CIA In Oakington

As part of a day of action in Cambridge on August 19th, around 200 people showed up at Oakington (the latest refugee prison) with musical instruments and materials to decorate the fences and give gifts of toys, sweets, books and clothes to fill an entire van. Two people (one dressed as a pink and green furry monster!) were allowed to go into the centre and hand in the gifts. The children were delighted, especially with the chocolate!

Police were there in force, with helicopter, patrols and a roadblock 100 metres up the lane that shields the detention centre from the outside world. People were read the Public Disorder Act, and with police photographers in full body armour and the occasional police helicopter, there was an atmosphere of intimidation.

Groups had gathered as part of the Cambridge-wide action Cambridge In August (CIA) which targeted the Oakington Detention Centre, Trinity College (which has major share-holdings in arms manufacturer British Aerospace) and nearby Huntington Life Sciences (Europe’s largest and most notorious animal experimentation facility) all on the same day.

In August, a taxi carrying racist shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe from a book-signing in Edinburgh was surrounded by angry protesters, enraged by her attitude towards asylum seekers. Police forced a way out through the placard-wielding crowd, after she was heckled with chants of “Jail the racists, not the refugees!” and "Refugees are welcome, Widdecombe is not." At a previous book-signing in Oxford she was pelted with custard pies.

7 protesters who blocked the road outside Oakington detention centre on the day it opened, have been convicted. The charge was maliciously changed from obstruction of the highway to obstruction of a police officer when police evidence collapsed.