In denying the right to food and shelter, Blunkett’s new benefit rules breach the European Convention of Human Rights. Mr Justice Collins, sitting at the High Court, has blocked the implementation of Section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which denies ‘late claimants’ for asylum the right to state-funded shelter and food.
News Service
Yarl’s Wood, one year on
Today is not only Valentine’s Day, but also the day, one year ago, that Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre, the government’s flagship, was burnt, almost to the ground. The government’s asylum policy of ‘faster, firmer, fairer’ was dealt a severe blow. Now, the victims of British asylum policy, those asylum seekers who were locked up
Afghan asylum seeker killed in Southampton
Police have launched a murder inquiry after a 22-year-old Afghan asylum seeker was found unconscious at his home in Southampton on Monday 10 February. Mohammed Isa Hasan Ali had survived imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Taliban regime. But a year and a half after seeking asylum in Britain, he was murdered. According
Racism and the police – the case of Sylbert Farquharson
On 31 January 2003, Sylbert Farquharson won a civil case against police officers who subjected him to a racist beating in Stockwell, south London. The facts before Judge Michael Dean, sitting at the Central London County Court, must have been so horrific as to make him cast aside the normal reserve of his office. Mr
Haslar – a place of no return
Ukrainian asylum seeker, 42-year-old Mikhail Bognarchuk, was found hanged by his shoelaces in a toilet at Haslar Removal Centre on 31 January. He was due to be deported that day to the Ukraine – a country with a questionable human rights record. A Home Office Country Assessment Report on the Ukraine states that ‘police and
Passer-by joins in attack on asylum seekers
Two asylum-seeking brothers in their early 30s were left with serious injuries at the weekend after confronting a group of youths harassing them outside their home. About ten youths had gathered outside the asylum seekers’ home in Hemlington, Middlesbrough, on the evening of Saturday 1 February – throwing snowballs at the house. After a while,
Jason McGowan inquest – family walks out
Relatives of Jason McGowan, a black man found hanged in Telford three years ago, yesterday walked out of the inquest into his death in protest at the proceedings. As soon as the jury had been sworn in, family members, along with their legal team, left the court. The McGowan family says it has no confidence
Four sentences reduced, eleven upheld, in appeal for Bradford rioters
In what has effectively become a test case for the sentencing of hundreds of Asians charged with participating in the Bradford riot of July 2001, the Court of Appeal has ruled that four individuals were given excessive sentences but a further eleven did deserve terms of between four and six-and-a-half years. During a two-day hearing,
Britain gripped by populist campaigns against immigrants
An explosive mix of prejudices, often verging on paranoia, is fuelling local campaigns against immigration. While the government’s plans to house asylum seekers outside major cities are being challenged by a wave of mass protests in Kent, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Lincolnshire, elsewhere, asylum seekers are being made the scapegoats for an NHS in crisis.
Asylum seekers face rising violence in the South West
A gang of twelve men launched an unprovoked attack in broad daylight on three Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers in Plymouth on Monday 20 January 2003. The attackers were reportedly in their twenties and thirties and inflicted facial and other injuries on their victims. To date, there have been no arrests. On average, one racially motivated