Dale Farm Evictions

[reject]

Dale Farm families could be evicted from midnight tonight
The last remaining legal barrier between the eviction of 50 families from their homes at Dale Farm has now fallen. The emergency injunction we sought, which would have delayed the planned eviction, has not been granted. This means that, from midnight tonight, the bailiffs can come at any time. The homes of the Dale Farm families are at risk.

Now is the time to make your stand with in solidarity with Dale Farm.
Please come down to Camp Constant – the more people we have, the more powerful our message and the more we can support the residents to resist the eviction. Sign up to the sms eviction alert system at https://smsalerts.tachanka.org/dalefarm/ . Dale Farm is only 30 minutes by train from London Liverpool Street Station. The atmosphere at Dale Farm is inspiring — for some video of residents and supporters celebrating and learning together, see http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/two-communites-celebrating-together/

This weekend at Dale Farm (in addition to site consturction and other activities):

On Saturday, Sept 3rd, noon: Jewish Solidarity visit — it’s important that cultures with a shared history of oppression support each other when our fundamental human rights face being breached. That is why this Saturday, Jewish rabbis, citizens and activists will be on a special blockade in support of residents at Dale Farm.

There is a workshop, on Sunday Sept. 4th, 2pm: Freedom of Movement and the Right to Stay! This is the rallying cry for Roma, Gypsies and Travellers and of migrants throughout the world. A common thread of persecution, of forbidden lands, eviction and deportation connect the struggles for migrant rights and the rights of Gypsies and Travellers. These realities have met dramatically in the crack-down and deportations of Roma people from France and Italy. Come to the Workshop organised by No One Is Illegal and London No Borders including a speaker who is an activist in Amnesty International’s campaign against the persecution of Roma in Europe.

TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THE DEMO: Sat, 10th Sept, 1pm, see here for more information and email: savedalefarm@gmail.com to add your group’s support to the list…

If you can’t come down, you can help in other ways:
- spread the word on Twitter (@letdalefarmlive) on Facebook (search ‘Dale Farm Solidarity’)
- talk about it to your friends
- comment online – all the newspapers are carrying the story and the majority of comments are negative
- donate: http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/donate/

[reject]

Traveller Families Lose Eviction Showdown
Sky News
Aug 31, 2011

Irish travellers living illegally on a site in Essex have lost an appeal against their eviction at the High Court. The group were trying to persuade judges to grant an injunction to halt the site clearance from Dale Farm. Basildon Borough Council recently issued the 50 families with notice to leave by midnight in a planning dispute that has dragged on for 10 years. The travellers own the land but, crucially, they do not have planning permission to live there.

The case hinged on the circumstances of 72-year-old Mary Flynn who suffers breathing problems and uses an electric nebuliser. Although it was dismissed, the council gave a legal undertaking to review fresh medical evidence relating to Mrs Flynn before proceeding against her. The site is classified as green belt but the Dale Farm residents argued it was a disused scrapyard when they bought it.

Earlier the travellers told Sky News the community would not go peacefully if the planned eviction goes ahead and would rather burn their homes than move. Nora Sheridan said: "They will burn what they have up there... they will use their homes and cars as shields and set fire to them because they're not going to let people come in." Mary Slattery added: "Who is going walk out of their homes peacefully? In the real world if you're living in your house and you're getting evicted for nothing will you walk out your front door for nothing? It's not going to happen."

Last week around 30 supporters set up a camp at the site to offer residents tactical support and eviction-resistance training. Activist Natalie Fox told Sky News: "After the Roma evictions in France earlier this year, people are seeing this as an international human rights issue. Activists are arriving here from all over Europe to take part in human-rights monitoring and to engage in peaceful civil disobedience to stop the bulldozers."

Actress Vanessa Redgrave was at the High Court to pledge support and declared an eviction would breach human rights legislation. Five years ago her brother Corin suffered a heart attack at a public meeting as he pleaded with Basildon councillors to save the families from eviction. But residents from the nearby village of Crays Hill were keen for the eviction to go ahead.

Len Gridley, whose garden backs on to the site, claims his house has lost half its value since the travellers moved in. When a Sky News team arrived at his home he attempted to burn down plastic sheeting that activists had put up over his fence. He was later arrested.

Basildon Council has offered the families alternative housing and say they are not discriminating against their lifestyle. Leader Tony Ball said: "The legal process has, after a decade, finally been exhausted and the council now has the job of upholding the law. We have offered help with accommodation and we're aware of issues around elderly and very young residents on the site."

The eviction could cost the council £8m.

[faceless]

the local council are jobsworth arseholes - there's so much more to the story than the crap the Daily Mail says. Travellers are subhuman to them.

