide legal representation to asylum seekers detained at Oakington will be striking in protest at the RLC’s failure to abide by its Redundancy Policy.



95% of Amicus’ members at Oakington voted in favour of industrial action in a ballot conducted earlier this month after fourteen early redundancies were made in July without consultation with the union. Employees are also being redeployed from the site and up to twenty more face losing their jobs at the end of September.

Respect are concerned at the way staff have been treated and at the disregard for their rights as employees.

Amicus Regional Officer, Sarah Carpenter, said:

“There’s a real hypocrisy at work here. This is a human rights organisation that is abandoning agreed policies and sacrificing people when it suits them which is exactly what our members at Oakington seek to defend their clients from.”

Cambridge Respest have repeatedly stated concerns over the treatment of asylum seekers and the role of the centre. It is clear that conditions for both detainees and staff is worsening.

In June the Home Office decided to convert Oakington from a centre for fast tracking asylum claims into an ordinary detention centre. On Wednesday this week the Legal Services Commission decided that the contract for providing a legal service to those six asylum seekers per day after the end of September would be awarded to the Immigration Advisory Service, the other organisation on site at Oakington which provides a legal service to detained asylum seekers.

A picket was in place on Tuesday between 8.30 am and 10.30 am.

Amicus says the plans for Oakington fly in the face of the Home Offices immigration policy. The sites future as a detention centre is also uncertain but is likely to stay open until 2008 and perhaps up until 2011. Oakington Detention Centre was opened in 2000 in order to process asylum claims within a week.

The RLC, which is a national organisation, has a record of challenging Home Office decisions on Immigration. Last year the RLC won the Liberty award for defending Human Rights which is awarded by Liberty, Amnesty and the Law Society.

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DEMONSTRATION

DEMONSTRATION
UNCONDITIONAL CEASEFIRE NOW
JUSTICE FOR LEBANON AND GAZA
STOP BLAIR'S SUPPORT OF BUSH'S WARS

Join the protest
Cambridge Market Square
12.30pm Saturday 19th August

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Why we are with Galloway....



Why is every MP not calling for Isreal to get out of Lebanon?

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A different new agenda

These montages are of TV new programmes from around the middle east. They provide an interesting and important incite into the way in which this currant escalation of the US 'The war on Terror' is being reported in the region.

The first is particularly horrific, showing pictures that would illustrate to British news viewers a more balanced idea of events and the realities people are dealing with on a regular basis in Palestine.
It is important in understanding the roots and feeling of strength against the Israeli offensive in Gaza an Lebanon and the strategy of UK/US/Israeli which is to demonise, Invade and Occupy. The reports are about the massacre on Gaza Beach on the 9th June when Israeli gun boats opened fire on picnickers killing 7 and wounded over 30 other.


A reporter on the UAE channel Abu Dhabi TV said Israel was “ Taking advantage of the worlds occupation with the world cup and the failure to stop what is happening in the Palestinian territories.” I’ve forgotten who won the world cup but you wont forget his report.



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1661141234372301249&q=Gaza%2Bbeach%2Battack&time=40000
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-762486200276358768&q=MOSAIC+World+News+from+the+Middle+East+August+%2C+2006

letter to Evening News - August 2nd

Dear editor,

I am appalled with the British governments continuing complicity with the US foreign policy. The ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are counter productive and threaten ‘lasting global stability’. Further to New Labours refusal to withdraw the troops the British Government is now supporting a new war on a new front in Gaza and Lebanon, Tony Bair is also threatening Iran and Syria. It is a disgrace that our elected representatives, from local councillors to our MP, are not reflecting the mass of public opinion in condoning Blair’s chauvinism toward George Bush and US capitalism and his appetite for state terrorism. British political society must not turn the other cheek. Their failure to oust him for previous war crimes has led to his perpetual re offending. All of those who do not speak out against him must burden responsibility. Blair must go now!

Tom Woodcock
Cambridge RESPECT

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