6TH June 2005 ============= Jubilee Room, House of Commons ============================== Meeting was introduced and fascilitated by Corin Redgrave, Peace & Progress Party The Europen Commission on Human Rights Report on UK Human Rights is published today. It will need an adendum - to include the treatment of Traveller Communities and the routine denial of their human rights. Basildon Planning Committee meets tonight . (That meeting was adjourned unfinished when Corin Redgrave collapsed of a heart attack mid sentence - He was pleading with the council to recognise the health dangers presented to vulnerable travellers sufferingfrom cancer and other life threatening illnesses, who are currently receiving medical attention which would be disrupted by them having to be moved. The meeting was re-convened on 21st June and voted to evict by force.) Cathleen McCarthy - Chair of Dale Farm Housing Committee ======================================================== This governement is very confusing - they don't want us on council sites, they don't want us on the road or on our own land. They may claim to help refugees, but we have been begging for for electricity, water, toilets and schools. To be educated and be part of society and contribute to society. In their rush to evict, they have broken the law, not providing any space for us. Malcolm Buckley said they want us out of Basildon. So the case is not about planning permisson. Their excuse is that we broke the law but that's false. It's hate. Sylvia Dunn - stood for election this year in Michael Howards ward ================================================================== While the Police have advisory boards and try and be inclusive, they come to evict us from our homes and threaten us saying they will gather police from all over essex and byond. It took 500 to evict 6 families. The children made drawings of the evictions and all of them had fires in them.Thats the first thing the baliffs do. They take the fences and burn them. These children are in trauma. Most are on pills and wake up at night with nightmares. If the police want respect they have to treat our children properly. At Twin Oaks we were promised a meeting before the eviction. 6 families were there to face 500 police and baliffs. What have done to face such violence? What is the hidden agenda? In the Criminal Justice Act they said they would confine us to Army compunds - Concentration Camps. That was Michael Howard as Home Secretarry and they have shelved that plan - until they come into power again.But Labour Party are collaborating with this aim by not helping us now. Why should our children worry about these tiny pieces of land, no good to anyone else. According to them our planning permission is against the law!? Retrospective planning. This is all our money on this land, trailer and structure - not an extension - a home. I'm 60, with 2 youngsters - wasn't I entitled to a site? Theres a dozen Sylvias in every county. But we have to help ourselves. Dale Farms children are beautiful. We should not ask or beg, but demand our rights like Dale Farm. Those with power, any one of you, I beg you to help us. Politicians don't do things like us - we have to wait years. You say something and 2 years later someone with power will say it - but it doesn't matter - as long as it gets done - and at least it shows they are listening. We used to have traditional sites until they fenceed and ditched them off. Where are we to go? Lets all park up in the street - preferably this one! Lord Avery ========== speaks on the consultation that is now being done by gov. The 1994 Conservative law of Public Order abolished the duty of local authorities as laid down in the Housing Act so there has been no public provision of housing from 1994- 2005 In Herne Bay for example, hundreds of planning permissions refused - only 2 have been granted. Call for a Moratorium on Evictions, so that the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act and Housing Acts can be fulfilled - ie housing needs assessed and land provided as necessary. Call for pressure on government and ODPM and MPs for immediate action to prevent people becoming homeless by local authorities - who still have a duty under the Housing Act Convention on the Rights of the Child? Jeremy Corbyn - MP Islington, Parliamentary Human Rights Committee. ================================================================== Norman Dodd??? campeigned for site provision by councils all over the country. After 50-100 years persecution in central Europe and by Nazis. 3 demands: 1. Moratorum on evictions. 2. Lift powers of derigation 3. Examination by UK Committee for Human Rights of travellers persecution. 