[SpursFan1902]

Quote:

The travellers own the land but, crucially, they do not have planning permission to live there.

I am not sure I understand this. They own the land but have to have other permission to live on their land?

[Brown Sauce]

you can own land, but if it isn't designated as building land, it can't be built on, or you can't put a permanent dwelling on it. That includes caravans, or tents, tipi's, yurts, for example. You can live in a temporary dwelling for 28 days in the year.

These regulations are sometimes wavered, at the discretion of the local authorities.

The laws in Germany are even harder .. I've been looking into low impact living.

[luke]

Ethnic Cleansing in Essex

Anti-Gipsy is the last socially acceptable racism. Even regular commentators on this blog chip in on Dale Farm posts with “They fly tip and make a terrible mess” “They nicked stuff from my local pub” “They just laid a quarter of an inch of tarmac straight on the soil” and other ethnic caricatures. “They” steal children too, no doubt.

Watching the violent ethnic cleansing in Essex live on TV this morning was a heart-wrenching experience. Councillor Tony Ball, leader of the authority conducting the ethnic cleansing, a Murdoch star, explains that his action is popular. I have no doubt it is. It would be popular in Basildon if the council hung a black man from the council flagstaff every day. No doubt the smug little bigot is a happy man this morning.

Those who justify breaking up family homes, destroying a community and disrupting childrens’ schooling, on grounds of narrow legality and planning law, have to answer this narrow legal point too. The attack (for such it was) on Dale Farm this morning was carried out by riot police with no participation of bailiffs. At least two female inhabitants, both travellers and permanent residents at the site, have needed hospital treatment. The police smashed down fences, both internal and external to the site, which the High Court had specifically said were on the site, legally owned by the travellers and could not be destroyed by the bailiffs. Where does that illegal act of destruction sit with the narrow legalistic defence of this racist attack?

Murdoch News this morning gave the gist of the police’s legal defence. Police had “Intelligence” of a “stockpile of items to be used as weapons”. They therefore had had to storm the camp in the interests of public safety. This necessitated the breaking down of the High Court protected fences as an emergency measure to save lives. All of which is a transparent pretext, a flouting of the law by the police much worse than any law the travellers’ flouted, because the police breaking of the law resulted in violence and injury. The weapons stockpile of course does not exist.

Let me state once more the key facts. Although situated in a greenbelt, every inch of the travellers’ site was brownfield land, previously occupied by a scrapyard. Satellite photos prove that the travellers did not expand at all onto green land. The reason they did not have planning permission is that multiple applications for planning permission have been rejected, and the reason they have been rejected is that Basildon Council are racists. A nice Tory builder would undoubtedly have been allowed to shoehorn countless houses onto this ex-scrapyard. The travellers do own all the land they were on.

What harm were they doing? None. What was their crime? Their ethnicity. All the else is legalistic camouflage of the type that states have used to pursue ethnic cleansing everywhere. Ethnic cleansing is always enforcing the law in the eys of the state which carries it out. That is rather the point.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/10/ethnic-cleansing-in-essex/

more;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/oct/19/dale-farm-evictions-live
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050762/Dale-Farm-eviction-Battle-Basildon-begin-bailiffs-prepare-enter-campsite.html
http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/

[luke]

Dale Farm resident in hospital with spinal injuries from police baton. In a lot of pain and can't move legs.

Solicitors are seeking an emergency injunction

and;

The plot of a resident who needs a breathing machine to survive has had it's electricity cut.

[faceless]

These cops are fucking wankers. 'They're only doing their job' says the reporter on Sky News...

[luke]

[Dale Farm] resident Cornelius Sheridan, who is in his 50s and seriously ill, has been taken to hospital. Supporters said this was because the power supply to his defibrillator had been cut.

and;



Stephen Bates has spoken to an AP journalist who witnessed a man being Tasered by police this morning — and his account seems to differ from the official police line that officers were under direct threat.

The journalist told Steve that officers were on the offensive and were not under threat from the man when he was Tasered.

Although stones were being thrown at police, he added, they were being chucked from well behind where the man was.

He also says that police used the Taser on the man — who was a protester rather than an observer — as they shouted their first warning that they were armed with the weapons.

The journalist also reports that police officers dismissed official observers as they moved in, telling them: "We don't care who you are. Get out of the way!"

[faceless]

Dale Farm Eviction
Here's the Panorama documentary about the Dale Farm evictions which was broadcast tonight. Often with Panorama it's just a cobbled-together piece which reflects only the opinions of the powers-that-be, but this one is an example of genuine journalism; written, directed and produced by one guy, Richard Parry.

I've done the file at high quality, so it's a 480mb download
download 480mb mp4

[luke]