Victory for campaign against daft deportation

By Frances Webber| Institute of Race Relations

A respected academic has won his fight against deportation on the ground that his bank balance fell below £800.

This is the sort of story that the tabloids would love if it was about a sturdy British fight against a barmy EU directive or health and safety regulation. But because it’s about an outspoken Muslim academic’s fight against the homegrown petty bureaucracy of the UK Border Agency (UKBA), it’s unlikely to get any headlines in the Daily Mail, the Express or the Telegraph. Dr Muhammad Idrees Ahmad is a respected academic and prolific freelance writer whose topics include drone attacks, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the construction of fear in the war on terror. After finishing a doctorate at Strathclyde University and lecturing part-time in media studies, he was offered a post as a lecturer at De Montfort University in Leicester, on a salary of £35,000. Applying under the points-based system for a work visa to enable him to take up the post, he obtained all the requisite points for qualifications and English language proficiency.

But, the immigration rules require applicants to show that they will be self-sufficient and not use British benefits. Fair enough. But the way they must prove their self-sufficiency is to provide bank statements showing that in the three months before the application, their bank balance never slipped below £800. And Dr Idrees’s bank balance, which stood at £1500 when he applied, had been below the magic £800 mark for some time during the previous three months because of late payments for journalistic work. So although there is no doubt about his ability to support himself – he is better off now than he was as a student, and he has never needed to claim benefits – the UKBA refused the visa.

In a campaign supported by Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (SACC) (http://www.sacc.org.uk/), more than fifty academics wrote to Scottish first minister Alex Salmond and to home secretary Theresa May to protest the red tape and urge them to allow Dr Idrees to pursue his academic career in the UK. Many attended his appeal on 23 January in Glasgow, where the Tribunal allowed the appeal immediately. But the UKBA indicated that it might appeal the Tribunal’s decision, on the ground that the evidence he submitted did not meet the mandatory requirements of the rule. Its officials appear incapable of realising the injustice caused by so rigid an application of the self-sufficiency requirement.

According to the Scotsman, which covered the story, two firms of lawyers he consulted for advice told him not to waste his money on legal fees as he was bound to lose the appeal.[1] Dr Idrees’ case is by no means unique. Refusal of a visa on this ground is common, particularly for those applying from abroad. One applicant was refused after his account fell below £800 by just £1. Those refused visas abroad don’t even get a right of appeal. Some see the rigid rule as a devious way of cutting migrant numbers, a rash pledge made in the early days of the coalition government and proving more difficult than anticipated.

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FOOTNOTE

[1] ‘Lecturer faced deportation for having less than £800′ (http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/scotland/lecturer_faced_deportation_for_having_less_than_800_1_2073391), Scotsman, 24 January 2012. Some of Dr Muhammad Idrees Ahmad’s work can be seen: here ( http://fanonite.org/articles/)

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The UKBA has denied findings from an inquiry by the Home Affairs Select Committee that suggest dangerous deportation techniques have not changed since the death of Jimmy Mubenga, and criticise a racist culture among staff.

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Refugees’ last minute reprieve

Source: Socialist

Campaigners won a last minute stay of deportation for two Cameroonian asylum seekers last week.

Lydia Besong and her husband Bernard Batey were due to be deported on an Air France flight at 8.20am last Saturday morning.Their supporters didn’t lose hope and kept bombarding the authorities and the airline with letters and emails. A judge granted a judicial review at 5pm on Friday evening.

The couple had been issued with a removal order by the UK Border Agency on 10 January, despite still awaiting a decision on an earlier claim.Lydia and Bernard’s solicitor Gary McIndoe said, “It’s an excellent result. It’s a battle won but we have a war to fight.”

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Activists have successfully blockaded Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres in west London in an attempt to stop the deportation of a group of Sri Lankans on a charter flight.

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Asylum Seekers deported back to the first EU countries they entered

Awet spreads his hands out and shows us his scarred fingertips. “He burned his fingertips so he could apply for asylum like a new person,” explains his friend.

