No bomb that ever bursts shatters the crystal spirit: With Farid and others in a British prison     By Kevin Annett I wear as a badge of honour my deportation from a country of liars and cut throats.   - Big Bill Haywood, IWW leader and revolutionary, 1920   The filthy fiction calling itself the Crown of England finally vomited me from its midst this week, only five days before I was to speak of its crimes at the annual Against Child Abuse Rally in London's Trafalgar Square.   I am proud to have shared a British prison with many freedom fighters over time, including my own ancestor Peter Annett; but also alongside nameless men and women who are caught today in the claws of the police state called Britain.   Here is what happened:   The room is small, unventilated, and foul-smelling, and crammed with ten of us. I am the only white person there.   A Malaysian mother with her four year old daughter sits in one corner, sobbing uncontrollably. Incarcerated for half a day, she’s one of the luckier ones: a young Turkish man called Farid has languished in here for nearly three days, isolated from his four children. Farid has lived in England for eleven years, doing sweat jobs and loyally paying his taxes, but tomorrow he’ll be deported over a technicality in his work visa.   There is no appeal allowed. His children will not accompany him.   This is the Immigration Prison in Stansted airport, outside London. The date is the early hours of May 30, 2011.   The net fell on me suddenly the night before, as I made my way through the border control desk after disembarking from the Netherlands.   A banal little twit in a uniform scanned my passport through his computer, and quickly looked shocked as he peered through thick lenses at the screen. He scuttled off to speak to his supervisor, who I watched through the glass window of his office as he looked at his own computer, nodded his head and said something to the twit.   Triumphantly – I guess he got extra points for bagging a suspected enemy of the state – Twit boy returned and informed me with a whine of condescension that my giving public lectures was “unusual” for a tourist, that I was "suspect", and would therefore be barred from entering England.   "What exactly am I suspected of doing?" I asked the guy.   “But first you are to come this way” he motioned, ignoring my question like I hadn't said anything, and we walked to a tiny holding cell. The Twit left me alone in there for a half hour, I guess to make me sweat, but when he returned I was calmly whistling an Irish melody that seemed to annoy him to no end.   “I bet you find your job difficult” I ventured to the Twit as he fiddled with his papers. Attempting a smile, he answered,   “No, actually one meets very fascinating people in this line of work” he replied.   “People like you, then?” I said, but I don’t think he got my joke.   The Twit refused to give me his name when I asked, nor could I know the name of his supervisor. He also wasn’t wearing a badge number, although later he made a gaff when he donned another coat and I saw his number: 6676.   “You’ll be in here tonight, until we can send you back from whence you came” Twit informed me, gesturing to a white door. He knocked, and a stern young guy answered who wore a vest labeled Reliance: the private company that profits off incarcerating people all over England.   Despair gazed back at me from the sad eyes of my fellow prisoners who lay or sat around the room. A TV was blaring mindless crap at them so I walked over and shut it off. The young Turkish guy, Farid, looked surprised.   After my obligatory finger printing and photographing – I asked the Reliance guy if I could have a copy of the picture, since I looked pretty good, but he said no – I was locked into the sparse room with everyone, and told not to speak to any of them since that was against the rules. I just smiled.   Most of the detainees didn’t want to talk. It was nearly midnight by then, and like anyone, they had adapted to their incarceration and were mired in themselves. But Farid was too filled with grief about being robbed of his children to settle into apathy.   “I will never see them again. They will be put with other families and then anything can happen to them. My youngest son is only a baby.”   I remembered reading the day before how 586 children placed in the foster care system in England had somehow disappeared over the past year. Local child welfare officials had given no explanation concerning their fate.   Farid taught me some Turkish words that night, starting with “I love you” – it sounded like “selly sev yurum”. He laughed for the first time when he commented how the phrase might come in handy if I ever came to his country, but not if I said it to a man.   “That’s not what I hear” I replied, and he laughed even harder.   We held back the demons together during those slow and weary hours, as the others tried to sleep, and didn’t, and the Malaysian woman sang to her daughter while the Reliance thugs stared at us through a thick pane of glass.   It ended for me at 6 am, when I was taken to a plane that would fly me back to Eindhoven. I said goodbye to Farid and wished him luck.   He took my hand and said “Allah”, pressing his other hand against his chest, and then pointing to my heart.   I recalled then the last words in George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia, in which he describes briefly meeting an Italian militia man who like Orwell was fighting Franco and his fascists during the Spanish civil war. They couldn't speak one another's language, but they shook hands and departed in different directions for the front lines, and Orwell never saw the Italian man again.   In memory to this unknown stranger who had briefly taken his hand in comradeship, and who had probably died, Orwell wrote a poem to him that concluded,   But the look I saw in your eyes, no power can disinherit. No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.   The night after my deportation, I stood in a crowd of singing and laughing revealers in a Dublin pub, tasting my freedom like a soothing ale, and thinking of where Farid might be. I never felt unfree in jail; nor did anything there or in his own agony stop Farid from laughing.   As someone commented to me today, the more they repress us, the sharper and stronger we get. I feel inwardly clarified after the ordeal, and from the sounds of things, what happened to me is simply boomeranging back on the British government and its obvious and quite clumsy attempts to stop our Tribunal this fall.    So be of good cheer, and let that hope propel your body and your life to continue to accompany your words. But never forget Farid, and his children ... and that which is trying to jail all of us.   ............................................................................................................................... See the evidence of Genocide in Canada at www.hiddennolonger.com and on the website of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State at www.itccs.org. Watch Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT on his website www.hiddenfromhistory.org "True religion undefiled is this: To make restitution of the earth which has been taken and held from the common people by the power of Conquests, and so set the oppressed free by placing all land in common." - Gerrard Winstanley, 1650 "We will bring to light the hidden works of darkness and drive falsity to the bottomless pit. For all doctrines founded in fraud or nursed by fear shall be confounded by Truth." - Kevin's ancestor Peter Annett, writing in The Free Inquirer, October 17, 1761, just before being imprisoned by the English crown for "blasphemous libel" "I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him." Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba

 

2 June, 2011 Jack Layton, Leader of the Official Opposition Ottawa, Canada Dear Mr. Layton, It's only been a few days since I languished in a British immigration jail for 12 hours, awaiting deportation from Britain for the "crime" of giving public lectures that some people in the establishment in London seem to find offensive. The offense, as you know, involves the documented truth that the British crown, Canada, the Vatican and your own church, and my former employer - The United Church of Canada - planned and executed the systematic genocide of native people, and their children, in the murderous Indian residential school system. I have had the honour of documenting these crimes and helping their survivors for nearly twenty years now, and shared some of that evidence with Jean Crowder, your Aboriginal Affairs critic, in the spring of 2007 in Ottawa. Now that Prime Minister Harper, and you, have gone through the motions of publicly "apologizing" for the residential schools, it seems odd that I am being banned from setting foot in England for continuing to speak of this crime. Nevertheless, as an ordained clergyman, a Canadian and Commonwealth citizen, and as someone without a criminal record and holding a valid passport, it is abominable for my rights to have been so trampled on in the manner that occurred at Stansted airport last Sunday. Such creeping police-state methods do not bode well for the liberties of any of us. I am therefore asking that you raise my case in the House of Commons and with the appropriate officers of the British government and the Home Office, and ask, as I have done, that my passport be restored to its original condition, that I be allowed back into England, and that I be compensated for the loss of more than £300 resulting from my deportation. I am enclosing a copy of the letter I sent to Theresa May, Home Secretary in London, which has not been answered as of today. If you are not willing to help me in this way and defend the rights  of a Canadian citizen, I would appreciate a public explanation. As part of my work with the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS), I will be making this letter available to the media and others. Sincerely, Rev. Kevin Annett 260 Kennedy St. Nanaimo, BC Canada V9R 2H8 250-753-3345 cc: media, Jean Crowder MP .......................................................... June 1, 2011 The Hon. Theresa May, Secretary of State for the Home Department London, England Dear Ms. May, I am writing this formal letter of protest arising from my inhuman and shocking treatment at the hands of officers of the UK Border Agency on May 29-20, 2011 at Stansted Airport. I am a Canadian citizen with a valid Canadian passport and no criminal record, and an ordained clergyman who has made numerous visits to Britain in the past several years to conduct research and give occasional public lectures in church and missionary history.   On May 7, 2011, I arrived in Britain to stay about a month and assist my daughter Elinor, who accompanied me and who has a valid work permit. I left Britain briefly on May 27 and returned on May 29 after a brief visit with friends in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, for nearly twelve hours upon my return to Stansted airport, I was detained, imprisoned, treated like a suspected criminal, and eventually barred from re-entering Britain. The only reason given for this mis-treatment was that my giving occasional public lectures was not considered by the interrogating officer to constitute “appropriate” behaviour for a visitor to Britain! I am appalled that a civilized nation like Britain would stoop to abuse a Commonwealth citizen in this manner. The officer who detained me, who refused to give me his name but whose badge number is 6676, was utterly intransigent and unreasonable, and refused to cite the law and statutes under which I was denied re-entry to Britain. He caused both me and my daughter Elinor – who was waiting to meet me in London - much distress and did so without a shred of humanity. Consequently, I was forced to spend over £300 obtaining a new plane ticket to Ireland after I was sent back to my starting point in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Even more serious is the fact that a permanent record of my refused re-entry to Britain has been left on my Canadian passport, and on that basis I was nearly denied entry to Ireland during my recent attempt to return home from there to Canada. Madame Minister, this completely unnecessary incident could have been avoided if I had have simply been allowed re-entry and a day or two of grace to set my affairs in order and obtain whatever work permit was required for me to conduct the public lectures that were supposedly the basis of the officer’s decision to deny me re-entry. This would have been the sane and humanitarian course. I consider that my human rights have been grossly violated and I have undergone assault at the hands of your Border Agency officials. Unless I obtain satisfaction from your office, I intend to pursue this matter in the courts and will share what has happened in the various media channels with which I have access. However, I hope this matter can be settled more simply, and I am therefore requesting from your office the chance to clear up this matter upon my return to Canada with the appropriate diplomatic officers there. I also request that my passport be cleansed of this unfortunate incident and that I be financially compensated for the expenses incurred by me, which total about £300. Ultimately, there can be no compensation for the duress and inconvenience suffered by my family and I because of this incident, but I trust in the good graces of your government to help me correct this matter to avoid its repetition in the future. I look forward to your reply within a week, after which I will take further action. Sincerely, Reverend Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div. 260 Kennedy St. Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada V9R 2H8 Ph: 1-250-753-3345 ........................................................................... See the evidence of Genocide in Canada at www.hiddennolonger.com and on the website of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State at www.itccs.org. Watch Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT on his website www.hiddenfromhistory.org "True religion undefiled is this: To make restitution of the earth which has been taken and held from the common people by the power of Conquests, and so set the oppressed free by placing all land in common." - Gerrard Winstanley, 1650 "We will bring to light the hidden works of darkness and drive falsity to the bottomless pit. For all doctrines founded in fraud or nursed by fear shall be confounded by Truth." - Kevin's ancestor Peter Annett, writing in The Free Inquirer, October 17, 1761, just before being imprisoned by the English crown for "blasphemous libel" "I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him." Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba