via: https://lille.indymedia.org/spip.php?article34689&lang=fr

Calais: Communique written by R, British militant held in CRA and under threat of expulsion to the UK.

My name is R, British citizen, militant in Calais in solidarity with exiled people and involved in the opening of squats last February. I am currently under house arrest in a CAES 45 minutes drive from my home,being subject to an OQTF [obligation to leave French territory], an IRTF [prohibition to return to French territory, a re-entry ban] of one year and a withdrawal of my residence permit. I have been “free” since Monday after spending 3 nights in the CRA [administrative detention centre] of Lesquin and after having been detained by the PAF [Police Aux Frontières] in Calais for 15 hours (they transferred my to Lille to separate me from my comrades).

The authorities targeted me because I had been a militant for two years for the rights of exiled people in Calais. They targeted me because we opened a place where our administrative situations do not matter, a place belonging to exiled people and spared from violence of the State and because we began to create bonds of solidarity between all those who struggle for the rights of the exiled people in France and elsewhere. The State wants people to be isolated, tired, homeless, without any legal resources; they do not want people with papers to support them. So they withdraw my residence permit, they lock me up in CRA and expel me to England. They haven’t understood that it won’t change anything except to give energy, motivation, and rage to the militants in Calais and elsewhere because, with these repressive acts, we are told “your activities threaten the smooth running of our violent policies”.

I think I speak for all the people I have met inside the Lesquin CRA when I say that the authorities treat us like animals. The police are well aware that they can do whatever they want inside without fearing any sanctions. They don’t bring us our things, they let us sleep on the floor, and nobody informs us about the progress of our legal proceedings outside. During a visit, I started to tell a friend what I was experiencing in the CRA when a policeman stopped the visit to prevent me from doing so. I thank the other detainees who did not hesitate to share their food, blankets and clothes with me and all those who were in need, and I deeply wish them to be released soon. My thoughts go to my comrade K., detained the same day as me, who has lived in France for 5 years without papers, who works as a hairdresser, and who has never hurt anyone; their only crime is to exist.

The French State is a repressive State and French (in)justice is complicit. In Calais, the expulsions from living areas, the police violence, the racial profiling, the detention, a whole machine of repressive and inhumane violence justified by (in)justice, takes place without any consequences for the authorities who order them and the police who carry them out. The Franco-British border is a deeply racist, violent and unjust border, a real playground for a particularly sadistic administration and police.

You have to realise that the repression I experienced recently is considered special and scandalous only because I am a European militant: the people exiled in Calais are living a thousand times worse and nobody talks about it.

LET’S ABOLISH THE POLICE. LET’S DEMOLISH THE BORDERS. LET’S BURN THE CRA.