In an outrageous statement against LGBTs and asylum seekers, UK’s Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith claims gay and lesbian asylum seekers can be deported to Iran (and other countries such as Nigeria, Uganda and Cameroon) safely as long as they are “discreet”.

In a letter to a Liberal Democrat peer, seen by The Independent, Ms Smith said there was no “real risk” of gay men and lesbians being discovered by the Iranian authorities or “adverse action” being taken against those who were “discreet” about their behaviour.

in her letter to Lord Roberts of Llandudno, Ms Smith rejected a call for an immediate halt to the deportation of gay and lesbian asylum seekers. “We recognise that the conditions for gay and lesbian people in Iran – and many other countries – are such that some individuals are able to demonstrate a need for international protection,” she wrote. “We do not, however, accept that we should make the presumption that each and every asylum-seeker who presents themselves as being of a particular nationality or sexuality, regardless of their particular circumstances, should automatically be … allowed to remain in the UK.

The idea that you will be safe from being executed if you pretend to be straight is inhumane and makes a mockery of a country claiming to defend human rights. The last “throwaway” sentence is an insult to asylum seekers and panders to the erroneous belief that there are hundreds of thousands of applicants every year with the government operating on the presumption that by far the majority are criminals. (23,610 in 2006) The reality is the numbers of people seeking asylum are small and they are not criminals. The statement is consistent with the governments attitude towards asylum seekers of disbelief and blaming the victim: - not believing claims; believing claims based on rape but saying unless they claimant can prove that the rape was part of a campaign of persecution against women then it is not valid; blaming the claimant for making a stand (for example in the case of a Zimbabwean, blaming him for protesting against Mugabe)

Links:
Trouble Sleeping [Film]
The Hell of Being an Asylum Seeker

Tags:
Asylum Seekers
Immigration + Britain

15 year old Eritrean Arsema Dawit was murdered in London on June 2nd 2008.

Via Africa Rise

The central criminal court in London, the Old Bailey has published court records from 1674-1913 online. The database includes records on the lives of Africans and their descendent’s in London.

The defence of highwayman Joseph Guy in 1767 was that ‘There are a thousand black men in London besides me’. Unsurprisingly, most appear in criminal contexts. Poor Thomas Robinson (’a Negro Black Boy ‘), for example, was sentenced to death for house-breaking and stealing ‘divers Goods’ in 1724. But others were respectable citizens. John Bardoe was bought as a slave in Lagos by a Genoese sea-captain and, when their ship docked in London in 1859, Bardoe apparently freed himself with the aid of a fellow countryman and began working for another Italian. Bardoe then fell ill and, in a feverish state, assumed he was being recaptured. He first barricaded himself into his room, then made a break for it and stabbed a policeman in a rooftop chase. An interesting story in itself - but the translator at the trial was ‘Miss. M. B. Servano, a native of Yorubah, and educated in England’. There are lots of interesting analytical details there: social networks among Africans in London, the continuation of slavery at sea, perceptions of freedom, and the education of African women. Bardoe was found to have acted in self-defence and judged not guilty.

The publication of the archives on line is probably one of the most exciting additions to the history of Black people in Britain. I did my own search on “Calabar” which revealed this case for what appears to be the murder at sea of a Black servant by a ships Captain.

Thanks to Emeka

Tags:

Historical Archives
Black Britain + History
Old Baily Court

The UN decides Water is NOT a basic right.

The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water to be recognized as a basic human right.

Instead, a special resolution proposed by Germany and Spain at the UN human rights council was stripped of references that recognized access to water as a human right. The countries also chose to scrap the idea of creating an international watchdog to investigate the issue, choosing instead to appoint a new consultant that would make recommendations over the next three years.

I don’t get this, how can this be possible - there is some seriously skewed up and frightening thinking going on here. This comment says it all

Interesting how the logic of psychopathic capitalism works. You are a human being. As such, you need water simply to stay alive. But if we recognize it as a human right, then we will not be able to bottle it and sell it to you. Therefore it is not a human right. If you cannot buy it and you incidentally die, that is not our problem.

British but the wrong colour - Black more on travel terror in Europe and the daily Question, are you really Breeish?

However to that police officer, that immigration officer, that airline worker and any other officialdom you come across as a citizen of the united Kingdom, it is a matter of Yes British but not the right colour and it seem frustrating that almost on a daily basis the posse ion of the UK passport is not enough as a tool of identity to an adopted homeland, You have to prove your commitment over and over again.

So here we are Black British and Proud but yet continue to face discrimination from British Institutions, Immigration officials questioning your possession of the British passport , British airline giving you 7 to 8 looks and interrogating you in spite of your possession of a valid British passport.

I am beginning to have serious thoughts about what People of Colour are doing in this country. Just maybe it is time for us all to rethink our lives and begin to consider returning home. It is only going to get worse. Already you have to show your passport if you: register at a doctor, rent accommodation, rent a van, rent storage, go to the dentist, even the gym asked for passport ID.

Nasra Al Adawi interviews Marian Douglas of Marian’s blog. Marian started the Facebook group “Women of Colour. Here she speaks about being an Afrodescendant of the Americas

I come from the population of the Americas which is the Afrodescendant people. Afrodescendants of the Americas are the largest population of African people outside Africa. We are all over the Americas, not only in the United States. My ancestors were trafficked from several different parts of Africa. They were the people who survived what is called “the Middle Passage” – that is, the ship voyage of thousands of miles and several weeks – 2 or 3 months, I think – across the Atlantic slave trade. Researchers say that Afrodescendants are 33% or one-third of the entire population of the Americas.

A Cameroonian woman has been awarded £15,000 in compensation for unlawful detention for 8 months at Yarl’s Wood detention center. The woman arrived in Britain and claimed asylum on the basis of being raped and tortured by the police in Cameroon. She was denied the correct procedure for torture victims and eventually refused asylum. It was only at the point of deportation that she was able to access any support, in this case by Women Against Rape* who work work with many women detainees who have lost their asylum claims.

“[The] ruling is a fantastic victory and sets a crucial precedent for many other women in detention,” said a WAR spokeswoman yesterday. “Like PB, many women have had their cases fast-tracked and been detained, denied legal representation, medical and other expert help, and implementation of the Home Office’s own rules which should have secured their release.

“Instead, women, and often their children, suffer months imprisoned in terrible circumstances and many are sent back to the countries they fled, often never having had the help they needed to report rape, or to gather evidence needed to challenge the routine dismissal of rape as grounds for asylum.”

Only last week I met a former detainee who spoke about her imprisonment at Yarl’s Wood. She spoke about women with children who were sexually harassed and abused, verbally abused and beaten and imprisoned in horrendous conditions. For more on Yarl’s Wood see here and here and here.

*Women Against Rape and Black Women Against Rape were two of the organisations marching with the ECP at last weeks IWD rally whose members have been ridiculed, dismissed and subject to lies and name calling in the Guardian’s CiF and on various blogs in Britain and elsewhere.

Tags:
Yarl’s Wood
Cameroon
Asylum Seekers
Black Britain