newhavenindependent.org
NEW HAVEN, Conn.-- When Abel Sanchez went to check on his brother- in-law, he was issued a ticket for interfering with a police officer. When he left police custody, he needed to go to a hospital, according to a civil rights complaint filed in federal court Monday.

The affidavit alleges Sanchez (pictured here in the hospital before his discharge) was shoved to the ground, punched, kicked, handcuffed, and then Maced in the back of a squad car by patrol officer Dennis O'Connell, before being taken to a warehouse and cleaned up by other cops.

A report on Forced Migration, Climate Change and War by Christian Aid

From the Foreword:
A world struggling to cope with the largest enforced movement of people in its history. Tens of millions displaced, living in parlous conditions – their very futures threatened by the enormity of the problem.

Christian Aid predicts that, on current trends, a further 1 billion people will be forced from their homes between now and 2050. We believe forced migration is the most urgent threat facing poor people in developing countries. The time for action is now.

Happy International Women's Day!

Please join us in an ongoing electronic Iran vigil in
solidarity with women's rights activists in Iran at:

http://opinionware.net/iran_vigil

On Sunday, 4 March 2007, the police and security forces violently
attacked and arrested 33 women's rights activists as they stood in
peaceful protest outside the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The
activists had gathered in solidarity with the five women who were
being tried in connection with demonstrations held on 12 June 2007 to
demand equal rights for women.

As of this writing, (8:49 a.m. GMT, Thursday, 8 March 2007), three

Is there political organizing happening on your campus? What are people doing? Why or why not?

I go to UCSD as a grad student. There doesn't seem to be much political orgainzing at all happening on my campus. Why?

Should we abandon the university as a political space or is there still usefulness in organizing on campuses?

by Deepa Fernandes, Special to CorpWatch February 5th, 2007

The small town of Florence, Arizona, sits at an epicenter of a new boom in private prisons for immigrants. The one-lane highway from Tucson to this desert prison town runs through cacti, red rock, and occasional mountains. Then out of nowhere, a roadside sign breaks the spell: “State Prison: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers.”

From the National Immigrant Solidarity Network

Folks:

Here's a so-called Secure Border Initiative conference will be happened in Washington D.C. at March 19-21, organized by National Defense Industrial Association--a military industry trade association, to promote more $$$ for the wepons.

Lee Siu Hin
National Coordinator
National Immigrant Solidarity Network

2007 Homeland Security Symposium and Exposition
The Secure Border Initiative (SBI): Challenges-Opportunities-Solutions
The Continuum of Border Security

March 19-21, 2007
Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, Arlington, VA

Organized by: National Defense Industrial Association

SBI: Challenges-Opportunities-Solutions - The Continuum of Border Security

This National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) Homeland Security Secure Border Initiative Symposium provides a forum for government and industry stakeholders to develop, strengthen and affirm our current and future directions and partnerships for Homeland Security’s mission to secure America’s borders and reduce illegal immigration.

Indymedia UK - On Monday, 12th February, the Home Office intend to forcibly remove 50+ Iraqi-Kurds to Erbil, Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). A 'charter flight' is scheduled to carry the rejected asylum seekers, who had been arrested and detained in the last fortnight, from the RAF Brize Norton military base in Oxfordshire.

There were 3 demonstrations on Saturday in London, Leicester and Manchester [reports from Harmondsworth demo 1 | 2 | photos 1 | 2 ]. There will also be a protest on Monday at Brize Norton (click here for full article).

Related: No Deportations to Unsafe Iraq | No Deportations to Iraq | New Labour's War on the Kurds

nytimes.com | By Randal C. Archibold

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 — Three illegal immigrants were shot to death, three were wounded and others were missing Thursday near Tucson after gunmen accosted them as they traveled north from the Mexican border, the authorities said.

The shootings came a day after gunmen in ski masks and carrying assault-style rifles robbed 18 people who had illegally crossed the border 70 miles to the south, near Sasabe. On Jan. 28 a man driving illegal immigrants from the border several miles from the scene of Thursday’s killings was ambushed and shot to death as the immigrants fled.

I wrote the following commentary tying Children of Men, a new sci-fi film about migration and war, to writings by Zizek that I've been studying lately, only to find this:

http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2006/12/zizek_and_child.html

"I shouldn't be surprised--Zizek will be on the DVD version of Children of Men. The director knows his work.
News - The Human Project.

Slavoj Zizek Reacts to Children of Men

Philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek provides his commentary and observations about Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men. The filmmakers recently spent time with Mr. Zizek after identifying him as an important element in their research because of the unique philosophical view he offers on both the implementation of governmental power, and the damaged emotional state of a refugee...

SLAVOJ ZIZEK:

For me, Children of Men is a model of a kind of materialist subversion of a reactionary classic, because the novel is obviously a spiritualist Christian parable of resuscitation, bringing new life and so on. The novel ends with baptizing. It’s clear Christian parable. The film is a model of how you can take a reactionary text, change some details here and there and you get a totally, a totally different story. I would say that it’s a realist film, but in what sense? Hegel in his esthetics says that a good portrayal looks more like the person who is portrayed than the person itself. A good portrayal is more you than you are yourself. And I think this is what the film does with our reality. The changes that the film introduces do not point toward alternate reality, they simply make reality more what it already is. I think this is the true vocation of science fiction. Science fiction realism introduces a change that makes us see better. The nightmare that we are expecting is here.

...I think that this film gives the best diagnosis of the ideological despair of late capitalism. Of a society without history, or to use another political term, biopolitics. And my god, this film literally is about biopolitics. The basic problem in this society as depicted in the film is literally biopolitics: how to generate, regulate life."

Read on for my commentary...

WARNING: contains tons of spoilers.

This is the weekly news, articles, and analysis digest from No One is Illegal - Vancouver. To subscribe please email noii-van@resist.ca

A quick reminder to also visit our new blog which features daily updates, including a new section on Somalia
* BLOG site: http://noiivan.blogspot.com

BELOW:
1) No One is Illegal-Montreal radio archives
2) Exclusive: Inside Gitmo North
3) CBC: Deseronto quarry blocked by Mohawk protest
4) G&M: Visible-minority immigrants identify less with the country
5) Star: 'Khadr effect' silences Canadians
6) Citizen: Refugee wins first battle to teach in Ontario
7) Mohawk Nation News: Resisting the Task Force on Border Crossing
8) US Military recruiting foreigners with citizenship as incentive
9) US Judge demands to about detainees in immigration raid
10) Minutemen build their own $1 million border fence
11) US Immigration News Briefs (Students protest; deported immam arrested
in Israel; UFCW Pursues Lawsuit Over Raids)
12) Statement by African and European organizations on Morrocoan deportations
13) Australia unveils new “Australian values” citizenship test
14) Afghanistan-Pakistan: Fencing Across The Border