#Whereisjustice Young Legal Aid lawyer raising awareness of impact of legal aid cuts last week

Serious assault on access to justice

We have been warning for some time of an impending disaster.  Over the past couple of years, whenever we have spoken with people (and there are so many) who have struggled to access justice within the asylum and immigration system, who are at risk in their home country yet have been denied protection, whose home is the UK but are threatened with forced removal; we have had in the back of our minds that things are only getting worse.

It has always been difficult to get free, good quality legal advice. Little by little, cuts to legal aid have made this even harder.  Occasionally, dramatic events will remind us of the seriousness of this – such as the closure of Refugee and Migrant Justice, and Immigration Advisory Service, and all the clients left stranded as a result.  But our rights – the right to justice, the right to protection from human rights abuses abroad and in the UK, and the right to migrate and make your home in the UK – have been slowly, often silently, sinisterly eroded.

April 2013 was an important milestone, one we had all been dreading.

Since April 2013, legal aid has no longer been available for legal advice in non-asylum immigration matters.

This means that if your immigration case is not an asylum case you cannot get legal aid advice or representation.   You can no longer get legal aid, for example, for family migration cases including family reunification applications under the Refugee Convention, matters around student visas or visitor visas. If you are facing deportation, you cannot get legal aid if your cases does not have an asylum element. You cannot get legal aid even if your case involves a human rights issue, such as Article 8 (the right to family and private life).

There were hard-won exceptions to this, such as cases involving domestic violence.  These exceptions, however, are few and now access to justice in immigration cases is a luxury only for the rich.

Even more draconian measures proposed

While we recover from body-blow and try to work out how grass-roots community and activist groups can best respond, with very limited resources, we are faced with a new danger.

The government has proposed even more restrictions to legal aid that would have devastating and discriminatory consequences, particularly in the area of judicial reviews.

Currently, there is still legal aid for judicial review in all areas of law, but there are some exclusions in immigration cases. If you have had an appeal hearing or determination on the same, or substantially the same, issue within 12 months and you lost the appeal, legal aid for a judicial review will not be available. If you have appealed against a decision to remove you and you received the decision within the last 12 months, you cannot get legal aid to judicially review the attempt to remove you.

Under the proposed changes, work done for the permission stage of a judicial review will only be paid if permission is granted. Lawyers risk not being paid for this work, which will make them understandably reluctant to take on such cases.

In addition to this, an astonishing move has been proposed.  People wishing to claim civil legal aid (for example, for judicial reviews to stop unjust removals or for challenging unlawful detention) will have to prove to their lawyers that they are living in the United Kingdom lawfully, and have been for at least 12 months.    Asylum-seekers are exempt from the residence test until their case has been decided and any appeals finally concluded. Once an asylum seeker is granted leave to stay in the UK, they will no longer qualify under the exception for asylum seekers. This directly contradicts the provision in the Refugee Convention that refugees have the same access to justice as nationals of the country in which they are granted protection.  Read more in this ILPA briefing.

Judicial reviews are a vital legal weapon – in holding the government to account (surely a keystone of democracy); and as an emergency measure to prevent unjust and unlawful removals and deportations.  The Justice Minister and the Home Secretary justify this war on judicial reviews as a cost-saving measures, but this will be at the expense of people’s lives.

It’s not just us swivel-eyed activists making noise about the impact the further legal aid cuts would have.  ‘Top judge’ Sir Anthony Hooper, says the proposed plans to reform legal aid will be “absolutely devastating”, the Express reported.  ‘State-sponsored miscarriages of justice’ will occur, says Sadiq Khan in the Guardian.

And if you need any more convincing, take a look at the countless examples of the vital legal victories – small and large – that legal aid has achieved, on the Save Legal Aid blog.

The changes to legal aid that have already occurred are devastating.  The further restrictions suggested are terrifying.  But it’s not too late to do something about it.

ACT NOW

Demonstrate against attacks on legal aid! There will be a demonstration on Wednesday 22 May at outside Parliament at Old Palace Yard London SW1 from 10.30am against the attacks on legal aid.  You can find resources on the Defend the Right to Protest website here.

Write to and meet your MP.  Details here.

Sign the petition to save UK justice.  You can sign the petition here.

Have your say: The consultation on the proposed (further) changes to legal aid is open until 4 June.  More information can be found here.

Call for solidarity from Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees

While the government’s bedroom tax is likely to lead to evictions of people who cannot pay the extra rents, their policy of refusing support to refused refugees who cannot return to their home countries has already led to many evictions into absolute destitution.

The utter callousness of their treatment of refugees is almost a dress rehearsal for the bedroom tax. What they can do to demonised refugees today they can do to the demonised poor tomorrow.

But they are meeting with determined opposition. A number of cases have gone to the Sheriff Court and are turning into test cases for this inhumane policy. The cases have now been running for some six months.

This Friday the next hearing will take place in Glasgow Sheriff Court. The advocate for the refugees will be making the case in their defence. The Campaign is again calling for a demonstration outside and a presence inside the courtroom to show our support.

Join us at 9.30am outside the courtroom. A serious display of public concern makes a difference.

No Evictions No Destitution

For centuries, hunger strikes have been a powerful form of protest, usually used as a last resort by the most desperate. Currently, over 100 of the remaining 166 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are engaged in a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention and inhumane treatment. Across the globe, there are many people taking the same action, including asylum seekers and migrants in several countries. These are just some of the stories so far in 2013.

We are  not in search of death. We are looking for real life

Hungers strikers’ declaration, Tiananmen Square 1989

Britain

Hunger strikes are regularly held by people in UK detention centres and those facing imminent removal. Most recently, on April 24th Raul Ally was forcibly removed to Tanzania after 14 days on hunger strike.

Three Iranian men who held a 37-day hunger strike in Croydon, UK, in 2011. They were subsequently granted refugee status.

The Netherlands

Protest outside Schipol detention centre

On the 6th of May the Amsterdam Herald reported that at least 19 asylum seekers being held in a detention centre at Schiphol airport, near Amsterdam, have been on hunger strike for nearly a week.

Solidarity protests have been organised by the No Border Network in Netherlands.

The protest began on Queen’s Day, April 30, when six detainees began refusing food, and grew the following day as another 13 joined them. A spokesman for the justice ministry would not go into the reasons for the action, but refugee organisations said they were protesting against the conditions under which they were being held.

