UNITY Centre Glasgow

Now you can donate to UNITY with your phone:

Just text “UNIT11 £10″ to 70070 and donate £10 to Unity! It’s quick! It’s easy! Make a difference today – donate to Unity with your phone!  (JustTextGiving by Vodafone)

The Unity Centre is looking for volunteer English tutors, preferably with an ESOL/ TEFL qualification, for 2 hours a week, either Thursday morning or Saturday afternoon. We’re looking for people who can commit to teaching every week. It’s a good way to get some teaching experience in a relaxed atmosphere while supporting a great organisation! If you’re interested or would like to know more, please send an email to: info[at]unitycentreglasgow.org.

We are very proud to announce that Movement for Justice (MFJ) organisation from London is coming to UNITY Christmas Gathering 2012 Saturday 15th of December 2-5 pm.

Venue: Quaker Meeting House, 38 Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow G2 4PS

Speakers will be Christine Nakato, Freda Nsumba and MFJ Coordinator.

About MFJ:
“The Yarl’s Wood women’s detention centre is the central battle ground in Britain for the rights of asylum seekers and the rights of women. On Monday 15th October, under the leadership of the Movement for Justice (MFJ), Britain’s leading civil rights and immigrant rights organisation, more than 200 women detainees at Yarl’s Wood began an escalating series of direct actions to win freedom for women asylum seekers, to stop their deportations and to gain basic democratic rights for anyone who is placed in detention.”

The Gathering will also be a chance to catch up on the different Unity projects like the new LGBT Group, the Bike Workshop, the English classes and many more..

 Welcome to Unity’s Christmas Party 2012!

Saturday 15th of December from 7 – 11 pm at Unite union offices on the top floor and roof of John Smith House, 145 -165 West Regent Street G2 4RZ

There will be lots of lovely food, music, DJ’s and stand up comedy from the night shelter’s very own Sarah Cassidy and friends. We can’t have a bar so if you want to drink something you should bring it along.

See Sarah Cassidy perform at the Leceister Comedy Festival

Paxina Muchengi, a Zimbabwean national, who entered the UK in November, 2004 is detained at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Centre, has received removal directions and is due to be deported on Thursday 29^th November, 2012. Read more about what you can do to help here.

Christine Nakato a young woman from Uganda who has been in detention since April this year is facing removal from the UK tomorrow on Tuesday 27^th November on Flight QR76 at 15.05 hrs from Heathrow.

Previous attempts by the UKBA to remove Christine led to spontaneous protests by over 100 woman detainees at Yarls Wood detention centre after guards in riot gear dragged her naked out of her room in one failed attempt to remove her from the UK. More information here:

No Border activists and Unity volunteers picketed Barnardo’s shops in protest at their involvement in running controversial Cedars detention centre. Hundreds of leaflets were handed out explaining Children’s charity Barnardo’s run the UKBA’s family detention centre in Sussex in partnership with notorious security firm G4S. Here children are detained with their families after being arrested in raids on their homes by immigration officials. Read more..

Support the Women of Yarls Wood petition

Information from Movement for Justice

Women detainees in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre are organising to fight for their freedom, demand their fundamental rights and provide support for each other. They have established a Movement for Justice group in the Centre that was 40 strong by early October – lesbian and straight, women escaping anti-gay persecution, human trafficking, sexual abuse and forced marriage, female genital mutilation and persecution as women political activists. The group unites women from every part of Africa, from the Caribbean, the Arab world, Iran, India and Pakistan – Christian, Muslim and of no religion. Its first victory has been to challenge the divide-and-rule tactics relied on by the racist detention system. 

The Yarl’s Wood women’s struggle for justice escalated dramatically in the past week as a result of the brutal mistreatment of one of their number – Christine Nankya, a 28-year old asylum seeker from Uganda and a member of the Movement for Justice group. On Monday morning, 15 October, she was taken from her room in an attempt to put her on a deportation flight. She was screaming and shouting in terror and struggling to resist removal. She was dragged naked across the floor by 5 or 6 guards, naked apart from a blanket hastily thrown over her.

Christine had escaped a life of abuse and rape by her own father and in Britain she has lived homeless and was taken into detention in April this year. She was on suicide watch in Yarl’s Wood. She had taken a large overdose of pills before a previous deportation attempt. The angry and outraged women of Yarl’s Wood held a 120-strong mass meeting in the dining hall Monday lunchtime. They voted unanimously to support the demands of the Movement for Justice group and demand Christine’s return. This was a huge step forward in the fight against the unjust immigration system.

Thanks to her own and her fellow-detainees fight Christine was not deported. After two other detention centres refused to take her she was returned to Yarl’s Wood on Tuesday morning to the enormous joy of all the women.

The next day 100 women gathered in the dining hall again when the Movement for Justice held an anti-detention demonstration at Lunar House, the UKBA HQ in Croydon. Linked by speakerphone they enthusiastically joined in the demonstrators – “Yarl’s Wood Women – Free Them Now!”, “UKBA – Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay!”

The UKBA & the Serco management at Yarl’s Wood was terrified by the women’s proud, confident assertion of their strength. They have spent the last three days trying to instill a renewed climate of fear, with repeated lock-downs and harassment. Over Thursday and Friday they gave a large number of women directions for deportation flights in the next few weeks and handing out asylum refusals – bringing forward planned a_ctions to maximise their impact.

Seven women who have played a leading role in the fight for justice have been seized and isolated and most of them have been moved out of Yarl’s Wood and dispersed to prisons. Six of the women were asked to attend a meeting to discuss their demands on Thursday afternoon. They were taken to a room, but there was no meeting. They were locked in, beaten, handcuffed and their phones taken and switched off. Five have been removed. On Friday morning a Pakistani Muslim woman who had translated the proceedings of the Monday & Wednesday meeting into Hindi & Urdu for other Asian women was asked to go to a meeting ‘to discuss the demands’ and has not been seen since.

The women in the Yarl’s Wood Movement for Justice group are maintaining their organisation, continuing their commitment to the demands of the mass meeting, speaking to reporters and gathering evidence of the continuing injustice. Their fight is all our fight. This brutal racist and sexist attack by the British state on the most fundamental civil, legal and democratic rights is an outrage that we must challenge. This is a fight for all our futures. No nation that desires to be just, integrated and progressive can allow the continuation of this police state poison.

It is incumbent on all who stand for women’s right to live free from abuse, and for the dignity and humanity of all, including all who live here, whether with or without citizenship, to take action now. Help get this news out, tell everyone you know, call on your MP, the press, and organisations, that all the women involved in standing up for their rights have a right to do so, NO RETALIATION, withdraw all tickets, take them off Fast Track as there is no fair hearing under these circumstances.

Unity will participate in a workshop at the Radical Independence Conference November 24th at 3.15-4.45 pm

After fortress Britain: anti-racism, borders and asylum in Scotland.

Unity will be one of three speakers at the workshop, the others are:

Aamer Anwer Aamer is Scotland’s leading human rights lawyer. He was a prominent figure in the anti-war movement and a leading organiser of demonstrations in defence of Glasgow’s refugee community. He regularly appears on television to discuss a range of political issues.

Margaret Woods Margaret is the co-chair of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees which plays a key role in defending the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow.