The Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers has announced a Summer of Discontent on the government and the racists.

Jack Straw devised the voucher scheme to deter people from entering this country.  Not only are people forced to live off a paltry £36.54 a week, they are also forced to queue apart from other shoppers.  They are stigmatised, like the Jews were in the 1930s.

The New Labour government is one of the harshest to asylum seekers in Europe.  If those fleeing terror, war, torture or poverty ever get here, they face a life without work, without income support, with forced dispersal and an abysmal success rate in achieving refugee status or the right to remain.  This isn't good enough for the government.  Now Straw is attempting to rip up the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees.

We must stop this legalised racism.  We have listened as those in government and the establishment have promised to tackle racism in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.  Now we must turn those words into action and prevent the racist scapegoating of asylum seekers.
 

The Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers is demanding:

• Asylum seekers have the right to work
• Asylum seekers have income support
• Abolition of detention centres
• Defence of the 1951 Geneva convention on Refugees
• Scrap the voucher system
• No to dispersal
• Full legal rights and representation
• Scrap the Asylum & Immigration Act

• Set up a local committee to get everyone involved, invite refugee groups, local councillors, MPs, pensioners groups, churches, trade unionists and local activists.

• Organise protests outside Sainsburys and Tesco.  Advertise them by doing a leaflet and a poster.  Make them regular - every Saturday and a weekday.  Leaflet people doing their shopping.

• Asylum Seekers are welcome!  If asylum seekers are being dispersed to your area, move fast with cards and a welcome party.  People can cook food and bring gifts for the children.  This helps break the isolation imposed on asylum seekers and will create an anti-racist atmosphere.

• Use the statement.  Get signatures and collect money to place an advert in the local press.