19-year-old campaigner Flores Sukula, of Bolton, went to the Home Office in London this week to hand in a petition of 2,500 signatures in support of her family’s anti-deportation campaign. Five of the Sukula family’s six children – including an eleven-month-old baby – face being taken into care as a result of support being withdrawn
Theme: Health
Desperately seeking asylum
In June 2005, the author interviewed five Sudanese men, all but one of whom had been failed by the UK asylum procedures. ‘I am 27, no 28′, said Salah when I met him in June 2005. He looked 35 and spoke no English. Through the interpreter, Hassan, Salah told me he felt utterly frustrated and
Fighting for disabled students
The family of a wheel-chair bound overseas student is, after its own successful struggle, fighting the government’s institutionalised discrimination against disabled ‘foreign’ students. On 9 September 2005, an intelligent severely disabled 19-year old wheel-chair bound overseas student, Nirav Shah, and his parents won a year-long battle to overturn two key decisions by UK immigration officials.
Bail applications begin for men detained under anti-terror laws
On 6 December 2005, a small group of campaigners held a picket outside the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) to mark the start of bail hearings of some of the (many) foreign nationals, asylum seekers and refugees detained under anti-terror laws. Bail applications were made on behalf at least five men, four Algerians and a
Deportation is Freedom!
A new book castigates immigration controls for their Orwellian connotations. On 18 October 2005, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that deportations to Zimbabwe put failed asylum seekers at risk and should cease. The end of the matter, you would think. And yet, last week, the case of RA was being heard at York House
Extraordinary support for Hata family
Wigan Council is to hold an Extraordinary Council Meeting on Wednesday 7 December 2005 in order to propose two motions in support of asylum-seeking families that have lived in Wigan. The plight of the Hata family has been well documented in the media. Sara Hata fled to the UK in 2002, following a five year
Pressure to end returns to DRC
Over fifty people, mainly asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), demonstrated outside the Home Office following the broadcast of a BBC radio documentary on the fate of asylum seekers who are deported back to the DRC. Jenny Cuffe, the World Service programme-maker, went to the DRC and interviewed people who had been
More law, fewer rights
Another Bill dealing with immigration, asylum and nationality will seriously erode rights, according to immigration lawyers and organisations working with refugees. Appeal rights lost The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill, which had its third Commons reading on 16 November, will remove entirely the rights of appeal of those refused permission to stay as students, workers
Demonstrations against deportation of children
Demonstrations in protest against the deportation of students and children will be staged this Saturday in Manchester and London. The Stop Deporting Children and Students day of action aims to raise awareness of the plight of many young asylum seekers, who arrive in the UK seeking a safer life and a decent education but are
Opposition in Scotland to Westminster’s immigration policies is growing
Last week, the UK’s minister on immigration Tony McNulty, in a high-handed intervention, forbade the assistant head of Immigration Services in Scotland from meeting a delegation of concerned Scottish church, charity and political representatives. Rolf Toollen, the Scottish official, was all ready for the meeting. In fact, it was reported that he had cancelled a