Stop Rwanda

On 6th September we took called a local action as part of the National Day of Action of protest against the Rwanda flights. We were joined by other local organisations and many local people who came out to show their solidarity with people caught up in the ongoing hostility of the Home Office policies.

Director of Operations and Campaigns gave speech highlighting the need to continue to resist this hostility, and you can read or watch the video of Alex’s speech below:

Full Text:

Hello

My name is Alex Kempton and I am the Director of Operations and Campaigns at The Refugee Buddy Project.

I want to thank you all for coming out, and thank you to John Cannan for coming to represent the Council here today.

And John is right, this Rwanda plan is the lates in a long line of racist, anti refugee and anti migrant policies to come out of this Home Office over the last 10 year sunder the umbrella of the Hostile Environment.

As a refugee and migrant-led charity we support people seeking refuge across Hastings and the surrounding districts of Rother and Wealden. We support people regardless of their immigration status, from people who have just arrived who are negotiating the difficult process of seeking asylum, to people resettled here and those with precarious status. And alongside other groups in town such as LINKS that John mentioned, we also support people as they may their way through this difficult system.

We support people from all over the world: from Honduras to Sudan, from Syria to Venezuela, From Ukraine to Afghanistan and Somalia and Iraq and many more.

We support people of all races, sex, genders, sexualities, and religions. We support individuals, couple, parents with children, and children without their parents.

But the people we support all have two crucial things in common. The first is that they are all fleeing violence, persecution and oppression. The second is that they are us. They are our community. Our neighbours, friends, work colleagues, our kids school friends, the people we bump into in shops and cafes, who we nod and smile at in the street.

The reason I’m saying all of this is because I want you to take a minute and look around you and think who of us should be sent to Rwanda. Who should be told they do not have the right to safety, the right to an education for themselves and their children, the right to live in a place they are free to be who they are without fear of persecution?

These are fundamental human rights, and it is these rights that this government is trying /to deny people seeking refuge simply because they were not born on what we consider to be British soil.

Why should people be denied these rights because of a fluke of birth? People who have made treacherous journeys to seek safety should not be detained and deported, sent to another continent without ever having their claim heard. They have the right to seek asylum here under International Law and the UK government cannot simply turn its back on our responsibility to support people fleeing war, violence and persecution. People seeking safety deserve better. Our community deserves better.

So I’m asking you all today to stand up and speak out. Prove to the media who peddle anti-refugee and anti-migrant narratives that they so not speak for us. Show the government that we will not let out communities be ripped apart by this racist agenda. Stand in solidarity with your community. Because it’s the only way we’re going to win.