Black Looks

Flavia Nambi is a Rape survivor detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre and facing removal today Tuesday 20 January, at 7pm.

Please phone or write to:

1. Phil Woolas MP, Immigration Minister, Home Office Minister of State for borders and immigration, UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk

2. Jacqui Smith MP, Secretary of State for the Home Office Fax 020 8760 3132 Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

3. European Court of Human Rights, Fax: +33 (0) 3 88 41 27 30, Tel: +33 (0) 3 88 41 20 18

4. Kenya Airways Flight KQ101 Telephone 01784 888 222

Ms Flavia Nambi has been in Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre since Wednesday 14 January. She has been given Removal Directions for this evening. She is at risk of taking her own life and is on suicide watch.

Ms Nambi could not survive if sent back. Ms Nambi lives in the UK with her Aunt who is her sole surviving relative from the terrible conflict in Uganda. She has no-one to whom she could turn for help and expert testimony confirms that women in Ms Nambi’s vulnerable state could not survive if sent back.

This is the THIRD time Ms Nambi has been detained. Last time she was so traumatised, she lost her memory, became profoundly depressed and was close to taking her own life. After her release, despite her own ill health, Ms Nambi has been dedicated to helping other women in detention who share her experiences.

Evidence of rape submitted to the Home Office. A fresh claim lodged in December included compelling expert evidence from WAR and psychiatrists corroborating her account of brutal gang rape by Lord’s Resistance Army soldiers. As a result, the Home Office have for the first time accepted Ms Nambi is a rape survivor but are still insisting she should be sent back.

The other day I was reminded of this post on “Walls around the world” I wrote 18 months ago by a friend and I promised to post it again. Now there are even more walls. The whole of Gaza has always been a walled enclave in the midst of stolen lands. Now it is surrounded by walls of tanks and naval guns. Ironic that the siege of Gaza reminds me of the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto. I wonder if the Israeli IDF spokeswoman makes the connection – doubtful with such self-righteous supremacist arrogance.

Another new wall is the one between Zimbabwe and South Africa where refugees escaping hunger, political oppression and disease are chased by white vigilantes with automatic weapons and dragged back across the wired borders. If they make it to the city they face xenophobic hysteria from their brothers in the post apartheid wasteland’s.

And then there are the invisible borders – where people are divided between the included and excluded. Legal and illegal. welcome and unwelcome. Those in the clique and those standing on the periphery trying to enter till eventually they tire and go create their own set of invisible walled enclaves excluding and including according to some set of arbitrary criteria which is what makes cliques so horribly oppressive.

ORIGINAL POST

Iran is the latest country to sign up to “wall building” borders – in this case along the Iranian Pakistan border in the Baluchistan region. Iran’s justification for the wall is a familiar one. To prevent smuggling of drugs and guns and movement of illegal immigrants.

Whilst the Apartheid wall being built by the Israelis is probably the most well known there are other walls that have been built, are being built and will be built in the future.

Morocco built one in the 1980s during the war of independence with the Polisario Front. To maintain their occupation of Western Sahara the Moroccan government built a wall of 2700 kilometres with mines, across the desert with the help of their good friends the Israelis. The wall prevents the Saharawi from crossing back into their lands from the refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria.

Then there are the new fences recently built between the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco. Here Morocco acts as a proxy police force for Europe to prevent migrants from West Africa and Morocco from entering Spain. The fences are barbed wire with razor edges. Recently Spanish PM, Zapartero announced a third parameter fence as the present two are proving insufficient to stop people climbing over despite the dangers.
Read more…

As the international community commemorate the twentieth anniversary of World AIDS Day, there is a country which today is left dwindling behind watching every day as it comes and only hoping against every hope that food and possibly a cure will be found. What is more traumatising is the fact that even if this cure is available chances of having the medication in their hands is very slim if not zero.

