Institute of Race Relations

Joint declaration: Commemoration of the 24 November 2021 shipwreck

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Two years after the shipwreck of 24 November 2021, as injustice and deaths at the border continue, we stand together to call for a world free from border violence.

On 24 November 2021, at least 33 people in a dinghy tried to reach the United Kingdom from the coast of Dunkirk. The 33 people came mainly from Iraqi Kurdistan, but also from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt, Somalia, and Vietnam.

Three hours into the Channel crossing, the boat found itself in distress. At 1:48 am, passengers managed to make contact with the Gris-Nez Regional Monitoring and Rescue Centre (“CROSS”), which coordinates rescue operations on the French side of the border. Although the boat was located in French territorial waters, the CROSS refused to send help.

Despite repeated calls from various people on board, between 1:48am and 4:34am, neither British rescue services, nor French rescue services launched any operation to rescue them. Worse still, at 4.16am, the CROSS even went so far as to dissuade a tanker from intervening to rescue the people who were drowning. It was only 12 hours later that the inflatable boat was found by a fishing boat. At least 27 people died that night in the icy waters of the English Channel.

A few days after the shipwreck, two survivors testified about how the rescue services had abandoned them at sea with impunity. In November 2022, Le Monde revealed the content of the unbearable exchanges between the shipwreck victims and the CROSS. The shipwrecked passengers were treated with cynicism and international laws governing rescue at sea were disregarded. A few weeks after the shipwreck, the organisation Utopia 56, with relatives of people who died, filed a complaint against French authorities for “involuntary manslaughter” and “failure to render assistance”. The nine military personnel from CROSS Gris-Nez and a French patrol boat interviewed as part of the judicial enquiry took responsibility for all the decisions taken on that terrible night, but do not believe they were at fault. Although the French government had promised an internal enquiry following the revelations in Le Monde, it never took place. On the contrary, the defendants have the support of their superiors, who tried to interfere in the judicial investigation, as revealed by telephone taps. An investigation for breach of confidentiality has been opened.

A report published this month by the UK Department for Transport identified failings that led to the dinghy not being rescued by HM Coastguard that night: poor visibility, lack of aerial surveillance, and a lack of staff in the control room in Dover to process SOS calls… The legal team representing one of the victim’s families described the events as an “overall display of chaos”. The British government also announced an independent inquiry into the shipwreck, after the report was published. However, the report fails to explain why over 30 people were left in distress for 12 hours, while the Coastguard rescued other boats that night, nor why migrants have no other choice but to risk their lives at sea, when every other safe route to the UK is blocked to them.

Again and again, political and military authorities refuse to take responsibility for their role in this shipwreck and are attempting to cover it up.

Since 1999, at least 385 people have died trying to reach the UK. Hit by vehicles on the motorway, electrocuted by a live wire on the Eurotunnel site, asphyxiated in the trailers of lorries in Essex in England, died by suicide, drowned in the canal whilst trying to bathe, died due to poor living conditions in the camps, and drowned in the Channel.

In recent years, the frequency of deaths at the border has only accelerated. Since 24 November 2021, at least 45 migrants have died at this border. The deaths continue to pile up and nothing changes. On the contrary, the French, Belgian and British authorities are stubbornly pursuing their racist and security-focused immigration approaches to make this border area ever more hostile for migrants.

In France, the new asylum-immigration bill heralds an even more anti-migrant turn by the Macron government. On the northern coast this month, migrants’ rights organisations denounced a “catastrophic situation” for people exiled, who are not receiving shelter during storm Ciaran and the cold, nor access to water or food distributions – while police eviction operations continue. In Belgium, the government continues to deny decent accommodation to people seeking safety, leaving families and children on the streets, despite multiple convictions in court. Furthermore, since 2021, Belgium has been supporting Frontex’s Opal Coast aerial surveillance operation, whose mission is to assist the French and Belgian authorities in detecting and intercepting exiles attempting to cross the Channel to the United Kingdom. On the British side, the government has successively passed increasingly repressive measures against migrants, including a plan to deport people to Rwanda ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, and a ban on asylum for people arriving in the UK “irregularly”. Lastly, at the last Franco-British summit on 10 March 2023, the UK announced the release of £476 million (543 million euros) over 3 years for the deployment of 500 additional officers, the purchase of new surveillance equipment and drones, helicopters and aircraft, and the opening of a new detention centre in northern France.

The French, Belgian and British authorities have turned the shared border into a place of death. By refusing to welcome people and by militarising this border with an excessive number of repressive measures (kilometres of barriers, barbed wire, drones, multiple police patrols, Frontex aircraft), they are politically responsible for every single one of these deaths. We know that the increasing militarisation of the border does not stop people taking journeys, but simply makes these journeys more dangerous and life-threatening.

We, Belgian, British, and French organisations, collectives, and activists, support the actions taken by victims’ relatives and families before the courts, to ensure that the truth on exactly what happened on that murderous night is exposed, and justice is achieved.

From Dunkirk to Folkestone and from London to Zeebrugge, we stand together to call for an urgent and radical change in the policies pursued at this and other European borders. The rights of migrants must be fully respected and the values and principles of welcome and free movement must replace the racist logic of deadly border violence. We stand in solidarity with all those displaced. They should not face the further trauma of militarised and violent borders when they seek safety in Belgium, France or the UK.

As long as the Belgian, British, and French governments continue to coordinate simultaneous violence at the shared border and as long as people need and desire to move across borders, our solidarity and work must continue to reach beyond borders. We will continue to work together in solidarity with people on the move, to ensure that their rights are respected – starting with their right to life – and that justice is done when these rights are violated.

–-

Deux ans après le naufrage du 24 novembre 2021, alors que l’injustice et les décès aux frontières se poursuivent, nous sommes uni·e·s pour appeler à un monde sans violence aux frontières.

Le 24 novembre 2021, au moins 33 personnes embarquées à bord d’un zodiac ont tenté de rejoindre le Royaume-Uni, en partant des côtes Dunkerquoises. Ces 33 personnes venaient majoritairement du Kurdistan irakien, mais aussi d’Afghanistan, d’Éthiopie, d’Iran, d’Égypte, de Somalie et du Vietnam.

Trois heures après le début de la traversée dans la Manche, l’embarcation s’est trouvée en situation de détresse. A 1h48 du matin, les passager·ère·s ont réussi à prendre contact avec le Centre régional opérationnel de surveillance et de sauvetage (CROSS) Gris-Nez, qui coordonne les opérations de secours côté français. Alors que l’embarcation est localisée dans les eaux territoriales françaises, le CROSS refuse d’envoyer des secours.

Malgré des appels répétés de la part de différent·e·s naufragé·e·s, entre 1h48 et 4h34 du matin, ni les secours britanniques, ni les secours français ne lanceront d’opération de secours. Pire, à 4h16 du matin, le CROSS ira même jusqu’à dissuader un tanker d’intervenir pour secourir les personnes en train de se noyer. Ce n’est que 12 heures après, que l’embarcation pneumatique est retrouvée par un bateau de pêche. Au moins 27 personnes sont mortes cette nuit-là dans les eaux glacées de la Manche.

Quelques jours après le naufrage, deux rescapés témoignent de la manière dont les secours les avaient impunément abandonnés en pleine mer. En novembre 2022, Le Monde a révélé la teneur des échanges – insoutenables – entre les naufragé·es et le CROSS. Les naufragé·es ont été traité·es avec cynisme et les lois internationales qui régissent le sauvetage en mer ont été bafouées. Quelques semaines après le naufrage, l’association Utopia 56 a déposé plainte aux côtés de membres des familles de personnes décédées, contre les autorités françaises pour « homicide involontaire » et « omission de porter secours ». Les neuf militaires du CROSS Gris-Nez et d’un patrouilleur français auditionnés dans le cadre de cette enquête judiciaire, ont assumé toutes les décisions prises lors de cette terrible nuit, mais n’estiment pas avoir commis de faute. Alors que le gouvernement français avait promis une enquête interne, suite aux révélations du journal Le Monde, celle-ci n’a jamais eu lieu. Les prévenus bénéficient au contraire du soutien de leur hiérarchie, laquelle a tenté d’interférer dans l’enquête judiciaire comme le révèlent des écoutes téléphoniques. Une enquête pour violation du secret de l’instruction est ouverte.

Un rapport publié ce mois-ci par le Ministère des Transports britannique a identifié les défaillances qui ont empêché les garde-côtes britanniques de secourir l’embarcation cette nuit-là : mauvaise visibilité, absence de surveillance aérienne et manque de personnel dans la salle de contrôle de Douvres pour traiter les appels d’urgences… L’équipe juridique représentant l’une des familles de la victime a qualifié les événements de “chaos général”. Le gouvernement britannique a également annoncé l’ouverture d’une enquête indépendante sur le naufrage, après la publication du rapport. Toutefois, le rapport n’explique pas pourquoi plus de 30 personnes ont été laissées en détresse pendant 12 heures, alors que les garde-côtes ont secouru d’autres bateaux cette nuit-là, ni pourquoi les personnes exilées n’ont d’autre choix que de risquer leur vie en mer, alors que toutes les autres routes sûres vers le Royaume-Uni leur sont interdites.

Encore et encore, les autorités politiques et militaires réfutent la responsabilité qui leur incombe dans ce naufrage et s’efforcent d’étouffer l’affaire.

Depuis 1999, au moins 385 personnes sont décédées en tentant de rejoindre le Royaume-Uni. Mortes percutées par un véhicule sur l’autoroute, électrocutées par un caténaire sur le site Eurotunnel, asphyxiées dans la remorque d’un poids-lourd dans l’Essex en Angleterre, mortes par suicide, noyées dans le canal en tentant de se laver, décédées suite aux mauvaises conditions de vie sur les campements, et noyées dans la Manche.

La fréquence des morts à cette frontière ne fait que s’accélérer ces dernières années. Depuis le 24 novembre 2021, ce ne sont pas moins de 45 nouvelles victimes qui ont été recensées. Les mort·e·s continuent de s’accumuler et rien ne change. Au contraire, les autorités françaises, belges, et britanniques s’entêtent dans leur logique raciste et sécuritaire en créant un environnement toujours plus hostile aux personnes exilées.

En France, le nouveau projet de loi asile-immmigration annonce un tournant encore plus anti-migrant du gouvernement Macron. Sur le littoral nord, ce mois-ci, des associations ont dénoncé une “situation catastrophique” pour les personnes exilées qui ne bénéficient ni d’une mise à l’abri malgré le froid et la tempête Ciaran, ni d’accès à l’eau ou aux distributions alimentaires – alors que les opérations policières d’expulsion continuent. En Belgique, le gouvernement continue de nier le droit d’accueil aux personnes exilées, laissant familles et enfants à la rue, malgré plusieurs condamnations par la justice. De plus, depuis 2021, la Belgique soutient l’opération Opal Coast de surveillance aérienne de Frontex dont la mission est d’assister les autorités françaises et belges pour détecter et intercepter les personnes exilées qui tentent de traverser la Manche pour rejoindre le Royaume-Uni. Du côté britannique, le gouvernement déploie successivement des mesures de plus en plus répressives contre les personnes exilées, y compris un plan d’expulsion vers le Rwanda jugé illégal par la Cour suprême et l’interdiction de demander l’asile aux personnes arrivant de manière “irrégulière” au Royaume-Uni. Enfin, à l’occasion du dernier sommet franco-britannique du 10 mars 2023, le Royaume-Uni a annoncé le déblocage de 543 millions d’euros (£476 millions) sur 3 ans destinés au déploiement de 500 officiers supplémentaires, à l’achat de nouveaux équipements de surveillance et de drones, d’hélicoptères et d’aéronefs, ainsi qu’à l’ouverture d’un nouveau centre de rétention dans le nord de la France.

Les autorités françaises, belges, et britanniques ont fait de cette frontière un espace de mort. En refusant d’accueillir les personnes exilées et en militarisant cette frontière, via une surenchère de dispositifs de répression (kilomètres de barrières, barbelés, drones, multiples patrouilles de police, avion Frontex), elles sont responsables politiquement depuis des décennies de chaque mort. Nous savons que la militarisation accrue des frontières n’empêche pas les personnes de voyager, mais rend simplement ces voyages plus dangereux et mortels.

Nous, associations, collectifs, et militant·e·s belges, britanniques, et français·es, nous soutenons les actions menées par les proches et familles des victimes devant les tribunaux afin que la vérité éclate sur le déroulement exact de cette nuit meurtrière et que justice soit faite.

De Dunkerque à Folkestone et de Londres à Zeebrugge, nous réclamons un changement urgent et radical quant aux politiques menées à cette frontière, ainsi qu’aux autres frontières européennes, afin que les droits des personnes en migration soient pleinement respectés et que les valeurs et principes de l’accueil et de la libre circulation remplacent la logique raciste de violences mortifères aux frontières. Nous sommes solidaires de toutes les personnes exilées. Elles ne devraient pas être confrontées au traumatisme supplémentaire de frontières militarisées et violentes lorsqu’elles cherchent la sécurité en Belgique, en France ou au Royaume-Uni.

Tant que les gouvernements belge, britannique, et français continueront à coordonner des violences simultanées à la frontière commune et tant que les gens auront le besoin et le désir de traverser les frontières, notre solidarité et notre travail devront continuer à aller au-delà des frontières. Nous continuerons notre travail commun en solidarité avec les personnes exilées, pour le respect de leurs droits – à commencer par leur droit à la vie – et pour que justice soit rendue lorsque ces droits sont bafoués.

