Medact

Migrant Justice Bloc at the Conservative Party Conference
2023-10-01 12:15 - 16:00 (Europe/London)
Say NO to the Hostile Environment and NO to racist scapegoating

Join Greater Manchester Patients Not Passports and the migrant justice bloc at the national demonstration and march to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.

Through Hostile Environment immigration controls, the Government tries to bring the border into our neighbourhoods, our workplaces, our homes and our communities. But wherever these racist policies intrude on our lives, we see resistance – from Kenmure street, to the Portland docks, to the doorstep of Home Office reporting centres, it is through these powerful acts of collective resistance that we are fighting back against the hostile environment.

Join us in Manchester and make sure that they know we will fight every part of the hostile immigration system!

Let Greater Manchester Patients Not Passports know you’re coming – drop them an email at gmcrpnp@gmail.com.

March details

When/where: 12:15pm Sunday 1st October, Manchester

Meeting point: Oxford Road (Whitworth Park side) at the junction with Hathersage Road opposite St Mary’s Hospital (M14 4PW) at 12:15 p.m.

Main March Starts From: Outside the Manchester Museum (M13 9PL) at 1 p.m. We plan to join the Migrants Rights bloc in the main march – details to follow.

March length: the march will travel from the Manchester Museum to Castlefield Bowl, approx. 1.4 miles, where there will be a rally and speakers.

Remember: wear sturdy shoes and warm clothes and bring snacks, water and a fully charged phone.If you’d like to buddy with someone else coming on the demo, or you just want to have a chat beforehand, let us know at gmcrpnp@gmail.com

Unhealthy Liaisons - NHS Collaboration with Counter Terror Policing
2024-07-10 18:30 - 20:00
Join us as we launch a new briefing: ‘Unhealthy Liaisons: NHS Collaboration with the Counter Terrorism Clinical Consultancy Service (CTCSS)’, written by Professor Charlotte Heath-Kelly.

CT CCS is an NHS–police mental health team that evolved from the Vulnerability Support Hubs, which were exposed in the 2021 Medact report Racism, mental health and pre-crime policing. It raises serious concerns about the nature of medical cooperation with Counter Terrorism Policing.

We will reveal details about this worrying service, and be joined by a panel discussion with expert speakers on: the implications of this collaboration, harms of the securitisation of health, co-optation of health workers into counter-terror policing, and the encroachment of counter-terror policing in healthcare and public sector spaces.

We will also discuss how we can go about challenging these practices in the current political context, and as part of Medact’s work campaigning to end Prevent Duty in the NHS.

Panelists

Dr Charlotte Heath-Kelly is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. She is currently completing a 5 year study, funded by the European Commission, investigating the different Prevention of Violent Extremism policies used by European nations. The focus is on the integration of healthcare professionals and pre-crime logics, or their absence, in European counterterrorism. Professor Heath-Kelly has published five books with Manchester University Press & Routledge, and more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in international academic journals.

Dr Layla Aitlhadj is the Director and Senior caseworker at Prevent Watch, an NGO that supports individuals who have been impacted by the Prevent duty. She has been directly involved with 300 of the 700+ cases that have been documented by Prevent Watch to date. She co-authored the People’s Review of Prevent and the Response to Shawcross report with Prof John Holmwood and has contributed to a number of articles, UN submissions and reports as an expert in Prevent.

Dr Tarek Younis is the Racial Justice Researcher at Healing Justice London and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Middlesex University. He researches and writes on Islamophobia, racism in mental health and the politics of psychology. He teaches on the impact of culture, religion, globalisation, and security policies on mental health. As a registered clinical psychologist, he primarily attends to experiences of racism, Islamophobia, and state violence in his private practice. His book is called The Muslim, State and Mind: Psychology in Times of Islamophobia.

Nina Navid is the Racial Justice Campaigner at Amnesty International UK, focusing on counter-terrorism, policing and supporting activists to take anti-racist action. She has previously worked in Amnesty’s Government and Political Relations team, and as a Crisis & Tactical Campaigner. Prior to working at Amnesty, she worked for the Shadow Minister for Women & Equalities.

Jim Killock is Executive Director at Open Rights Group. Since joining Open Rights Group in January 2009, Jim has led campaigns against three strikes and the Digital Economy Act, the company Phorm and its plans to snoop on UK users, and against pervasive government Internet surveillance. He is working on data protection and privacy issues, as well as helping ORG to grow in size and breadth. In February 2024, ORG released a new report, Prevent and the Pre-Crime State: How unaccountable data sharing is harming a generation.

Event details

This is a hybrid event, so please indicate when registering whether you wish to attend online via Zoom or in-person at a venue in Shoreditch, East London. Deadline for in-person registration is July 8th. The venue is accessible and full details will be provided on registration.

Homes for Health: The Public Health Case for Social Homes
2024-07-25 18:30 - 20:00
Join us for the second of our series of online gatherings to discuss together how health workers can join the fight for housing and health justice!

The so-called housing crisis makes the spaces in which we live damp, mouldy, insecure and impossible to afford. The housing system prevents vast numbers of families from simply feeling at home, and calling the place they live a place of safety. Austerity and the commodification of housing has turned the domestic into a site of illness, violence, precarity, insecurity, and in some cases death.

We need urgent political action to respond to the public health crisis that health workers are witnessing. This requires rethinking housing beyond commodification and taking action to reclaim it as a public health asset. We need to reclaim housing for health.

It will take a movement, with tenants, health workers and all sectors of society working together to shift the narrative and end the public health crisis in housing. Join us to get involved with the fight for healthy homes!

In this second online gathering, we will hear from speakers about how health workers are joining the fight for housing justice and how tenants and communities across the country are building power to force change.

Medact members Dr Abi Secker, Dr Amaran Uthayakumar-Cumarasamy and Dr Isobel Braithwaite

Adam Gabsi – chair of Inclusion London and Harrow Association of Disabled people. Adam is passionate about Disabled people receiving the justice they deserve and wants to use his position to the benefit of all Disabled people, London-wide and beyond.

Laura Vicinanza – leads Inclusion London’s strategic engagement with the Greater London Authority (GLA) and supports DDPOs with influencing local and national government policies.

Greater Manchester Tenants Union – a democratic, member-led union, working across the 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester. They organise and represent members in the private and social rented sector and fight for safe, secure and affordable housing for everyone

Dr Abi O’Connor (New Economics Foundation) – an urban sociologist whose expertise centres on understanding the relationship between urban governance, local politics and the (re)structuring of place, specifically focusing on the impact of this on communities and areas impacted by regional inequality. She has a keen interest in democratising knowledge through grassroots movements.

Based on London? Join us for an in-person watch party at the Medact office in Pelican House, Bethnal Green! Just let us know you’re joining in person in the form below!

Homes should be a place of comfort, health and security. Instead, across the UK, homes have become sites of illness. They are rendered cold and damp by poor insulation and sky-high energy prices. They are insecure due to unaffordable rents, evictions, and poor-quality housing.

Cold, unaffordable and insecure homes are no accident. They are the symptoms of a political system that produces mass illness and deepens inequalities in both health and wealth. The root causes are political—and this means the solutions are too.

At these online gatherings, together we will gain the tools we need to take action as health workers. Join the fight to win healthy homes for all, as part of the wider struggles for climate, housing and economic justice.

In the run up to the general election & beyond we intend to get organised, fight for healthy homes, and win.