The theme of this year’s World Aids Day is ‘Lead – Empower – Deliver’. This is theme is quite far from being realised by Zimbabwe. The never ending political circus of the country only serves to unleash what history might describe as mass genocide on ordinary Zimbabweans. The country stands with no distinguished leader thereby diminishing any hope of the fulfilling the commitment of the theme, that is, access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.
It is quite saddening to note that this year the event is being marked by the significant rise in the number of AIDs related deaths. Medical institutions like hospitals and clinics have been closed down thereby erasing any hopes of saving more lives. Worse, the calamity faced by HIV positive patients is the critical shortage of ARVs as a result of the government’s abuse of the donations it has received from the US government.

In 2006 Rudo* a friend who is HIV positive and currently in Zimbabwe was on the brink of death before her life was revived by the successful taking of ARVs. Today her life is once again being placed in jeopardy by the non availability of these precious tablets. Talking to her on the phone she pleadingly asked me if I could by any chance send her some ARVs. Goodness me I only wish I could send them to her, and not only her but a million other people who are in her predicament. A predicament that they are facing, of not being able to celebrate life – but to face imminent death. Her position is worsened by the lack of basic human needs like having clean water in your house. Sewage water from the toilets flowing down her door step. Another positive friend has just died and everyone says it is cholera but Rudo tells me otherwise. Her friend did not have ARVs. The last time she had them was four months ago and ever since then her condition has deteriorated. She dares not to speak about it publicly, she was even cautious as to the choice of words she used in our phone conversation.

What I discerned in her voice was a pleading tone, pleading for someone to intervene lest she losses her life. Knowing that somewhere out there in the world other lives are being given a chance to life, being treated of the same ailment. As we end our conversation I only can pray for her to hold on – hope is her only option.

In this years campaign I implore the whole world to look at the crisis in my country Zimbabwe. I would appeal to the international governments such as the UK to grant asylum to Zimbabweans in their countries. I appeal to the government of United Kingdom to seek ways of alleviating this situation in Zimbabwe by allowing the vast number of asylum seekers to work so they may support their loved ones at home . The leadership of Zimbabwe has failed the people of Zimbabwe but still the international community can help by supporting Zimbabweans abroad rather than dumping them in rooms with no work or deporting them back to South Africa or Zimbabwe.

Links : Word Aids Day 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004

Tags:
Zimbabwe + HIV/AIDS
Asylum Seekers + UK

Congratulations to Ugandan lesbian Prossy Kakooza who has won her asylum case after 15 months. According to the report, the judge was influenced by the medical evidence and the expert’s report which highlighted the extreme difficulties of being LGBTI in Uganda.

The judge was heavily influenced by three factors: the Country Expert Report, the medical evidence, and Prossy’s campaign. The Country Expert Report highlighted the terrible plight that lesbian and gay people endure in Uganda, as well as the “extra-judicial” activities of the police.

Her asylum also shows us that campaigns can be successful even when there seems to be an endless trail of obstacles to surmount.

* 5200 people from countries, and church congregations, from all over the world who have signed her petition to the Home Office.
* The 100s of people who have written or emailed the Immigration Minister.
* The 80 members and friends of MCC Manchester who have supported her.
* The 19 friends who went to court with her and helped her collect signatures on her petition at Pride festivals all over the country.
* The 10 friends who gave evidence in court on her behalf.
* The 3 lawyers who drafted and prepared her cases (Ruth Heatley from the Immigration Aid Unit and barristers Mark Schwenk & Mel Plimmer).

So please keep sending those emails, making phone calls, publicising campaigns, holding vigils and demos because it all helps and can influence the outcomes.

In another asylum case, Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre staff have been caught “stealing” a Guide on detainees rights. The Black Women’s Rape Action [BWRAP] project issued the following press statement following reports by one of the women they are working with in Yarls Wood…..

On 15 October, Ms Mercy Wanjiku[1], a rape survivor from Kenya, called from Yarl’s Wood IRC to report that Legal Action for Women’s Self-Help Guide against detention and deportation, which she had received by post had been confiscated by Yarl’s Wood staff. The Guide contains essential information that Ms Wanjiku needed for a legal hearing three days later. It took an official complaint, intervention by Black Women’s Rape Action Project (BWRAP), letters to her MP and a theft report lodged with the police to force Yarl’s Wood authorities for the Guide to be returned.