Signatories / signataires:

African Rainbow Family, United Kingdom

After Exploitation, United Kingdom

Alice Thiery, New Calledonia

All African Women’s Group, London, England

Amira Elwakil, United Kingdom

ARACEM, Mali

BARAC UK, United Kingdom

Big Leaf Foundation, United Kingdom

Birmingham City of Sanctuary, United Kingdom

Birmingham Community Hosting Network (BIRCH), United Kingdom

Birmingham Schools of Sanctuary, United Kingdom

Calais Food Collective, France

Cambridge Convoy Refugee Action Group, United Kingdom

Camille Louis, France et Grèce

Captain Support UK, United Kingdom

Care4Calais, United Kingdom

Charles Stone, Oxford, England

Chenu Elisabeth, France

Choose Love, United Kingdom

CIRÉ, Belgium

CNCD-11.11.11, Belgium

Damien CAREME, France

Drag Down the Borders, United Kingdom

Eleanor Glynn, United Kingdom

Fabienne Augié, France

Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), United Kingdom

Freedom from Torture, United Kingdom

GISTI (Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigré⋅es), France

Giulia Teufel, Scotland

Global Women Against Deportations, London, England

Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU), United Kingdom

Groupe montois de soutien aux sans-papiers, Mons, Belgium

Haringey Welcome, United Kingdom

Here for Good, United Kingdom

Human Rights Observers (HRO), Calais and Grande-Synthe, France

Humans for Rights Network, United Kingdom

Inclusive Mosque Initiative, United Kingdom

Institute of Race Relations, United Kingdon

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), United Kingdom

Julie HUOU, Nîmes, France

Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN), Kent, United Kingdom

Kevin Guilbert, Ham en Artois, France

L’Auberge des Migrants, France

La Cimade, France

La Resistencia, United States

Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS), United Kingdom

Legal Action for Women, London, England

Loraine Masiya Mponela, England

Louis Fernier, Poitiers, France

Lu ndu, United Kingdom

Lucian Dee, London, United Kingdom

Manchester Migrant Solidarity Manchester, United Kingdom

Maria Hagan, France

Medact, United Kingdom

Médecins du Monde France / Programme nord littoral, France

Merseyside Solidarity Knows No Borders, United Kingdom

Migrant Voice, United Kingdom

Migrants in Culture, United Kingdom

Migrants Organise, United Kingdom

Migrants’ Rights Network, United Kingdom

Migrations Libres, Belgium

Migreurop, réseau euro-africain

Morgan Guthrie, United Kingdom

MRAP-littoral dunkerquois, Dunkerque, France

NANSEN, the Belgian Refugee Council, Belgium

Ouvre Porte, France

Oxford Against Immigration Detention, Oxford, United Kingdom

Patricia Thiery, France

Payday men’s network, United Kingdom and United States

Plateforme Citoyenne de Soutien aux Réfugiés – Belrefugees, Belgium

Play for Progress, London, United Kingdom

Project Play, France

Rainbow Migration, United Kingdom

Reclaim The Sea, United Kingdom

RefuAid, London, United Kingdom

Refugee Action, United Kingdom

Refugee Legal Support, London and Calais

Refugee Support Group, Berkshire, United Kingdom

Refugee Women’s Centre, France

Remember & Resist, United Kingdom

Right to Remain, UK

Safe Passage International, United Kingdom

Safe Passage International, France

Social Workers Without Borders, United Kingdom

Stand For All, United Kingdom

Stories of Hope and Home, United Kingdom

Student Action for Refugees (STAR), United Kingdom

Terre d’errance Norrent-Fontes, France

The October Club, Oxford, United Kingdom

The Pickwell Foundation, Devon, United Kingdom

The Refugee Buddy Project Hastings Rother & Wealden, East Sussex, UK

The Runnymede Trust, United Kingdom

Tina Pho, United Kingdom

Toby Murray, London, United Kingdom

Tugba Basaran, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Utopia 56, France

Valérie Osouf, France

Vents Contraires, France

VVIDY (Voice of Voiceless Immigration Detainees-Yorkshire), United Kingdom

Welsh Refugee Council, Wales

Young Roots London, United Kingdom

▻https://irr.org.uk/article/joint-declaration-commemoration-of-the-24-november-2021-shipwreck

#commémoration #asile #migrations #réfugiés #morts_aux_frontières #mourir_aux_frontières #mémoire #naufrage #24_novembre_2021

From GPS tagging to facial recognition watches: expanding the surveillance of migrants in the UK

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Through its use of GPS tags and smartwatches in immigration enforcement, the UK is extending the reach of surveillance and control of migrants to frightening levels.

In early August, we learned that the Ministry of Justice had awarded a £6m contract for ‘facial recognition smartwatches’ to be worn by foreign national offenders. The devices will track their GPS location 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and will require them to scan their faces up to five times a day. The information obtained from the devices, including names, date of birth, nationality, photographs, and location data, will be stored for up to six years and may be accessed by the Home Office and shared with law and border enforcement agencies.

This is just the latest intrusive electronic monitoring (EM) technology to be used on migrants, after the Home Office moved from ‘traditional’ radio frequency tags (which measure the distance between the tag and the subject’s home) to GPS tags (which monitor the subject’s precise location 24/7). Electronic monitoring has been a key part of criminal justice for many years throughout the world, operational in many US states since the 1980s and implemented in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice Act 1991. It was introduced to address prison overcrowding and the rising costs of incarceration by diverting offenders from custody, but it is doubtful whether EM actually shrinks the size of prison populations or simply expands criminal justice interventions through a ‘net-widening effect’ – a 2016 comparative study found that high use of imprisonment is linked to high use of EM.[i] England and Wales now has the highest number of offenders subjected to this technology in the world,[ii] and has extended its use to immigration enforcement, through the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. (In the US, it was extended to immigration control in about 2002.) As far as we know, Britain is the only state in Europe to use EM in the migration arena.

EM is used as a condition by the Home Office for people released from immigration detention on bail, added to conditions such as reporting to the immigration authorities or staying at the property stated on the bail application, for those the Home Office considers at risk of absconding. One of the key differences in the use of EM within the criminal justice and immigration systems is time: whilst criminal sentences involving EM are determinate in nature, the immigration system uses it with no upper limit nor clear guidelines around time. Home Office guidance says tags are most likely to be used on individuals posing a ‘high risk of harm to the public’, but it is not just foreign nationals who have completed their sentences who are tagged: a 12-month pilot scheme began in June to test electronic monitoring on any asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by ‘unnecessary and dangerous’ routes.
Alternative to detention?

It is now well-known that detention centres are harmful, exacerbating mental distress and anxiety amongst those confined, leading too often to suicide and self-harm. EM has been described as an alternative to detention, and its use may seem attractive to certain anti-detention activists for humanitarian reasons. However, EM (and other alternative measures, such as signing at the reporting centres) represent a net-widening of interventions. More importantly, although tagging is not supposed to be punitive – it is an ‘administrative measure’ enforced by the Home Office and the immigration tribunal, not the criminal courts – it is experienced as punishment and deprivation of liberty by those subjected to it. Less intrusive alternatives have an equally high compliance rate: after the US Family Case Management Program (FCMP) was implemented, in which families received caseworker support without having to wear an ankle monitor, they had 99 per cent compliance with court appearances and ICE appointments. A similar pattern was noted across other initiatives where the compliance rate was 100 per cent and rate of absconding 0 per cent. And in the UK, an FOI request to the Home Office revealed that in 2019 only three percent of those released from detention without EM absconded, and only one percent in 2020. As Bail for Immigration Detainees noted, ‘With rates of absconding so low, [EM] is designed to solve a problem that does not exist.’
Mental distress

Bhatia’s research on the impact of EM on mental health[iii] revealed that migrants consider EM as punishment, triggering the feeling of perpetual confinement and the constant feeling of being watched. The individuals were not able to carry on with their daily activities and they were perceived as ‘dangerous’ (non-white) persons in public spaces. The criminalising, dehumanising and degrading effects of EM resulted in deeper exclusion and isolation, and mental distress. As one research participant explained: ‘I felt in prison with that thing [i.e. tag] . . . they came every week to check the tag. I was very upset and thinking, I keep talking to myself: “what has happened to me?”. All I did was smoke drugs, take pills at house and fall asleep. So much pressure and depression and no freedom . . . I have not done anything wrong. I just wanted life. This is shit life, this is no life. Whenever I don’t take drug, I felt like suicide.’

Total surveillance

When Bhatia did his research on the impact of EM on migrants’ mental health, monitoring of migrants relied on traditional radio frequency tags rather than GPS tags. In 2021, the Home Office introduced GPS tagging for immigration bail. While ‘traditional’ radio frequency tags merely measure the distance between the tag and a base station in the subject’s home, usually in order to enforce a curfew, GPS tags monitor subjects’ precise location 24/7, generating a considerable volume of ‘trail data’, which is stored for years. Trail data is highly sensitive – it provides deep insight into intimate details of an individual’s life, revealing a comprehensive picture of everyday habits and movements, permanent or temporary places of residence, hobbies and other activities, social relationships, political, religious or philosophical interests, health concerns, consumption patterns, etc – data that is absolutely unnecessary and disproportionate to the stated purpose of monitoring bail compliance and preventing absconding.

