Life is too short to be controlled!

After a few speeches have been given in Saint Pancras, over 150 people - many covering their faces with bandanas specially made for the demo - were marching towards Picadilly today 23rd January at about 3 o'clock. They passed The British Museum at about half past three. At about quarter to four, the demonstration, taking on the road on Shaftesbury avenue, were arriving at Picadilly, and all the way there was not one single cop in sight. Speeches began in Picadilly Circus at about four o'clock. There were quite a few banners but the most prominent read: "Life too short to be controlled" and "Freedom to move, freedom to stay"

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Demo marching towards Picadilly Circus

While the migration regime is fortifying itself and setting up rings of defence around European wealth, inner control is tightening to keep public order, at a time where the nation state already seems to be a dead corpse. London is one of the most surveilled and controlled cities in the world, with an underground CCTV bunker beneath the shiny ads at Piccadilly Circus (Guardian Video). London No Borders called for a day out of control on Saturday 23rd, starting at 14:00 at the international border within Central London, St Pancras International and regrouping above the CCTV bunker on Piccadilly Circus at 16:30. Read full article and check out DI interviews about the demonstration. And remember: You don't have to give your details, and chances are the stop and search is illegal!

The ubiquitous Border

While Londoners might view St Pancras Eurostar Terminal as the starting point of their business trip, city break, or 48-hour travel nightmare, it is yet another inhuman obstruction for migrants who have spent months and years been travelling across Europe in the hope of reaching the UK. Even for those who manage to cross it, the journey is not over yet. The border might mark the start of an indefinite period of detention with no foreseeable end, a forced deportation back to war-zones, a frustrating, unjust asylum process which is most likely to end in one of the former, or the start of a life underground - in which one has no legally recognised rights or identity. This is the situation for the thousands of migrants in Calais and across Europe each year, who
are fighting to be allowed to exist in a continent which constantly tries to make that existence illegal. No Borders believe people should have freedom to move where they choose. How can anyone have the power to state a person is 'illegal', is not allowed to exist where they would like to go – for freedom, to be with family and friends, or for work.

For governments across the world,whether you are allowed to exist has everything to do with the colour of your passport, and, of course, the state of your bank balance! Under the points-based immigration scheme, anyone owning 1 million pounds in a readily available bank account is allowed access to the UK – with virtually no questions asked. It doesn't matter if you
have made your money through the sale of weapons to be used by or against children, or through the disposal of dangerous nuclear waste disposal in poor nations – the UK government doesn't care. The only people governments of capitalist nations don't want to control are
the very rich.

Surveillance

Meanwhile, at Piccadilly Circus, as the bright lights and adverts flash at passers by, something more sinister is going on below ground. It is also the home of the Westminster Council CCTV
headquarters, where Police and Security alike can observe your every move on London's streets. It is not just the borders which are being controlled; London has 10,000 crime-fighting cameras, which cost around 200 million. Research cannot prove a link between crimes being
solved and the influx of cameras however – in fact, boroughs with the most cameras have the lower rates of solving crime than the 20% average, according to the tabloid press. So why the obsession with capturing our every move? Like the right to stop and search people on
the grounds of suspicion of questionable immigration 'status',or to detain you without trial under counter terrorism laws, the government appears obsessed with the idea of having the ability to arbitrarily exert its power over us all particularly those who fit into a certain demographic. We saw this recently with the proposed move to allow 'profiling' of certain groups for more intensive screening processes
in airports.

Police Power

The police's right to stop and search people under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 was thrown into question by the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday 12th January 2010. The Strasbourg court questioned  the way in which the stop and search powers are authorised, based on the potentially groundless sense of suspicion or 'hunch' of a police officer. The humiliating nature of having belongings searched publicly was another concern, as was the more serious issue that black and Asian people were 4 times more likely to be stopped under section 44. This mirrors concerns of local people about immigration raids on communities – often televised on Sky Programme UK Border Force, which target ethnically diverse areas. When are we going to stop letting ourselves be passive observers of explicitly racist practices that  seek to   marginalise those who are seen as a potential threat to existing security structures of control and power? Join us in a day of action in London. Life's too short to be controlled!