No Border Network said the protest had been timed to coincide with the May 5 events, when the Netherlands celebrates its liberation from German occupation in 1945.

In a statement, it said: “While [prime minister] Rutte was marking the hour of liberation on May 5, the very desire that Rutte’s government and all governments constantly ignore was burning in the hearts of the detained refugees: the desire for freedom.”

The organisation claimed that between 20 and 26 people had joined the hunger strike at the recently opened detention centre in Schiphol-West. It would not confirm reports that women and children were among the protesters.

No Border Network argues that refugees should not be held in cells when they have committed no crime and are campaigning for “border prisons” to be abolished.”

Up to date reports can be found at No Borders Netherlands

Subsequently, Dutch News reported that a group of 60 asylum seekers in a detention centre in Rotterdam also began a hunger strike on Monday May 6th.

 It follows a similar action by 19 asylum seekers at the Schiphol airport detention centre in Amsterdam.

The Rotterdam group consists mainly of people refused entry at the border and people awaiting deportation because their claims for asylum have been rejected. A lawyer for the group told the AD the situation in the detention centre is inhumane, partly because the detainees are rarely allowed outside their cells.”

Sweden

On April 27th, pictures were uploaded to Demotix of Afghan asylum seekers, eight of whom are on hunger strike in Boden, Sweden.

The men, who have reportedly been in Sweden for several years, are huddled in blankets outside the Migration Board offices in Boden in temperatures just above freezing.

They are protesting against a deportation order and want the Migration Board to allow them and their families to stay in Sweden.

They are refusing food and water and have taped their mouths to make it clear that they will not end their hunger strike until their demands are met. During Monday afternoon habibullah Hamidi and Hasham Rahimi and Hussein Ataie lost consciousness and were transported to hospital.”

It was most recently reported on May 2nd in the Local that the Swedish Migration Board has decided not to re-open the asylum application cases of the eight hunger-striking Afghan men.

Greece

Conditions for all immigrants in Greece are notoriously bad, with each year of austerity exacerbating the situation. Hunger strikes have been used many times as asylum seekers and other migrants fight for their basic human rights. Most recently, it has been reported that more than 2,000 immigrants held in reception centres throughout Greece began a hunger strike on April 6th to denounce the intolerable conditions.

According to the Greek Reporter,

Activists from the United Movement Against Racism and the Fascist Threat (KEERFA) said at a press conference on April 8, “The culmination of the poor detention conditions, the mistreatment and tortures migrants have to deal with in reception centers was the three suicide attempts which happened in Amygdaleza center in northern Athens last weekend”.

KEERFA coordinator, Petros Constantinou, talked about the inhuman conditions in reception centres, adding that hunger strikes have spread across Greece, while many police departments have turned into places of abuse for immigrants and refugees.”

Australia

A hunger strike by Tamil refugees being held indefinitely in Melbourne ended on April 18th.

On April 14th The Age Victoria reported:

A group of hunger strikers protesting against their indefinite detention in Melbourne’s north have marked Tamil New Year by drinking a mouthful of water.

The 27 hunger strikers at the MITA detention centre in Broadmeadows have entered their seventh day of refusing to eat until the federal government addresses the situation that has left them in limbo for more than three years.

The 25 Tamils and two Burmese Rohingyas have been granted refugee status but had their release into the community refused due to adverse ASIO assessments.

The men are refusing to go inside and have remained in the grounds day and night.

Image of the protests in Melbourne.

Speaking through the Tamil Refugee Council, one of the hunger strikers said they have become very tired and weak but were buoyed by national and international support for their cause.

I can see many of my friends getting weaker but all of us are together as one and determined to go on until the Government does something about our situation. We are here until there is a resolution one way or the other.”

The men are among 55 recognised refugees refused visas after security agency ASIO branded them a threat.

Most of the strikers have been in detention for more than three years without being told the details of allegations against them and with no right of appeal.

In November the government appointed retired Federal Court judge Margaret Stone to review the findings, though ASIO has veto rights over her decision.

Tamil Refugee Council spokesman Aran Mylvaganam said the situation marks a shameful episode in Australia’s history.

“This is Australia’s Guantanamo Bay. How can such a thing be happening here?”

Paramedics were called to the detention centre on Wednesday and blankets were strung over fences to prevent the men being seen from the outside.

Mr Mylvaganam said prison operator Serco has tightened security around the hunger strikers, insisting that a refugee advocate who visited them on Saturday be accompanied by a prison guard and a Tamil interpreter.

Supporters continue to maintain a 24-hour vigil outside the detention centre.”

Guantánamo Bay and Palestine

We can’t discuss hunger strikes without mentioning the high-profile cases of those being held in Guantánamo Bay and Israeli prisons

At the notorious American prison camp in Cuba, over 100 of the remaining 166 prisoners are currently on hunger strike. Eighty-six of these men have already been cleared for release. On May 4th the Guardian published an open letter from former inmates of the military facility. Since the opening of the prison camp, numerous prisoners held at Guantánamo have sporadically taken part in hunger strikes to protest their arbitrary imprisonment, treatment and conditions. This, however, is the first time the overwhelming majority of the prisoners are taking part – and for such an extended period.

In the occupied territories of Palestine, there have been countless hunger strikes held by those being illegally and indefinitely detained. Under what Israel calls “administrative detention” suspects can be imprisoned without trial by order of a military court. Such orders can be renewed indefinitely for six months at a time.

On May 2nd it was reported that an Israeli military appeals court ordered the release of two Palestinian prisoners held without trial since November, who had staged a three-month hunger strike.

From Guantánamo to Occupied Palestine to European detention centres, prisoners and migrants denied papers are increasingly resorting to the most desperate of all protests, the hunger strike.

What are the strategic opportunities and risks of advocating for ‘alternatives’ to detention? Should we be promoting existing ‘alternatives’ such as bail, or case management programmes involving engagement with migrants?

Immigration detention is wrong, and harmful.  Detention destroys communities, and robs people of their lives, dignity and spirit.

We – those of us opposed to detention – are clear on this.  We are clear it is morally wrong.  We are clear it doesn’t work – it doesn’t act as a ‘deterrent’ to migrants coming to the UK, it doesn’t result in quick, efficient enforced removals of those the government have decided are undesirable.   It costs huge amounts of money – it’s estimated that the UKBA spends some £110 per day or over £40,000 a year, per detainee.

We are clear the government locks migrants up to look ‘tough’ on immigration, to try and institutionalise the myth of difference between migrants and British citizens, to make it easier to hate migrants and to fear them and therefore to blame them for things that are wrong in the country.

We are clear that immigration detention must end, that all detention centres must close.  But we are not clear how to get there.

This is why ‘alternatives’ to detention is such a prickly issue.  If we are a long way from the end of detention altogether, what do we do in the meantime?

The International Detention Coalition, who have undertaken considerable worldwide research on the issue of alternatives to detention, define alternatives as: “any legislation, policy or practice that allows for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants to reside in the community with freedom of movement while their migration status is being resolved or while they await deportation or removal from the country”.

These might be release provisions, community models, or conditional release.  The IDC has found, from surveying models of alternatives in different countries, that the benefits of alternatives can easily be evidenced – benefits for migrants, the government, for society.  There are high rates of compliance (with the immigration system); they are cheaper than detention; human rights are protected; community integration for approved cases is improved.   These ‘benefits’ are problematic for those of us who believe that immigration detention should never be used, however.  Alternatives to detention shouldn’t just be a way of enforcement working better, but a step towards the end of enforcement altogether.

How can we use alternatives to detention strategically?

Alternatives to detention are an opportunity to start a discussion, to prove that detention doesn’t work, and that community engagement, with migrants, is the real alternative.  For example, in the Netherlands, civil society groups came together under the coalition “No child in detention”. On 29 January 2008 the government publicised a new policy regarding the immigration detention of children and their families creating more alternative accommodation for them , and the improvement of detention conditions. After repeated calls by the coalition this was expanded to unaccompanied minors. In 2011, the Minister started investigating alternatives to detention for adults.

I am hesitant to use the ending of child detention as an example, because of the troubled history of that campaign in the UK – where the ‘victory’ of ending child detention has been co-opted by politicians, leading to the fracturing of the movement.   Nevertheless, the Netherlands example still shows that starting on a small scale, with one group, can lead to an examination of how to end detention for everyone.

Decision makers, politicians – despite the tough act – are scared by the issue of immigration and even more so by enforcement.  If they can see that resolving cases in the community works as in the example in the Netherlands, they are emboldened to tackle detention  more broadly.

And it’s not just decision-makers.  Using evidence of successful examples of community case management models as alternatives to detention is an opportunity to have a discussion about what detention is like.  Most people have no idea, and may assume that detention is inevitable or justified.  If you want to convince the public (whose support can provide a climate for politicians to make more positive policy on immigration) that detention isn’t the answer, you need to be able to suggest what the solution could be instead.

And we can never forget, when talking about alternatives to detention, and the detention system, that it’s about detainees, it’s about people.  While we debate the opportunities and risks of detention alternatives – a necessary and vital debate – the daily reality is that alternatives to detention get people out of immigration removal centres, out of the ‘second torture’ of detention.

Risks of advocating for alternatives

With that reality check then, of recognising that for people in detention, alternatives are currently the only way they will be released unless they are granted leave to remain; no-one who cares about the well-being of others would deny the importance of that.  But what are the risks of advocating for alternatives?

Improvements normalise a system we want to bring down – it is reform, not revolution.  This is a tension in anti-enforcement advocacy in general – in the US, there are non-enforcement zones where migrants can’t be picked up and detained, including schools and children’s play-parks.  Should we call for this in the UK, or does the shocking detention of families through dawn-raids and snatching kids from schools reveal how despicable enforcement is? A necessary truth to end enforcement?  The same can be said by improving the behaviour of escort staff on removals – of course we want less terror, less assaults, but making enforcement less brutal is not our ultimate goal and can make the ending of enforcement harder to attain.  These extremes of inhumanity shock us, and without that shock the general public may continue to accept a system of detention and forced removal that is by its very existence, violence against the individual and their freedom.   By removing its excesses, do you provide life-support to the system?

The alternatives themselves leave a lot to be desired.  Tagging and reporting are merely extensions of the deprivation of liberty beyond the walls of the prison.  The very fact that we, almost unquestioningly, use the term ‘bail’ from the criminal justice system for a process that involves many individuals who have committed no crime at all, shows how even if someone is liberated from the physical detention of an immigration removal centre, they are not free from the language of detention and criminality.

Evidence on alternatives shows that there is increased sign-up for voluntary return (or more accurately, as Jerome has pointed out, ‘assisted return’)  for refused cases – this is better than people signing up for ‘voluntary’ return because they cannot bear the mental torture of detention any longer – as we too often hear from detainees – but we must ensure that return is a choice made by an individual who is empowered and free to make a meaningful, safe choice.   The use of the term ‘alternatives’ to describe projects by UKBA to try and encourage more people to return has muddied the waters in the sector.  Like destitution, alternatives could all too easily be used as a coercive strategy to make people despair, to make people leave by any means possible.

But detention is too big a crime to be ignored, and alternatives too important a strategy to shy away from.

Is advocating for alternatives to detention in conflict with principled opposition to border control?  Yes.  But even if you are against immigration control and believe there should be no borders, like NCADC, you can still believe that advocating alternatives to detention is the right thing to do.  It’s the right thing to do because of the opportunities I’ve mentioned, and because it’s essential for detainees.  But we must acknowledge that conflict, that tension, and must not cease our calls for the end of all immigration detention whilst pressing for more, and better, alternatives.

We must make sure the alternatives are better and that they are used: detention has become the default, rather than the presumption of liberty, as is enshrined in law.  Alternatives are a transitional demand, temporary relief for people in detention while we work together to end detention entirely.

Alternatives can distract from the bigger picture – and to us the bigger picture isn’t making sure that the existing system, with its mechanism for release from detention, is operated properly; but bringing that system down.

Advocating for alternatives to detention must not soften our determination to shine a light on the darkest aspects of the immigration system, and our commitment to end the outrage that is immigration detention.

Theresa May has a bad habit of ruining Sundays. 

Sundays are a good day for her populist, racist pandering to the right-wing press to receive a lot of air-time.  Tempting as it is to ignore her attention-seeking power-hungry attempts to fashion her own legacy, her latest intervention in the Article 8-foreign ex-offenders-deportation affair came at the end of a week in which the Home Office surpassed even their own incredible record for making your blood boil.

The Mail on Sunday dutifully parroted, ‘“Innocent people will be subjected to rape and violent attacks by foreign thugs because judges have sabotaged a bid by Parliament to deport them, Theresa May warned … Using highly emotive language, Mrs May claimed there would be more muggings on Britain’s streets because judges let foreign law-breakers stay here.”

May’s opinion piece wasn’t solely emotive, however.  It was couched in the language of a reasoned political discourse, albeit a highly misleading one.  May posits the need to rush through legislation to curb the power of these pesky judges as a need driven by the principles of democracy.  The principle of parliament as the ultimate executive in the UK, being as it is composed of the elected representatives of the people of this country.  That democracy is upheld by a separation of powers, with the judiciary acting as vital check on the power of the executive, is a nuance overlooked by May.  One of those nuances that tend to distinguish dictatorships from democracies.  As the Free Movement blog has pointed out, this is not North Korea.

But why let facts stand in the way of a good scare-mongering?  Theresa May is an ignorant, inept zealot overseeing her private fiefdom of asylum and immigration.    Her ignorance of the law is not a new revelation. Kenneth Clark was forced to intervene when the Home Secretary made it clear, very publicly, how little she actually understood about Article 8 and relevant case law (again, annoying facts rearing their ugly head) during the Catgate controversy.  The reality is that it’s incredibly hard to win a case on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to family and private life) alone, as anyone who has worked with the actual human beings these cases refer to will know.  Article 8, as Theresa May insists on telling us on a regular basis and which is reported as if the Home Secretary herself came up with this idea, is a qualified right.  A balance is struck between the right of a state to operate immigration control and to protect ‘public safety’; and the human rights of the person facing deportation to a family/private life.  The July 2012 changes to the immigration rules did attempt to tip the balance in favour of deportation, but the right to a family and private life is enshrined in European and UK law and the courts cannot ignore the UK’s human rights obligations.  The fact that Article 8 is a qualified right does not detract from the fact that it is a universal right also.  Although May would have us think otherwise, foreign ex-offenders are human beings who have human rights.   Foreign ex-offenders actually have a lower reoffending rate than British offenders, but this is unhelpful to May’s depiction of ‘foreign thugs’ roaming the streets.   For those of us supporting the rights of migrants to stay in the UK, some of whom happen to have criminal sentences, the image of liberal judges continually making decisions to allow foreign ex-offenders to stay is one hard to recognise.   We are a long way from the ‘judges’ revolt’ the Mail on Sunday warns of.  But with increasing incursions on the independence of the judiciary and attempts to politically influence the decisions of the court by Theresa May and her right-wing press lackies (remember the Telegraph’s naming and shaming of ‘lenient judges’?) maybe it’s about time for a judges’ revolt.

So much does the right to family life appear to upset May, she seems intent on destroying the very concept.  The family migration rule changes that imposed a £18,600 minimum yearly salary for those wishing to live with their foreign spouses in the UK were a clear signal of how much the government hates poor people, and how poor foreigners were the worst subcategory imaginable.  This policy is keeping children away from their parents, and separating couples who were foolish enough to think that love was what mattered.  Because the Home Office doesn’t believe in love.  As they proved with the great pleasure they took in launching an assault on love this Valentine’s Day.

A few days earlier, a BBC Freedom of Information request had revealed an increase in wedding day arrests.  Smarting at the finding that Certificates of Approval (when migrants had to ask the Home Office’s permission to marry) were unlawful, UKBA has decided to target registrars instead.  Registrars have been passing information to UKBA about what they view as suspicious weddings between a British national and a non-British national, and UKBA enforcement officers are increasingly swooping in on the day of the wedding and detaining people, sometimes with the other partner unaware of what has happened and why their partner is not there.

The Home Office decided to celebrate this ruining of people’s lives by posting sickening, flippant attempts at witticisms on Twitter with the hashtag #HappyValentinesDay.  The Home Office’s Twitter profile says ‘The Home Office is the UK government’s department for policing, crime, counter-terrorism and immigration.’  Pretty serious issues, then.  You’d probably expect some pretty serious tweets.  Some of them are.  Like the millions of people across the globe who took the opportunity of Valentine’s Day to “Strike.  Dance. Rise” in the One Billion Rising events, the Home Office felt that this special day was a time to call for an end to violence against women and girls.

It then decided that this special day was also a time to combine archived photos of distressed migrants being dragged away on their wedding day, accompanied by messages such as “Do you take this woman to be your sham bride? #HappyValentinesDay” and “#rosesareredvioletsareblue if your marriage is sham we’ll be on to you”.  There are so many objectionable aspects to this social media experiment that it’s hard to know where to start.

That the concept of a ‘sham marriage’ is entirely subjective, but a concept that is only used in reference to migrants?  Perhaps with the fact that the photos are several years old, suggesting some time and thought has gone into this despicable exercise?  Or that the woman being dragged away, crying, handcuffed in one of the images is clearly identifiable?  Or the glorying in other people’s misery (experienced before with the Home Office on Twitter, during the Operation Mayapple outrage).  Perhaps the most disgusting element of the whole affair was the jokey tone of the messages, revealing an almost unbearable cynicism and disrespect for people’s lives.

An American friend commented that if this had happened in the United States, there would be a media outcry and people would lose their jobs.  Here, apart from a storm of angry responses within the refugee/migration sector, it passed unnoticed.  The storm was important, however.   When you encounter, day in day out, UKBA’s unique combination of malevolence, inhumanity, and ineptitude you think you can’t be shocked any more.  But the Valentine’s Day affair was shocking, and more people should be shocked and angry.

The Secretary of State is peddling misinformation and obfuscating propaganda.   Her department are utilising social media to parade their hatred of migrants.  They are attempting to assert their legitimacy by appealing to the very worst aspects of humanity,  delighting in the pain of others, and encouraging hysteria about ‘foreign criminals’.    They are taking the purest, most precious aspects of humanity – human rights and freedom, families and love – and sullying them with their inhuman bitterness.

So it was another angry week for NCADC.  How do we rebalance our humours?  By remembering why we fight the good fight, and restoring our souls with love stories like Fozia and Nawaz’s and sharing with Marie Therese the uplifting messages of solidarity from our wonderful, dedicated supporters.

Charities and other organisations are sadly well-versed in bracing themselves for a sharp rise in demand for crisis services at this time of year, as asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants (as well as British citizens) face homelessness and benefits disruption over the festive period, with less capacity to respond and many organisations closed for the holidays.

Compounding the crisis is the annual pre-Christmas purge that UKBA seem to consider to be a seasonal tradition. With remarkable consistency, UKBA ramp up their attempts to forcibly remove migrants in late December, in a manner that reeks of end-of-year targets. UKBA are also keenly aware that it is much harder to fight deportations at this time of year because lawyers, support organisations and the courts are overwhelmed with emergency cases before the courts close for Christmas. The High Court and Upper-Tier Tribunal are backed-up with applications for emergency relief – a life-saving measure for those seeking safety but who have been let down by the asylum system. This means people fall through the cracks – people in desperate need of protection. A similar picture can be seen with emergency applications (Rule 39) to the European Court of Human Rights – hard enough to access at the best of times.

The mechanics of the deportation machine also put lives at risk, as detainees are moved endlessly between detention centres. Adebowale, a Nigerian seeking asylum because of religious persecution and who has serious health concerns, has been moved from Harmondsworth to Colnbrook, back to Harmondsworth and now to Morton Hall. His health care and legal case have been severely disrupted.

Individuals facing imminent forced removal who are detained away from London are routinely moved to a detention centre near London (often with a stop overnight at a short-term holding facility along the way) one or two days before the flight, with potentially disastrous consequences for co-ordinating last-minute applications for injunctions/judicial reviews. This is exacerbated if the move is cross-border, from Scotland to England. The legal aid bureaucracy is a yet further obstacle to the pressing need for swift and decisive legal action.

So whilst many workers wind down for the festivities, those fighting for justice in asylum and immigration cases are even more pressured at this time of year. People facing removal are often extremely pro-active in doing all they can in their case, but in detention they are also reliant on lawyers, NGOs and campaigners in the outside world, and can feel helpless and panicked. Detention deepens this anxiety, restricting communication and imposing isolation.

Not a cheery festive message from NCADC, then? Perhaps not, but the intensity of crisis campaigning at this time of year exposes the extraordinary nature of anti-deportation campaigning. The extreme cynicism of UKBA in all its inhumanity is met with inspirational commitment from campaigners, supporters and lawyers working round the clock to stop injustices taking place. The oppressive deportation machine is halted when one asylum seeker is listened to, and one flight is stopped.

When resources for resistance seem at their most stretched, solidarity is of paramount importance. We look forward to another year of fighting for the rights and dignity of all migrants.

On Tuesday 30 October, Prince Ofosu died in suspicious circumstances inside Harmondsworth IRC. Throughout this week serious allegations of abuse and maltreatment by detention centre staff have surfaced, leading many to question, what caused his death?

Notice issued by GEO about death in detention

The Home Office and private security firm GEO, who are contracted to run the centre, have refused to give any details of the incident, including the man’s name, nationality and circumstances surrounding his death. The only communication with detainees was a notice stating that ‘a fellow resident of the centre passed away earlier today‘ and that the centre manager is ‘not at liberty to give any further details at this time‘.

In sharp contrast to the silence from the Home Office and their private contractors, detainees inside the centre and a GEO member of staff, who wishes to remain anonymous, issued a joint statement confirming the man’s name as Prince Ofosu, a 31 year old Ghanaian man. The statement goes on to detail a series of incidences of abuse and violence inflicted up on Prince by GEO staff in the twenty-four hours leading up to his death.

The whistle-blowing officer (a member of the centre’s staff) states that Prince was:

stripped naked at the block [rule 40] and the heating system was turned off. He was left in the cold without even a duvet till his death 24 hours’ later.

The statement describes him being held in the block, ‘forcibly restrained’ and hit by ’massive blows’ from a member of staff. The officer involved in the incident, known as ‘Jim’, was reportedly told to remove his blood stained clothes to hide the evidence, and to request leave.

An inquiry is now under way. The prison and Probation Ombudsman confirmed that an investigation had been opened and PPO investigator was due to visit the centre yesterday. The death has been referred to Hillingdon corner but an inquest is not expected to begin until the middle of next week.

Noise demo
Last Tuesday, aimed to coincide with the visit by the investigating Ombudsman, activists from various campaign groups held a noise demonstration outside the centre to show the staff, detainees and visitors that they would ‘not let this death be silenced!’ With megaphones, horns and whistles activists made their presence known to the people inside:

Detainees piled up at the windows, fists were waving and banging at the impermeable glass. Our cries of freedom, azadi, hurriya, liberte!, were echoed on the inside as a call-and-response chants erupted into a wave of whistles and chanting across the blocks. Detainees flooded the excise yard and chanted some more until they were moved by guards….. we expressed messages of solidarity

Campaigners read out a number for detainees to call if they wanted to talk about what had happened to Prince. In response, activists say, they received a ‘flurry’ of phone calls from those inside.  Detainees, from a range of different nationalities, continued to paint a worrying picture of the events that took place. The detainees reportedly described the generally ‘dire conditions’ inside the centre and continued repeated incidents of self harm by detainees. A press release by activists reiterated the concerns of the detainees that they are worried they will ‘face reprisals, such as hastier deportation’ if they speak out about the events leading up to Prince’s death.

Harmondsworth
Harmondsworth immigration removal centre can hold up to 615 people at anyone time. Built on the template of a category B prison it is now the largest immigration detention centre in Europe.  The centre has an historically bad record: in 2006 the HM Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) report detailed a catalogue of failures at the centre to provide for even the basic needs of the detainees. Anne Owens described conditions as ‘worse than had been seen at any other detention centre’ and the 2006 report as ‘undoubtedly the poorest report issued by HMIP of any IRC to date’. Detainees testified that the ‘use of force was high, as was the use of temporary confinement in segregation units’. A routine inspection four years later by HMIP reported detainees complaining of poor health care and that ‘rule 35 reports and subsequent responses to detainees who may have been victims of torture or were unfit to detain were often insufficient’.

