G4S is the UK's biggest private security company, with its government contracts alone worth over £600 million. Responsible for security services, managing detention centres, prisons, and 675 court and police station holding cells, G4S have also just been granted the £100 million contract for providing 10,000 security guards for the upcoming olympics.

Whilst G4S still seem to be government favourites, their record is far from spotless. The firm lost their previous 'forcible deportation' contract last September after receiving 773 complaints of abuse – both verbal and physical. The final straw came with the death of Jimmy Mubenga in October 2010, an Angolan asylum seeker who died as a result of his forced deportation by G4S guards. Two of the guards are on bail facing criminal charges, whilst G4S is still waiting to hear whether they are to face corporate manslaughter charges.

Now, asylum seekers in Yorkshire and Humberside are expected to accept this multi-national, money-hungry, security company as their landlords.

Thursday 7 June 2012

G4S AGM confronted with campaigners' Alternative Report

Today, over 70 people demonstrated outside of G4S Annual General Meeting, protesting against the company's disastrous human rights record across the globe. As G4S' becomes further involved with new UK government contracts, the extent of their national and global reach is beginning to be revealed.

The protest today saw campaigners deliver their Alternative Report to shareholders entering the meeting, a document that masqueraded as a real G4S report but actually critiqued the actions of the multi-national corporation.

Shiar Youssef, of Corporate Watch, made the following statement:
 “G4S has manoeuvred itself into a pole position to profit from the coalition government's plans to destroy public services through slashing workers' pay and sacrificing the quality of services, as well as by hiring establishment figures like former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Paul Condon as board members. Poorer services, less accountability, more profits.” 
G4S' various contracts extend from providing security services to the Israeli government in occupied Palestinian territories to managing asylum seekers' social housing in Yorkshire and Humberside. Despite the tragic incident of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker who died as a result of excessive force used by a G4S guard on a forcible deportation flight, the UK government has continued to award the company new contracts in the recent surge of privatisation in public services. Not only are G4S providing security for the Olympics this summer, they are now contracted to run critical parts of the Lincolnshire Police Force.

See this Demotix news article for further coverage of today's protest.

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1 comment:

  1. SYMAAG8 June 2012 at 08:04

    Credit where it's due though: G4S have managed something the Left has been trying to do for years: they've united people opposed to privatisation, racism, forced deportations, slum housing and the occupation of Palestine.

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