Dear Liverpool City Council,

 

We, the undersigned, would like to support the call made by Liverpool artists to the City Council regarding the use of G4S for security contracts in the city. The letter reads as follows:

 

We  are writing to you as Liverpool artists – writers, actors, musicians and others – who have been involved in the artistic life of the city, some of us for many years.

 

The arrival of the Giants to the city has brought to a head a problem which some of us have been aware of for a long time. The contrast between the joy of the giants' celebration and the current appalling misery and carnage in Palestine was brought into sharp focus by the presence of numerous G4S security employees, marshalling the event. G4S is used by the Council for a number of different events, including the upcoming International Music Festival, and this needs to stop.

 

G4S is a serial abuser of human rights, supplying security systems to Israeli prisons where Palestinians, including children, are illegally detained and frequently tortured, and to checkpoints in the Apartheid Wall in the Occupied West Bank. Under intense pressure, G4S now says it will exit these contracts in 2017. We'd like them to get out now.

 

Additionally, over the last year:

1-G4S is still under criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for receiving public funds for tagging dead people...

2-In July 2013 the Group 4 Training Officer who fatally restrained Gareth Myatt, a 40 kg boy, was promoted to Health and Safety Manager G4S Children’s Services.

3-In October 2013 a G4S guard was jailed for life in Scotland for murdering a conference delegate.

4-In November 2013 the South African Government took over from G4S after G4S lost control of Mangaung prison, where reports of human rights violations including electric shocks and forced injections of psychiatric drugs became an international scandal.

5-In January 2014 a Prison Officer reported that the ‘disturbance’ at G4S Oakwood Prison was a ‘full scale riot’. Oakwood prisoners find it easier to get drugs than soap.

6-In February 2014 the Australian Government removed the contract for the incarceration of asylum seekers and refugees in Manus Island after a riot which resulted in the death of Reza Berati. According to the independent report published in Australia during May 2014, G4S guards were implicated in physical abuse of detainees.

7-Again in February 2014 following tireless campaigning, a parliamentary watchdog published a scathing report exposing how G4S has provided filthy and unfit housing for people awaiting outcomes of asylum claims or appeals, and ensured the company will be fined.

8-In May 2014 a BBC Scotland investigation revealed that a guard who murdered two colleagues in Iraq had not been properly vetted by G4S, who had been warned of the danger prior to his deployment to Iraq.

9-In March 2014 three G4S guards were charged with manslaughter over their role in the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan man who died while being ‘restrained’ during a deportation run by G4S.

 

We are aware that G4S is a huge international company and it currently holds contracts all over the world.  However, Liverpool people have never been for sitting on the fence, or for going along with the status quo when we feel it is morally wrong to do so. Liverpool is a city that has fought and continues to fight against injustice. As the plight of Palestinian families and children continues, we believe the people of this city would be appalled if they were fully aware of who you are hiring to provide security for our own families and children. 

 

We call upon you to refrain from signing any further contracts with G4S, and to cancel any current ones. G4S is complicit with the war crimes being carried out by the Israeli government. When you sign contracts, paid for by Council Tax payers in this city, you make us complicit too. 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Hilary Alexander – writer

Tayo Aluko – writer and actor

Frank Cottrell Boyce – writer

Karen Brown – writer

Mark Byrne – musician

Tessa Buddle – theatre maker

Anthony Cairns – theatre maker

Leigh Campbell – writer

Alice Colquhoun – writer

Tessa Core – theatre maker

John Graham Davies – actor and writer

Bill Dawson –  writer

Alison Down – writer

Paul Duckworth –  actor

Jane Duckworth – film maker

Joy France – writer and performer

Alex Gavaghan – musician

Alan Gibbons – writer

Paul Goetzee – writer

Martin Heslop – composer

Paddy Hughes – writer

Jonathan Larkin – writer

Colette Kane – writer

Jimmy McGovern  – writer

Mike Morris – writer

Chloe Moss – writer

Nick Moss – actor

Vidar Norheim – musician

Lizzie Nunnery – writer and musician

Alun Parry – musician

Tim Price – writer

Uma Ramanathan – creative project manager

Paul Regan – actor

Nevean Riley Mohamed –  actor

Steve Roberts – musician

Lindsay Rodden – writer and dramaturg

Rachel Rogers – arts manager

Victoria Rope – producer

Martin Saleh – photographer

Alexei Sayle – actor and writer

Paula Simms  –  director and actor

Vinnie Spencer - musician

Paul Tsanos – musician

Vivienne Tyler –  creative business manager

Dave Ward – writer

Curtis Watt – writer and performer

Colin Watts - poet

Esther Wilson – writer

Dan Wilson – musician 

Jeff Young – writer