Very quietly last week, the Country Information and Policy Unit (CIPU) of the Immigration and Nationality Department issued a Bulletin about its Algeria country information report, correcting an earlier report used in the asylum decision-making process. The Bulletin, drawing on a UNHCR paper of December 2004, pointedly states that it ‘supersedes all previous UNHCR statements
The politics of a phoney Britishness
This week the government launched its new community cohesion strategy. But there can be no community cohesion while an entire group of citizens is cast as the enemy within. The demand, since September 11, has been for a recharging of the batteries of national belonging, for the state to once again connect with the nation.
‘How can I leave? I have no legs’ – a Greek campaign for mine survivors
At least sixty overland would-be migrants to Europe have lost their lives to the landmines on Greece’s borders. A campaigner against the mines writes of one small victory in the long struggle for the rights of maimed mine survivors. As representative of a Greek campaign of the Nobel Peace Prize award-winning International Campaign to Ban
Solidarity meeting galvanises support
Hundreds of people attended a meeting in Manchester last weekend to learn how to help build support for asylum seekers. ‘I GOT PASSPORT!’ was the text message I received on Monday. The Congolese man who sent it had just won his campaign to stay in the UK. He was one of 225 people from all
Alem’s story
A school explores contradictions in attitudes to asylum seekers using video art. How would secondary school students react to finding out that one of their school friends was to be deported? And how would this help them reassess their beliefs about racism, belonging and asylum? As a Greater Manchester secondary teacher, I have been working
Let’s talk to the media
A practical media guide for refugee community organisations and practitioners has been published by the Refugee Media Group in Wales. Refugee and asylum issues are too often portrayed negatively by certain UK media. And this is not simply a problem confined to the tabloids. Lets Talk to the Media aims to provide refugee community organisations
Sent to Coventry
There are hundreds of destitute asylum seekers in Coventry and possibly thousands nationwide who are without support, accommodation or the right to work, according to a recent report published by the Coventry Refugee Centre (CRC). ‘Destitution and asylum seekers: a human rights issue’ aims to draw attention to the increasingly desperate situation of many failed
The re-imagining of Britain
Life in the United Kingdom, A Journey to Citizenship, published in December 2004 by the Home Office, claims to assist people seeking British Citizenship, to integrate into Britain, by providing a ‘better knowledge of our way of life’. In reality it serves up to new Britons a cocktail of reinvented history and mythical nationalism. The
Significant deterioration to detainees’ mental health
The Royal College of Psychiatrists has stated that the ‘sense of powerlessness’ experienced by the Belmarsh detainees ‘is likely to cause significant deterioration to [their] mental health’. The College is asking the government to consider these findings when the government ponders its response to the recent House of Lords ruling that the detention of the
Secure and safe from harm?
Punched in the head and face, kicked in the abdomen, dragged along the ground, thumbs forcibly bent, pressure applied to the jaw and the neck, kneed and elbowed. It reads like the all too familiar catalogue of torture and abuse that has been widely reported as occurring at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Mosul. According