via NCADC News Service

Memorial Service and Public Meeting
Sunday 15th February
2-3pm service in the church
3-4pm public meeting in the Allen Room, upstairs
St. Ann’s Church, Dean Street (Shaftesbury Avenue end), London W1

The UK Chinese rights organisation, Min Quan, today (10 Feb) said that the Morecombe Bay tragedy in which 19 Chinese cockle-pickers died was a direct result of the government’s inhumane immigration and asylum policies.

Jabez Lam of Min Quan, an affiliate of The Monitoring Group, said: “This tragedy was an accident waiting to happen. In the Dover 58 tragedy in June 2000, 58 Chinese nationals suffocated in the back of a lorry. But instead of responding to calls to grant the right to work to all workers, the government tightened immigration and asylum controls. In denying welfare support and the opportunity to work to asylum seekers, the government has created a group of vulnerable workers.

“These workers are being pushed by government policies to despair, taking any casual work offered to them with the inevitable result that they are driven into the hands of unscrupulous employers, gangmasters, and organized criminals in the most exploitative and unsafe working conditions.

“We are warned of the decline in the UK working population and the growth in the pensioned population by a government which tells us that all workers should take out private pensions to safeguard a decent income in retirement. At the same time as the Home Secretary warns of the lack of manual labour in the construction, social care and service industries, we have seen a stream of legislation criminalising people wanting to work and prepare to work.

“We are witnessing a repeat of the Dover 58 tragedy. The victims, their families, and the Chinese community are being criminalised by the authorities and some sections of the media. An atmosphere of fear has rapidly engulfed the Chinese community. The families of the deceased are afraid to come forward and identify their loved ones, or assist the police in bringing to justice those responsible for their deaths.”

Memorial Service and public meeting

The Monitoring Group is organizing a memorial service to commemorate the tragic lost of young Chinese lives in the Morecombe Bay tragedy, and this will be followed by a public meeting to discuss what need to be done to support the families of the deceased, the survivors and the Chinese community.

The Monitoring Group calls upon the relevant authorities and the government to:

1. facilitate the prompt identification of the bodies,

2. adopt a sympathetic and supportive approach in dealing with the familes of the deceased and the survivors,

3. respect and facilitate the decisions of the families of the deceased with regard to the funeral arrangement for their love ones,

4. restore social and welfare support to asylum seekers,

5. grant the right to work to all unauthorized workers,

6. exercise the humantarian policy under the asylum legislation to the survivors of this tragedy,

7. ensure health and safety protection is afforded to all workers regardless of their immigration status.

Inquiries/further information, Editors’ notes:

1) Contact: Jabez Lam at 07940 514 268, or Bobby Chan at 020 7839 6256, or David Suen at 07795 218 827.

2) During the Dover 58, it took three months for all the bodies to be identified. It took another four months before the bodies were sent home for burial. The Dover 58 Co-ordinating Committee, led by The Monitoring Group, assisted the victims’ families in liaising with the police, advised and assisted the police in its process of identification of all the bodies, supported families over the funeral arrangement, and supported victims’ families when dealing with the police and the immigration service.

3) Min Quan exists to provide specialist services to the Chinese community on matters of racial harassment, domestic violence and police misconduct. We liaise with relevant organisations to empower victims and we also provide information and training on the above issues.

www.minquan.co.uk

4) As well as the 19 dead, 14 out of the 16 survivors were Chinese.

Source for this message: Min Quan - Anna Chen a.chen@virgin.net

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