The Home Office can access the entire trail data every time a breach of bail conditions is detected by the tag (eg, breaching a curfew, entering an exclusion zone, or failing to charge the tag’s battery). It has also claimed the right to review trail data in order to assess tagged individuals’ claims to private and family life (a way to resist removal through human rights law). This use of trail data falls entirely outside the scope of the legislation, and arguably violates not just privacy and data protection but other rights too – the knowledge that every single movement is monitored, and may be used to justify refusal of applications, is a serious limitation on freedom of movement, assembly and association. This is why in August 2022, Privacy International filed a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, on the grounds of breaches of data protection and human rights law.
Errors and discrimination

Tagging is operated exclusively by the private sector in England and Wales, and the EM market is highly oligopolistic, with only four or five companies bidding for lucrative government contracts. Despite the sparse or inconclusive evidence around the effectiveness of the technology, and ongoing Serious Fraud Office investigations of G4S, one of the main players in the market, the company was awarded a £22 million contract in May 2022 by the government. Serious concerns have been raised over the lack of independent oversight of the EM industry and insufficient monitoring by government bodies.

This is particularly concerning given that the technology involved in GPS tags is prone to failures and inaccuracies, leading to wrongful accusations of breach of bail conditions and inaccurate compliance records. GPS location data can be inaccurate, sometimes by 100 metres or more, depending on the surrounding environment – for example, highly built-up areas will cause a GPS signal to ‘drift’ and record inaccurate locations. In addition, the tags used by the Home Office have been reported to suffer from serious battery issues, with people reporting having to charge them multiple times a day. This is a serious problem, as battery depletion is usually deemed a breach of bail conditions – it therefore triggers an alert and entitles the Home Office to review all trail data. In addition, applications based on family and private life may be wrongfully refused on the basis of such inaccurate trail data. In August 2022, Privacy International filed a complaint with the UK’s Forensic Science Regulator about systemic failures in relation to the quality and accuracy of data extracted from the devices.

Facial recognition smartwatches are meant to be ‘less invasive’ and ‘more proportionate’ than GPS ankle tags – but in fact are likely to cause more harm to non-white people. Facial recognition is known to be a discriminatory technology that regularly misidentifies people of colour and is disproportionately used against minorities. Facial recognition algorithms are usually trained on non-representative datasets of faces, and their design is often infused with existing racial biases – meaning that non-white people are more often misidentified. This will inevitably cause additional levels of anxiety to non-white people who have to wear these, and to false allegations and excessive enforcement against them.
Fighting Back

Over 40 human rights groups condemned the introduction of GPS tags (without consultation) in June 2021, as ‘an extension of immigration detention beyond the physical walls of detention centres and prisons’. Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on immigration detention, described 24/7 tracking via GPS tags as ‘a Trojan horse which would grant the Home Office expansive new surveillance powers which would extend well beyond their stated purpose’. A number of legal challenges have been launched, in addition to Privacy International’s complaints. As Rudy Schulkind of Bail for Immigration Detainees said, ‘This is a thoroughly dehumanising policy designed to ensure that certain people can never be allowed to enjoy a moment of peace, dignity or community.’ The race to acquire invasive surveillance technologies leads a considerable amount of public funds to line the pockets of tech companies, instead of spending these funds on support for vulnerable migrants, dealing with the backlog of immigration applications, and generally useful, respectful and lawful policies.

[i] A. Hucklesby et al., ‘Creativity and effectiveness in the use of electronic monitoring: a case study of five European jurisdictions’, European Commission briefing paper, 2016.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Bhatia, M, ‘Racial surveillance and the mental health impacts of electronic monitoring on migrants’, Race & Class, 2021 62(3):18-36. doi:10.1177/0306396820963485

▻https://irr.org.uk/article/from-gps-tagging-to-facial-recognition-watches-expanding-the-surveillance-of

#surveillance #migrations #asile #réfugiés #UK #Angleterre #reconnaissance_faciale #AI #IA #GPS #géolocalisation #surveillance_électronique

ping @isskein

British Muslims’ citizenship reduced to ‘second-class’ status, says thinktank

Recently extended powers to strip people of their nationality almost exclusively targets Muslims, report says

British Muslims have had their citizenship reduced to “second-class” status as a result of recently extended powers to strip people of their nationality, a thinktank has claimed.

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) says the targets of such powers are almost exclusively Muslims, mostly of south Asian heritage, embedding discrimination and creating a lesser form of citizenship.

