RAPAR: ROAR (Raising Our Asylum Rights)
ROAR is developing out of the actions taken by hotel residents whose bravery has brought some of the human rights violations in asylum hotels to national media attention. Beginning with our first public meeting on 7th September, ROAR wants to make information-sharing and organising spaces where people seeking asylum, supported by allies from trades unions and civil society, safely expose human rights violations, participate in constructing alternative solutions, and openly campaign for those solutions (event flyer).
ROAR PUBLIC MEETING: 7th Sept. at 6.30pm
ACCESS THE EVENT FLYER FOR DISTRIBUTION ROAR: RAISING OUR ASYLUM RIGHTS
RESISTING RACISM IN HOTELS
PUBLIC MEETING, 6.30PM, 7th SEPTEMBER 2023: FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE, 6 MOUNT STREET, MANCHESTER M2 5NS
Shay Babagar, his wife and their child arrived in the UK seeking asylum as members of the persecuted Balochi people and were placed in a Serco-run hotel in Stockport, Greater Manchester.
The father’s 35-day hunger strike exposed human rights violations in this Serco-run hotel, since which time the family have successfully resisted criminalisation: Greater Manchester police, in the presence of Serco and Stockport’s Stepping Hill Hospital staff, had immediately arrested this husband and wife upon hospital discharge and then, after keeping them for six hours in separate cells in Pendleton Police Station subsequently charged them. Recently, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case against them.
Alongside the family, other speakers will offer examples of actively resisting the racism concentrated in and around asylum hotels, and the meeting will screen film from the family’s arrest, and from another family who were also subjected to deeply disturbing treatment in the same hotel. This is an opportunity for all groups and individuals who want to create effective solidarity to come together and plan for future action.
Please email admin@rapar.org.uk to add your group/ organisation to the growing list of supporters.
Supporters include: Culture Bridge Manchester, GMB Trafford Unity Branch, Greater Manchester SUTR (Stand Up To Racism), IWGB (Independent Workers’ Union Of Great Britain), MIDST (Manchester Immigration Detainee Support Team), MMB (Migration Mobilities Bristol), NUJ Manchester and Salford Branch, Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN), The Peace And Justice Project, RAPAR (Refugee And Asylum Participatory Action Research), Stockport Unite Against Austerity Branch, Unison Northwest Black Members, Unison Greater Manchester Mental Health Branch, Unison Manchester Women’s Self Organised Group, AND Unite Community Greater Manchester.
Read more here: http://www.rapar.co.uk/roar.html