Prince Ofosu is the seventh person to die while locked up, indefinitely, inside Harmondsworth immigration removal centre. On 8 October 1989, Siho Iyiguveni, a Turkish national, locked him self in a room and set fire to his own bedding.  He died from his injuries. On the 15 June 1990 Kimpua Nsimba, a 24 year old Zairean asylum seeker, was found hanging inside the detention centre; no-one had spoken to him in over four days. On the 24 January 2000, Robertas Grabys, a Lithuanian national, was found hanging in his room the day he was due to be deported. On 7 May 2003, Olga Blaskevica, a 29 year old woman from Latvia, was murdered by her husband inside the removal centre. On the 19 July 2004, Sergey Barnuyck, a 31 year old Ukrainian, was found hanged.   He was pronounced dead at the scene. On 19 January 2006, Bereket Yohannes was found hanging inside the shower rooms.

Deaths in detention and during deportation
In 2010, Angolan national Jimmy Mubenga died at the hands of G4S, another privately state contracted company, during an attempted forced removal on British Airlines flight 77. Jimmy had previously come to the UK fleeing persecution in his home country. Eye witnesses report seeing Jimmy being ‘restrained’ and ‘excessive force’ being used. Despite numerous independent witness coming forward, and bringing into question the accounts given by Jimmy’s escorts, no further action was taken against the G4S guards by the crown prosecution service.

The death of Prince Ofosu on 30 October this year brings the total known deaths to date in UK detention centres since 1989 to seventeen. As yet the home office have not shown signs that they are going to release any further information about his death and the involvement of its privately contracted security guards, GEO. For the family of Jimmy Mubenga, two years has passed and they still have no justice.

Don’t forget Prince! Do not let these deaths be silenced!

Demand the immediate closure of all immigration removal centres! No more deaths in detention!

Background
WSSAG Wales, one of the many groups supporting the family, provided this information on the background of their case:

Mrs Saleh, an Egyptian national, applied for asylum in the UK after escaping an abusive and cruel husband whose acts endangered her and her children’s lives for over 15 years to the extent of death and rape. The Egyptian authorities ignored this domestic abuse as her husband has close links with police, judges and other officials. The entire family is under serious threat of honour-based violence and possibly even death if deported back to Egypt. Simply setting foot in Egypt again leads the family to fear for their lives seeing as they could not ask for protection from the authorities, knowing that they have close ties with her husband. The family believes if they are removed to Egypt they would be forced into hiding.

Upon arrival to the UK, out of extreme concern for her youngest daughter who was still in Egypt, Mrs. Saleh told the authorities that she was from Iraq. Fearing the Egyptian government would be contacted once they discovered Mrs. Saleh had sought asylum, she chose to wait until after her 13 year old little girl safely made it to the UK before correcting the inaccurate information she had previously provided to the UKBA. Mrs. Saleh did not know that her doing this would later be used against her. From the UKBA’s cold perspective, Mrs. Saleh’s credibility had been critically jeopardised — subsequently used as justification for her and her children’s asylum refusal.

The family submitted many pieces of evidence to back up their case, however the previous legal representatives had not translated them through a certified translator, so they were disregarded by the UKBA. These documents were withheld when the current solicitor used the data protection act to ask for a copy of all the paperwork (SAR) that they hold on file for Mrs Saleh’s case. The UKBA in fact only sent part of the requested SAR, and to date have not sent the rest.

Airline campaigning
The campaign was already well-known in the local area, and nationally as an anonymous campaign supported by NCADC.  Campaign actions were launched immediately, and the phonelines of both the family’s MP and Egypt Air (scheduled to carry out the removal) were overwhelmed.

A technical issue meant that the family were not checked-in to the flight, and Egypt Air later sent a message on Twitter showing just how effective the immediate airline campaigning (in the short term) had been:

This YouTube video shows a campaigner calling Egypt Air.  The airline’s response is a common one – that they do not have the right to refuse to carry an individual on a flight.  In fact, the Civil Aviation Act 1982 suggests differently:

Section 94
(1) The section is effective for the purposes of any proceedings in any court in the UK
(2) If the commander of an aircraft in flight can use any necessary means to protect the aircraft or persons or property on board if they have reasonable grounds for believing there is a danger.
(3) Other members of crew are able to take any measures which are immediately necessary for the same reasons.
(4)….
(5) The commander of an aircraft –
(a)    if in the case of any person on board the aircraft he has reasonable grounds –
(i)to believe [that the person in question has done or is about to do any act on the aircraft while it is in flight which jeopardises or may jeopardise (I) the safety of the aircraft or of persons or property on board the aircraft, or (ii) good order and discipline on board the aircraft] and
(ii)to believe that it is necessary to do so in order to protect the safety of the aircraft or of persons or property on board the aircraft or to maintain good order and discipline on board the aircraft,
may disembark that person in any country in which that aircraft may be.

–

Whilst it was a technical issue that meant the Saleh family did not board the flight on the evening of 18 October, it is very unlikely that Egypt Air would have carried them on a subsequent flight given their Twitter statement above.  They realised all too clearly how much involvement in this injustice would affect the reputation of the company.

For guidance on how to carry out last-minute airline campaigning, see our Campaigning Toolkit section here.

The Saleh family campaign showed just how quickly and effectively local supporters can galvanise a campaign.  Sadly, the outcome of the case shows how determined UKBA were to carry out the removal, irrespective of the human lives involved, and how charter flights are used to this end.

The ordeal continued

The family were taken to Cedars ‘pre-departure accommodation’ overnight.  The LGBT Excellence Centre have written of the terrible circumstances that followed:

Mrs Saleh was found yesterday by her son after having slit her wrist in the detention centre where she had been awaiting the chartered flight that had been booked to fly her and her two children back to Egypt. On the wall, Fariman had written in her own blood: “I only wanted to save my children”. An act of desperation to call upon the authorities to reflect on the gravity and impact of their actions.

After finding Fariman, the solicitors representing the family made an application to the Royal Court of Justice for an injunction preventing the UKBA from removing the family from the UK and Judge Eady granted the out-of-hours injunction. Family members were informed accordingly by the solicitors acting on their behalf that they were not going to be removed. Some 30 minutes later, the same solicitors received a telephone call from Judge Eady who informed them that he had reconsidered his decision after being contacted by the UKBA and informed that they had paid £60,000  to charter a private plane to remove the family back to Egypt. Further challenges were made by those instructed, which included informing the Judge that he had relied on information that factually incorrect at best or deliberately misleading by the UKBA. The judge upon reconsideration came down on the side of the government and refused to reinstate the injunction. As we go to press, solicitors acting for the family are now making an urgent application to the court of appeal.