The IRR’s report was published on Sunday amid renewed controversy over the case of Shamima Begum, who was smuggled into the hands of Islamic State aged 15, and in the wake of the Nationality and Borders Act – that allowed citizenship to be stripped without notifying the subject, coming on to the statute books.

Frances Webber, IRR vice-chair and report author, wrote: “The message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of south Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way that ‘natives’ are.

“While a ‘native’ British citizen, who has access to no other citizenship, can commit the most heinous crimes without jeopardising his right to remain British, none of the estimated 6 million British citizens with access to another citizenship can feel confident in the perpetual nature of their citizenship.”

Webber said before being used against the Muslim preacher Abu Hamza in 2003, no deprivation of citizenship had been authorised for 30 years. But since then there have been at least 217, with 104 removals in 2017 after the collapse of Islamic State in Syria.

Despite government claims that powers are only used against those who pose a grave threat to national security, or who have committed abhorrent crimes, the “Citizenship: from right to privilege” report argues the effect is that certain people have a “second-class, disposable, contingent citizenship”.

Webbersaid: “These classes of citizenship were brought in to target British Muslims of south Asian and Middle Eastern heritage. Such divisions act as a constant reminder to minority ethnic citizens that they must watch their step, and reinforce racist messages about ‘undeserving’ racialised groups unworthy of being British.”

The report describes the criteria for deprivation of citizenship as “nebulous and undefined” and warns of a risk of its use for political purposes, with Webber highlighting Begum’s case as an example. It was recently alleged Begum was rtrafficked into Syria by a spy working for Canadian intelligence.

“It raises the question: was Begum’s citizenship removed to divert attention from western agencies’ prioritisation of intelligence gathering over safeguarding vulnerable trafficked girls?” said Webber.

Citing the Prevent counter-terrorism programme, which has been dogged by claims of being a cover to spy on Muslim communities, the report said citizenship-stripping is “just one aspect of measures targeting Muslim communities, in Britain and abroad, in the past two decades, which have helped to turn British Muslims in the UK into a ‘suspect community’”.

The latest change to citizen-stripping powers in the Nationality and Borders Act, heightened public awareness – and criticism – of the existing rules as well as the additions, provoking public protests, opposition from campaigners as well as some MPs and Lords.

The Home Office said the legislation did not target ethnic minorities or people of particular faiths, and that the test for deprivation was clearly set out.

A spokesperson said: “Our priority is to ensure the safety and security of the UK. Deprivation of citizenship only happens after careful consideration of the facts and in accordance with international law. It is used against those who have acquired citizenship by fraud and against the most dangerous people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals.

“We make no apology for doing whatever is necessary to protect the UK from those who pose a threat to our security.”

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/11/british-muslims-citizenship-reduced-to-second-class-status-says-thinkta
#UK #Angleterre #citoyenneté #musulmans #nationalité #déchéance_de_nationalité #minorités_ethniques

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Movement for Black Lives: an interview with Barbara Ransby - Institute of Race Relations

As we witness one of the largest uprisings in US history, led by Black working-class activists, Race & Class interviews Barbara Ransby, a US-based historian, feminist and longtime organiser, on the significance of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) uprisings across the US ignited by the murder of George Floyd.

https://irr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/barbara.jpg

Jenny Bourne: As someone who has been involved in and written on US Black working-class movements for many decades, do you see what’s happening now as a watershed moment?

Barbara Ransby: It is definitely a watershed moment and I don’t say that lightly. You know historians say every historical moment is unique which is true. But there are those pivots after which you know things are ever different and so I think this moment comes at the convergence of, in the United States and globally, really three crises.

First, it’s the crisis of liberal democracy or bourgeois democracy. We see an uptick in authoritarianism across the globe from Bolsonaro to Duterte, to Erdogan, and of course the Donald Trump phenomenon which is increasingly repressive, xenophobic, and dangerous. Essentially, Trump and his followers have deployed white nationalism in the service of racial capitalism.

Secondly, we have the global coronavirus pandemic which adds to that and stops us all in our tracks. It jolts the elites in ways that they did not anticipate, and exposes the vulnerabilities of racial capitalism yet again. Because, of course, you know it’s not lucrative to prepare for something like this, so all the pharmaceutical companies and the elite research institutes have not invested in in research around pandemics; they’d rather invest in drugs that people will buy every year because that increases the profit margin. And Trump, in his infinite lack of wisdom, dismantled the office in the federal government that was supposed to actually plan for pandemics. And then we see states and hospitals scrambling on the open market to buy life-saving equipment like ventilators. Yet another example of the failure of capitalism to meet this crisis. The market does not care if people die. We have to care.

And then the third thing is the uprising against police violence and white supremacy. We saw a fifty-state uprising in this country. We never saw that in the 1960s, we never had, 500 towns and cities with people coming out into the street simultaneously. Even in places that don’t have a significant Black population, there was somebody in that town that felt they had to get out in the streets and say something against racism, to say Black Lives Matter. That is uplifting and I have to also believe that people in those small towns probably don’t have a deep understanding of racism. They were protesting for other reasons too, unsettled and angry about the condition of their lives in this country and the George Floyd murder and the visual impact of that injustice was the final straw. The cruelty in that violence jolted people into action.

Of course an uprising is spontaneous, it is organic, you can’t script it beforehand, you can’t predict exactly when it’ll occur and you certainly can’t script it from inside as it’s unfolding. And this uprising is not different. None of us predicted that of all the outrageous acts that we have witnessed and absorbed over the last four years, that this particular killing would be the last straw for hundreds of thousands of ordinary people not in any organisation, per se.

But, organisation is essential once uprisings begin to unfold. Movement organisations, and there are many, began to draw upon lessons and organising models and theoretical frames from earlier periods and from organisations like Critical Resistance which, of course you know, Angela Davis and Ruth Gilmore helped to found in 1997. This is an abolitionist organisation led by Black feminists. Another earlier group is INCITE!: Women of Colour Against Violence, a group that came out of the anti-domestic violence movement and insisted on including state and imperialist violence in their analysis and work. I write about these groups in my book [Making All Black Lives Matter]. But then in 2012, a new group of organisers began to congeal and they have been debating and training and doing scenario-planning and base-building in the years since. Another critical turn was, of course, the Ferguson uprising in 2014 when Michael Brown was shot dead by police in Missouri.
A Black Lives Matter march in Denver. Thomas Elliott/Flickr

So, when the 2020 uprising occurred, you had a group of young Black activists, many of them feminists, many of them queer, many of them with a very radical intersectional analysis, ready to move into action. And they called a series of demonstrations on Juneteenth weekend. There were actions from Washington DC to California with hundreds of thousands of protesters filling the streets. The demand of ‘defund the police’ has emerged as central, reflecting decades of efforts to ‘reform and improve’ the police, all of which have failed. But ‘defund’ is only part of the agenda for activists, and it would be wrong and incomplete to leave it at that. The full-throated demand is ‘defund the police, fund our people’.

M4BL and others are organising around that idea, and M4BL’s policy committee has just created a piece of mock legislation called the Breathe Act which outlines not only dismantling police and prisons over time but also what it would mean to revitalise our communities and our schools and make health available to everyone, and have a sustainable green economy. All of that I think is a prime example of the ways in which Black liberation movements over time and in this moment are also the hopeful visionary movements for the entire planet, not just for Black people.

That’s how I would see the significance of this moment. I draw a lot from Naomi Klein’s notion of disaster capitalism. That, in this moment of disaster, in this moment of dislocation and disorientation, elites are certainly plotting and scheming on how to maximise their power, how to institute and expand policies and practices from surveillance to austerity to further their agenda. But what also happens in the context of a crisis is the opportunity for galvanising our people and galvanising the Left, and I see that happening as well.

The demonstrations here showed a certain level of determination on the part of people who attended their first protest during a pandemic. I think, regarding the Left and the Black movement here, if we don’t tap into that anger and determination then we really have not done our work. People were willing to face health risks, people went out more often than not wearing masks, but sometimes not wearing masks − taking that risk to demonstrate their outrage against what was happening in this country. They also withstood rubber bullets and tear-gas, which was in wide use, and this is really a human rights violation of the first order. I mean the cops were very brutal against a lot of the demonstrators and old people were knocked down, two reporters lost their eyes because they were victims of projectiles.

▻https://irr.org.uk/article/movement-for-black-lives-an-interview-with-barbara-ransby

#racisme #class #race #Naomi_Klein #black_lives_matter

Deadly Crossings and the militarisation of Britain’s borders

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Military-style solutions won’t solve humanitarian problems, argues our new report that details the nearly 300 border-related deaths in and around the English Channel since 1999. Deadly Crossings and the Militarisation of Britain’s Borders reveals the human tragedies caused by inhumane border enforcement at a time when the UK Home Office is seeking to make Channel crossings ‘unviable’.

▻https://irr.org.uk/article/deadly-crossings

Pour télécharger le rapport:
▻https://irr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Deadly-Crossings-Final.pdf

#Manche #UK #Angleterre #mer #France #mourir_en_mer #décès #migrations #asile #réfugiés #frontières #militarisation_des_frontières #rapport #chiffres #statistiques #IRR #Gisti #Le_Gisti #chronologie #morts #décès #timeline #time-line #frise_chronologique

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