Response: Message from Hong Kong to the U.S. Immigrant Rights Movement from the mobilization against the WTO

Response: Message from Hong Kong to the U.S. Immigrant Rights Movement from the mobilization against the WTO

Gracias Companeros Colin, Arnoldo and Mario ~Let us continue to unite on the common agenda of humane rights for all, always including the humane rights of all immigrants, refugees and all homeless people.

Concentration on the coordination of our communications is key for all forward moving liberation movements and we can utilize the power of the Internet to advance our causes in concert with local community education.

I appreciate your blogspot companero Colin and will be checking it out from time to time.

http://www.migrantdiaries.blogspot.com/

We here now inside the United States are already living under a mature fascism and attacks on immigrants are subtly disguised under the pseudo-patriotic banner of Homeland Security, including unjust attacks by the neo-Nazi Minutemen.

We must be willing to answer sensible questions, engage in constructive debates and coherently argue our positions in aggressive support of humane rights in general.

We need to always absorb more and more conscious supporters who themselves are able to explain to others about migrant rights in the context of humane rights in general.

We join with all our companeros to Celebrate International Migrant Rights Day on December 18th, 2005 and we should continue to work on the basic cause of humane rights every day and night in our protracted fight against Amerikan Fascism.

Relevant Links: http://www.nnirr.org/dec18/index.html

Migrant Rights are Humane Rights!
Peter S. Lopez {aka Peta} ~ Coordinator
Sacramento, California, USA
Yahoo Email~ sacranative@yahoo.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/ http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Immigrant-Rights-Agenda/
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From Mario Galvan mario@zsc.org wrote:
Hi all,

It seems that borders around the world are being challenged, not just our own!

Mario
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From: Arnoldo Garcia agarcia@nnirr.org
To: agarcia@nnirr.org

Subject: Message from Hong Kong to the U.S. Immigrant Rights Movement from the mobilization against the WTO
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005

From Colin Rajah, NNIRR, at the mobilizations against the WTO in Hong Kong:

Dear NNIRR members, allies and friends,

I want to express my extremely deep-hearted gratitude for taking action -- sending emails, faxes and making calls to stop my deportation and demand my release from detention in Hong Kong because of my migration status. Due to each and every one of your efforts, I was finally released after 12 hours in dentention, and approximately less than an hour before my scheduled deportation.

The director of the immigration department himself came to visit me in the detention center to explain that they had received numerous calls, faxes and emails to demanding my release, which prompted them to reconsider my case. I want to particularly thank Jessica Walker Beaumont and Amy Gottlieb of the American Friends Service Committee, and my colleagues at the National Network (NNIRR) for their persistence around my case. Thank you all.

However, this is not an isolated case. The harassment of immigrants and refugees around the WTO ministerial meetings and similar convenings of government trade negotiators is nothing new. Even here in HK (as in the US) with consistent harrasment of migrant workers, the WTO meetings have heightened the attack against migrant workers. On December 12th and 13th, the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union and KOTHIKO (a collective of Indonesian migrant workers) was raided not just once or twice, but a total of THREE times by plain-clothes police. The police said that they received reports of "illegals" and accusations of "bombs and other explosives" at the migrant workers offices.

However, together with our allies Asian Migrant Centre (AMC), Migrant Forum Asia (MFA) and others here, and alongside our grassroots API delegation we continue to raise attention on the issues migrant workers face under the WTO's trade policies.

I can be reached by mobile (cell phone) here at +852-6079-1700 at any time. Please do not hesitate to circulate this number and the others' from the grassroots API delegation and Bay Area WT-No to any one who might want to reach us here.

Thank you, and please keep a lookout at migrantdiaries.blogspot.com for an update in the next day. Thank you everyone again.

For justice and solidarity across borders,

Colin Rajah
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
crajah@nnirr.org or colinrajah@yahoo.com
Cell: +852-6079-1700
Hong Kong
_________________________________________
Arnoldo Garcia
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados
310 8th Street Suite 303
Oakland, CA 94607
Tel (510) 465-1984 ext. 305
Fax (510) 465-1885
www.nnirr.org