After finding Fariman, the solicitors representing the family made an application to the Royal Court of Justice for an injunction preventing the UKBA from removing the family from the UK and Judge Eady granted the out-of-hours injunction. Family members were informed accordingly by the solicitors acting on their behalf that they were not going to be removed. Some 30 minutes later, the same solicitors received a telephone call from Judge Eady who informed them that he had reconsidered his decision after being contacted by the UKBA and informed that they had paid £60,000  to charter a private plane to remove the family back to Egypt. Further challenges were made by those instructed, which included informing the Judge that he had relied on information that factually incorrect at best or deliberately misleading by the UKBA. The judge upon reconsideration came down on the side of the government and refused to reinstate the injunction. As we go to press, solicitors acting for the family are now making an urgent application to the court of appeal.

Despite a protest at the centre (read more about the protest here), the family were then removed on a specially chartered private flight. The timing of the issuing of removal directions (particularly for a charter flight, which normally requires a notice period of five working days) calls into question the lawfulness of the flight.

To find out more about the legal background to enforced removals and deportation, see Section Two of our toolkit.  Charter flights are used by the government to remove/deport people in secret.  They do not reveal the airport the flight will depart from, or the company that will operate the flight. They often go in the dead of night, as with the almost fortnightly deportation charter flights to Afghanistan.  The shadiness of charter flights means airline campaigning is not possible in individual campaigns – but questioning the legality and morality of the practice of using charter flights is essential.

The family’s legal case and public interest in this shocking story continues.  On Saturday in Cardiff there was a peaceful protest to raise awareness of the shameful treatment of the Saleh family, who came to the UK seeking protection and instead were further terrorised.

The Save Saleh Family Facebook group reported that:

Great turn out for the protest yesterday, dozens of family friends turned up for the protest and marched from queen street to the UKBA.  At the UKBA it was announced that the family’s application to appeal the deportation was accepted and that it should be heard soon. Thank you for the amazing support, let’s all work together to BRING THEM HOME!

]]> http://ncadc.org.uk/blog/2012/10/instead-of-protection-the-saleh-familys-ordeal-continued-in-the-uk/feed/ 7 http://ncadc.org.uk/blog/2012/10/the-lucrative-deportation-business-private-security-companies-act-with-impunity/ http://ncadc.org.uk/blog/2012/10/the-lucrative-deportation-business-private-security-companies-act-with-impunity/#comments Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:09:44 +0000 NCADC http://ncadc.org.uk/blog/?p=2880

Jimmy Mubenga vigil 2011

A guest post from NCADC supporter Rosa:

Demonstrators mark the two year anniversary of Jimmy Mubenga’s death at the hands of G4S. As further contracts are awarded by the Home Office to private companies the abuse of immigration detainees by the staff of these private contractors continues.  

Last week marked the two year anniversary of the death of Jimmy Mubenga at the hands of G4S security guards. On Friday 12 October family, friends and activists marked the anniversary by holding a demonstration in memory of Jimmy and calling for those that are responsible to be held accountable.

Protesters held placards with slogans saying ‘G4S licence to kill’ and ‘justice for Jimmy, charge G4S’. The group were joined by others highlighting G4S’s involvement in a multitude of human right violations. The protest took place a week since the first ‘No to G4S conference’ in Sheffield where activists discussed practical ways to bring an end to the abuses perpetrated globally by the security giant. See: www.notog4s.blogspot.co.uk

On 12 October 2010 guards working for the private security firm G4S, contracted by the Home Office to ‘escort deportees’, attempted to forcibly remove Angolan national Jimmy Mubenga, via Heathrow airport, on British Airways flight 77 bound for Angola. Jimmy had come to the UK fleeing persecution in his home country. His government believed he was a supporter of the opposition party. He feared the possibility of arrest and the likelihood that he would be killed if retuned. Jimmy was never deported, he collapsed on the plane, was taken to hospital in the UK and later pronounced dead.

Eye witnesses report seeing Jimmy being ‘restrained’ and excessive forced been used.  One witness said that two guards placed him in handcuffs and ‘heavily restrained him’. Another passenger said that he could hear him ‘screaming at the back of the plane‘. He was saying ‘they are going to kill me’.

One of the key witnesses, in a statement only a few days after the incident, said ‘I am pretty sure it will turn out to be asphyxiation. The last thing we heard the man say was that he couldn’t breath. We had three security guards and each one of them looked like they weighed 100kg plus bearing down and holding him down’. In the days after the incident statements released by the Home Office described Jimmy having been ‘taken ill’ on board the flight. G4S used almost identical wording saying Mubenga ‘became unwell’ adding that he later died. Neither G4S or the Home Office made reference to the fact that at the time he collapsed he was been ‘heavily restrained’ by the three G4S guards who were accompanying him. The key witness described the accounts given by both G4S and the Home office as ‘totally false‘.

Jimmy’s wife and five children have spent two years fighting for the truth to be made public. In July this year, perversely, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that no further action would be taken against the G4S guards involved in the brutal attack. The co-director of Inquest, a charity set up to support the families of those that die in custody, described the decision as ‘shameful‘:  ‘Yet again, there is a failure of the state to prosecute following the use of force‘ said Deborah Coles.  The family, friends and supporters are now waiting for an inquest which is likely to take place later this year.

The agony of Jimmy’s family since his death has been prolonged and has been exacerbated by the failure to bring those responsible to account .

What happened to Jimmy Mubenga, and the violence inflicted upon him, is part of a catalogue of incidences that take place unnoticed on a regular basis. ‘Outsourcing Abuse’, the 2008 report by Medical Justice, Birnberg Peirce and NCADC, detailed through personal testimonies abuse by private security firms of vulnerable asylum seekers held indefinitely inside immigration detention centres and during removal.  In this report, alone, over 300 personal accounts of alleged physical assault and racial abuse are recorded. Of the 29 complaints which were detailed in the report it was found that 18 were investigated inadequately or not at all.  The scale of this abuse makes the subsequent Home Affairs Select Committee finding that there isn’t systematic state sponsored abuse, a little surprising.