A group of men are gathered in the back room of a large squat on the outskirts of Rome, talking about their struggle to beat the European asylum system. They explain that it is common for asylum seekers to burn their fingers, so the fingerprint record of their entry into Italy is destroyed.

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Tamil returns: ‘UKBA is not aware of any difficulties’

By Frances Webber| Institute of Race Relations

The deportation of up to fifty Tamil refused asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on a charter flight on 28 September once again focused attention on what happens to those returned to torturing states, and who monitors them.

The charter flight went ahead in the teeth of warnings of torture from organisations including the Sri Lanka Campaign, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Freedom from Torture (formerly the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture), and minus a number of passengers who had managed to secure injunctions to prevent their removal. Freedom from Torture has seen around 400 new Tamil patients in the two years since the LTTE’s defeat, many of whom bear scars of recent torture, and Human Rights Watch said, ‘The Sri Lankan government continues to show shocking disregard for the due process rights of anyone deemed linked to the Tamil Tigers. Those detained have been tortured and “disappeared”.’[1]

In a 2007 asylum case, the Tribunal observed that, for Tamils returned to Sri Lanka, coming from London (or another centre of fundraising for the Tamil Tigers), having made an asylum claim abroad, lack of an ID card and illegal departure from Sri Lanka were all factors which could give rise to suspicion of LTTE support and increased the risk of harsh interrogation and torture. In a 26 September letter sent to the High Court in order to pre-empt injunctions before the charter operation, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) claimed that up-to-date evidence about Sri Lanka indicated that these risks for refused asylum seekers had reduced. Strikingly, it did not claim that the risks had disappeared. According to a Guardian report, though, UKBA claimed that ‘arrangements to monitor the welfare of deportees’ had been sub-contracted to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). When the IOM denied that it would be monitoring returnees, the UKBA fell back on assurances given by Sri Lankan intelligence officers that they did not torture returned asylum seekers – the officers alleged that many Sri Lankans had inflicted wounds on themselves in order to support asylum claims. And in a letter to Freedom from Torture’s head Keith Best, UKBA said that deportees were given the contact details of the British High Commission in Colombo, ‘and may contact them if they require any assistance’.[2]

It is alarming that UKBA can quote, apparently uncritically, Sri Lankan intelligence officials’ accusations of self-mutilating Tamils in support of its claim that returned Tamils will be safe in their hands. The Agency clearly accepted that Tamils who were suspected of LTTE connections were being tortured in the past; how, then, can it give any credence at all to the assurances of the perpetrators that it never happened? And what is the use of the contact details for Our Man in Colombo – who has absolutely no power to intervene to stop the ill-treatment by a foreign state of one of its own nationals?

The dishonesty of these glib assurances is breathtaking. But it is not new; it is reminiscent of the experiences of Algerian national security deportees being returned to the jurisdiction of their brutal intelligence services under so-called diplomatic assurances which the Algerian government refused either to make official or to have independently monitored. Deportees and their relatives were given the contact details of the British Embassy in Algeria in case of difficulty. But when relatives rang, distraught, saying their sons were being held incommunicado, all the Embassy staff could do was to engage in polite fencing with Algerian diplomats. They had no right to enter the feared HQ of the security police where the men were held, much less visit or speak to them. And although the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) had said the assurances could be policed by groups like Amnesty International and by Algerian human rights lawyers, Amnesty’s reports of endemic torture were marginalised and the Algerian lawyers’ allegations of their clients’ torture rejected.

The Tamils being returned now do not even have the minimal protection of such diplomatic assurances. The stark reality brought home by these deportations is that the government is not interested in monitoring the welfare of deportees; it neither knows nor cares about the fate of those it returns to torturing states.

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FOOTNOTE

[1] Ian Cobain, ‘Torture charity calls on UK to halt deportation flight to Sri Lanka’ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/27/torture-charity-call-sri-lanka-deportation), Guardian, 26 September 2011; Sri Lanka Campaign Newsletter 28 September 2011. [2] Ian Cobain, ‘UK not monitoring safety of Tamils deported to Sri Lanka’ ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/28/uk-not-monitoring-safety-tamils), Guardian, 29 September 2011.

Nigerian mother assaulted on deportation flight

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