Dear Supporter

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has signed this petition, campaigned alongside us, carried out the campaign actions and shared on multiple platforms on social media, written to your MPs - I am sorry we haven't been able to reply to all your emails - there were hundreds of them but rest assured we are reading them, appreciating your efforts and taking stock of which politicians and political parties are speaking out and taking action. 

This has become very much a campaign of people power with race equality and migrant rights groups together with  people just like you all coming together to oppose this awful mass deportation.

Today I  and others in our team were  proud to join award winning author, Bernardine Evaristo, model Naomi Campbell, historian David Olusoga and actors Naomie Harris and Thandie Newton, as well as lawyers, broadcasters and NGO chiefs, Windrush campaigners including Michael Braithwaite and Elwaldo Romeo  - 90 black British based celebrities, public figures and campaigners in total  - calling on airlines to stop the flight

You can read the letter, press release and an article in the Guardian about it here: https://blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com/2020/11/barac-petition-calling-for-halt-to-mass.html

Today I spoke to a man who served 10 months in prison for a driving offence  and who has serious health conditions which make it dangerous for him to fly. He has a young family here in the UK and is awaiting an operation and is terrified he will die in Jamaica as he has nobody there and won't be able to access the medication he takes currently. 

I also spoke this week to a man we supported who was booked on the flight to Jamaica in February this year and who was taken off through a successful legal challenge. He wanted to say thank you and to let me know that he has leave to remain, he has a good job helping the community, his children who were suffering from trauma and stress  before but are now  doing really well at school and his whole family is happy, safe and well. This just goes to show that he should never have been booked on the flight in the first place and that he was able to win his case and right to remain. Imagine the impact on his young family had he been deported. 

The government should not be punishing small children in this way. Especially not now when black communities have seen loved ones die disproportionately from coronavirus this year and many families are already struggling to survive because of the coronavirus crisis and economic impacts.

We believe that next week's flight will be operated by the airline TUI. SOAS Detainee Support group have coordinated a twitter storm for tomorrow and have designed some graphics we can all use.

Our action for tomorrow is to tweet @TUIUK using the hashtags #Jamaica50 and #StopthePlane  - If you go to @sdetsup on twitter you can access the twitter , email and phone templates  they will share tomorrow.

In the meantime please tweet all the airlines who are complicit in charter flight mass deportations:

@TUIUK @hifly_airline @my_CWT @evelopair @AirTanker TITAN Airways

calling on them to stop supporting and participating in this cruel, inhumane and racist system, 

#Jamaica50 #stoptheplane“

Thank you and Best Regards 

Zita 

Zita Holbourne

BARAC UK and BAME Lawyers for Justice

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