Re:Common stand in solidarity with the Stansted 15! This is our solidarity letter to the 15 activists who stopped the deportation of sixty people from the UK to Nigeria and Ghana through a peaceful direct action. They have been convicted by a UK court in December and they are due to be sentenced in early February.
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Dear Emma, Jo,
we write you to express our solidarity and deep concern for the prosecutions at Chelmsford crown court targeting you and the other people known as Stansted 15. We know you and your politics and we stand with you for the peaceful action that you and the others took in March last year, to stop a brutal, secretive and barely legal deportation flight. Like denounced by Amnesty UK, the use of a draconian legislation and the accusation and conviction for “endangering an aerodrome” under the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 – a terrorism-related law – is grossly disproportionate and a clear abuse of power.
We share with you years of campaigns for social and economic justice in parts of the world where communities suffer human rights violations due to the activities of European companies. Among them Nigeria, probably the place in the world most affected by oil related violence, abuse and environmental devastation. You have been on the frontline to support the popular movement resisting in Italy against a devastating mega gas pipeline, a struggle for justice of which we are both part.
When we learned of the Stansted 15 peaceful blockade of a charter flight injustly deporting sixty people to Nigeria and Ghana, we knew that thousands of people like us, dedicated to bring justice for the most vulnerable people whose lives are at the margin of the so called democratic systems, we knew that thousands like us were with you. As a result of your 10-hour blockade, 11 people – including victims of trafficking recognised under the Modern Slavery Act – are still in the UK with their loved ones. Many of them could seek justice, and some were successful in finding it.
Regardless the sentence that will be published in February, your peaceful action saved some lives and denounced the abusive practice to deport people which is becoming common in the UK and other European countries.
We unite our voices to the many others – like in this petition and in this letter published on the Guardian– calling on the UK government to end its inhumane hostile environment policies and to end its shameful deportation charter flights. We also call for the Stansted 15 to be spared prison (here the appeal against ‘disproportionate’ convictions).
You truly are a credit to human rights and we stand with you.
In solidarity,
Alessandro, Antonio, Carlo, Elena, Giulia, Laura, Pippo, Luca
Re:Common
Italy