A few days after the death of Mubenga, G4S lost the bid to renew their contract to ‘escort’ detainees during removal. Yet despite the well recorded catalogue of serious abuse and neglect by GS4 guards against detainees, they are still responsible for running detention centres in the UK, a lucrative business. One of the centres operated by G4S is Ceders, the controversial families unit near Gatwick Airport, where young children are detained prior to forced removal.

The immigration business continues to expand with private companies now taking control of providing some vital services to asylum seekers in the community. Recently the serial abusers, G4S, were rewarded by the Home Office and given the new multi-million pound contract to provide social housing to asylum seekers in Yorkshire. Local organisations and charities have raised concerns about this move. In the words of one Nigerian asylum seeker, ’I don’t want a prison guard to be my landlord’.

The track record of private firms working within the immigration system is not only tarnished by G4S. Widespread human rights abuses are reported in detention centres across the country run by a host of other private profit driven firms including, Reliance, MITE care and custody and Serco.

This year the case of Nelson Babaze surfaced. Nelson had come to the UK to claim asylum stating that he had been tortured in his home country, Uganda. When his claim failed he was deported to Uganda accompanied by Reliance security staff. Nelson reported two separate attacks by the Reliance ’escorts’ in which he was ‘repeatedly punched and kicked’:

They were hitting me and punching me I was so weak…. In the end I could no longer fight or scream and I thought ok that’s it… I was scared for my life.

He was beaten to the point that he thought he was going to die. Sadly Nelsons is just one of the many stories which are currently been reported to campaign groups, charities, the media and the authorities everyday.

I expect that the pending inquest into the death of Jimmy Mubenga will be a white wash. As with previous instances of abuse, perpetrated by Home Office contracted private security staff, it is unlikely that the truth will come out and those responsible be brought to justice. It is evident, from the increase in the private contracting of immigration services, detention centres and so called ‘welfare provisions‘, that the Home Office wish to further intensify their relationship with profit driven companies- a worrying development. The impunity which these private companies enjoy only serves to further perpetuate the injustices which are already prevalent within our immigration system. A system which seemly operates outside the normal rules of law and normative concepts of humanity.

The immigration business is big money!
Stop the corporations profiting from this inhumane process!

End the injustice! End immigration detention!

The ‘farcical handling’ of an Afghan asylum seeker’s case?  How many times have we heard that before?

The difference this time is that the Afghan asylum seeker was an interpreter who had worked for British forces – and had been injured in a Taliban bomb blast in Afghanistan – and there was clear documentary evidence to prove this.  And the condemnation of the ‘farcical handling’ comes from the Daily Mail.

None of us are under any illusions about why this story – among the thousands of people’s lives ruined and put at risk by UKBA – was featured as a positive piece on asylum in the Daily Mail.  The ‘betrayal‘ theme is prevalent in all the media coverage of the story, and the fact that the story was broken by BBC/newspaper defence correspondents underlines that Mr Hottak’s position as an interpreter for ‘our troops’ is what has made this story stand out.

An asylum seeker whose life is at risk because he helped the British army, with indisputable documents to prove who he is and that he’s at risk.  This doesn’t reflect the majority of Afghans who flee their country (mostly to countries such as Pakistan and Iran but some do survive the hazardous journey to the UK).  But Mr Hottak’s story is important, because it shows that if even he if disbelieved by UKBA, the asylum system isn’t working.  And it’s not just NCADC and its supporters – who are in no doubt this is the case – saying it.  Spreading the message that the asylum system does not protect those it needs to, and lives are therefore put at risk, is crucial.

Mr Hottak’s story may not be representative, but it’s an opportunity to start a discussion.  If the cynical disbelief and endemic incompetence at UKBA blinds the department to overwhelming proof of risk, what hope do the many young boys who are sent by their families out of Afghanistan for their own safety have?  Often these boys do not know why they have been sent.  Usually (though not always) it’s before anything has happened to them personally – but their families are already scarred by attacks, kidnappings and killings and they fear their sons will be next.

Proving this risk is very difficult.  As Asef, the young Afghan in the play Mazloom , based on the experiences of young Afghan asylum seekers who attend MAWAW in London, says: ‘This is Afghanistan.  You can’t just put my name into a computer and my life comes out. Even Karzai, the president, doesn’t have that’.

Trying to get evidence of individual risk can put the young person’s family in danger.  Many young Afghans have lost all contact with their families after fleeing at a very young age and simply cannot remember or cannot access the evidence.

And whilst the asylum system (and the Refugee Convention) is based on protecting those who are risk as individuals because of who they are, the situation in Afghanistan is not that straightforward.  There are weekly reports of terrible bomb attacks killing civilians (see our country of origin information blog for more information on this).  Incomprehensible numbers of Afghans are internally displaced and many die during the harsh winters, or live in terrible conditions in the slums in Kabul and other cities.

Children and young people are particularly at risk and while recent caselaw in the UK helps establish this (notably AA Afghanistan and KA and Others), too many young people are unrepresented or poorly represented, and confused about what they are supposed to be doing and what is happening with their case.

Foreign Office map showing that no part of Afghanistan is safe for British citizens

In the light of this, it is unacceptable that anyone is being deported to Afghanistan.  And we are not talking about one or two people.  Dozens of young Afghans are removed against their will on ghost charter flights almost every fortnight, flights that leave in the middle of the night from unspecifed airports and operated by un-named companies.

If the UK government does not believe it’s doing anything wrong in deporting young people to a warzone, when their lives and their futures are here in the UK, why does it do it in the dead of night in shady operations that have no public scrutiny?

People are angry, people are ashamed the UK is doing this, people are scared about the young people they know and love.  The movement is growing and we want you to come on board!

ACT NOW

Join the conversation

There is a Facebook group and for those that dislike Facebook, an email group.  To join the Facebook group, click here .  To join the email group, email lisa@ncadc.org.uk

Find out more

News stories and human rights reports on Afghanistan can be found on the NCADC country of origin blog and at other useful websites.

You can get involved with local groups working with young asylum seekers, many of whom are from Afghanistan, through the Young People Seeking Safety network .

Read about individual campaigns NCADC is supporting here.

Spread the word

Explain to your MP this is their responsibility and that they should take a stand against deportations to Afghanistan