50,000 Roma are being deported to Kosova from Germany to Mitrovica, Mahala burnt a year ago. Deportattion to begin with those on benefits. This is the largest deportation since Stalin authorised the deportation of the Chechenyans in ????? Commission for Racial Equaliy is looking at local authorities treatment of Racial Relations Act - also the press, eg the Sun's targetting of Irish Travellers. Basildorn Council has left the situation for 2 years, not provided any housing solutions or offers and is now threatening eviction. The Government must step in to make Basildon provide alternatives. * Joint Committee on Gypsys and Travellers * Februarty Report on travellers Nick Hardy MP N.Devon ===================== Sorry that in 2005, 50 years after the European Convention on Human Rights, 8 years after this government who were so committed to eradicating suffering and poverty we are here. There is a historuical context for today, centuries, decades and years of persecuition. The same newspapers that stirred people in the 1930s are doing it today. County CVouncil proposed a site and people reacted. ODPM says can we get a derigation from Convention on Human Rihgts for Travellers. But this convention is there toprotect travellers. these are the very people it exists to help. Support a moratorium on local evictions until a decision/ solution is found on a national level. 1994 act is wrong - most people including MP for Billaricay agree. Jeremy Thorpe ex MP for N.Devon says @Don't waste your agony@ government must face up to years, decades, centuries of neglect. Grattan Puxon - ustiben ======================= I left in the 60s to avoid Military Service and joined ther Irish Travellers. Dublin Council burnt our homes. The Caravan Act was passed as a victory but subsequent governments have destroyed that. In the 60s I would never have believed that 2005 would see the Nazi 30s once again for Roma and Travellers in Europe. Today we have to stop the buck-passing and the evictions at Dale Farm. The biggest trageller site in the UK cannot be destroyed. We will stop this. We will hold a candle-lit vigil tonight outside the Basildon Centre. Also, Human Rights Monitoring Teams are being mobilised to watch the JCBs and Bulldozers. If Basildon recommend eviction we will look for a judicial review and injunction. If we fail there next month we will need demonstrators, protestors and monitors. We are entitled by law to defend ourselves and our property. Roma, Gypsys, Travellers United- Dale Farm is where we will make a stand. ========================================================================= Email the Private Secretary of the Deputy Prime Minister for a Moratorium on Evictions psdpm @ odpm .gov.uk ==================== Alice ===== The aristocracy of this country have seen it as their god given right to abuse people for too long. Recent examples are the abuses of Travellers and traveller children by the secret services. Alice in Wonderland, MK Ultra and Project Monarch all involved illegal and unauthorised non-consentual experimentation on children and I was one such child. This involves sterilisation, traumatisation and child abuse. They also sold this research and technology to the Nazis. Save the Children and NSPCC said they would help traveller children - but they haven't got back to us - why? Dale Farm Resident ================== I was diagnosed as diabetic at 9. I had no regular doctor/GP as we were on the road. By the time i would get a doctors appointment we would be moved on by baliffs. I now need 2 injections daily, which must be kept refridgerated. There are many more like me on site. I cannot go on the road. I will die. What can I do? I beg and plead : please do not put us on the road - I can't do it. Wickford Resident ================= New neighbours always take time to get to know each other. We have made links in the community through our church in Wickford. If people don't have time to meet and take care of their commu nity and hme then how can they? The long and short term effects on mental health and the power to be secure. The residents of Dale Farm are welcome in our community. There is a groundswell of support in the local area - on both sides. It may not be vocal - but it is there. Basildon council must make a special case and give provisions. eviction is bad for all the residents of Billaricay and Basildon - and expensive too. Dale Farm Resident ================== What will become of my child who has special needs? How can she get the education she needs? I live in Hertfordshire. She was in school and when she came home i had to tell her that we have to move. If the RSPCA see stray dogs they gie them a home. My daughter is at Great Ormond St. Hospital every 6 weeks and Basildon Hospital in between. At 18 months she was diagnosed as being deaf. She has cocular implant which needs tuning - there are only 4 places in Britain that can do so. We were born in England and are British subjects like anyone else here. Today my child reads letters for me as I cannot read - I spent all my life on the road - I don't want that for my children.