Background

On 8 October, and despite her protests that it was an infringement of her right to privacy, Ms Wanjiku was forced to open her mail in front of Yarl’s Wood staff. The Self-Help Guide was confiscated even though Ms Wanjiku informed officers that she urgently needed access to information in the Guide as she had an appeal hearing for her asylum claim in three days and she had no lawyer (see notes below). She was told by a male member of staff that it was “illegal to have the book in here” and that he was following orders!

In the absence of sufficient lawyers due to cuts in legal aid provision, many women rely on the Self-help guide to provide them with the necessary information to process their cases. This is yet another in many illegal and inhumane acts committed by Yarls Wood including the recent damming report by UK Children’s Commissioner, Sir Aynsley-Green.

BWRAP is “one of the few groups providing information and support services run by and for African, African Caribbean and other women of colour surviving rape, domestic violence, racist assault, other torture and persecution”.

Tags:
Prossy Kakooza
Uganda
Asylum UK
Black Women’s Rape Action Project
LGBTI
Yarls Wood

UNHCR reports that 4,816 Nigerians applied for asylum in the first 6 months of 2008 making the country the 9th highest after countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, China to name a few. I know of two Nigerians who have sought asylum on the basis of their sexuality, one gay man and one lesbian. The former, activist Davis MacIyalla, was given asylum in about 3 weeks which is highly unusual as most asylum cases take years. The lesbian spent a year in detention at Yarls Wood and was eventually deported back to Nigeria. I wonder what what are the claims of this years applicants and how many have been successful.

Tags:

Nigeria
Asylum Seekers

Just over two years ago the Spanish government desperate to stop migrant workers from crossing into Spain from the Sahara, came to an agreement with the Senegalese government to deploy their coast guard off the coast. They also agreed to set up a school for youths in the hope that would stop them from selling DVDs and umbrellas in Granada and Barcelona. It didn’t, thousands more came and are still coming. They put up electric fences in Morocco and arranged with the Moroccan police to deport migrants from Morocco – many were dumped in the desert by the Moroccan authorities. With Morocco closed, Mauritania became the new departure point for crossing into Spain. The Atlantic waters far more treacherous than the Mediterranean has meant thousands drowning in the small wooden boats during the crossings. In one of the most horrendous crossing, 47Senegalese were left adrift to die in the Atlantic The boat with the bodies was eventually found in Barbados. Again in 2006

Now the EU is acting on behalf of member countries to set up transit camps and deportation centers in Africa. So if you are from Nigeria you will get deported to Mali.

As well as seeking to stem illegal migration to the EU, the new Bamako centre is also to act as a reception point for illegal immigrants who have returned or been deported to Africa, as well as acting as a clearing house for legal migrants.

The aim is that individual EU countries, for example France and Spain, will use the centre to offer seasonal work for temporary legal migrants. The commission hopes the Mali project will be the first of a network of European migration centres across West Africa. But aid workers and NGOs are sceptical that African expectations of job offers and recruitment centres will be met.

Read more…

This is a story of the hundred of thousands invisible people – the “illegals” who feed the underbelly of Britain. Apparently there are up to 200,000 Chinese undocumented slave workers in Britain and god knows how many from other countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

Xiao Mei Guo was a 29 year old Chinese woman murdered for the fun of it because no one would bother to ask where she was or report her missing.

One day in August last year, a man called Derek Brown approached Xiao and offered to buy a large batch of DVDs if she agreed to come to his flat to prove they worked. She followed him. Nobody ever saw her again. He had bragged to a friend that he was going to become a “famous” serial killer, and so he came here, to Jack the Ripper’s old stomping ground.

The court – which reached a guilty verdict this week – was told that Brown picked out Xiao because “nobody would miss her”. She was an “illegal”. She had no rights. She was part of the moneyless shadow-world that swirls around the rich world, unpoliced and unprotected.

Like so many undocumented people, Xiao Mei Guo used to sell DVD’s. All over Europe there are the DVD sellers. In Spain Senegalese men, in France too there are Senegalese and other West Africans. Here in London it is mainly Chinese women and a few men. I think of the film “Dirty Little Pretty Things” and wonder how many of the invisible people go missing and end up as someone’s liver or kidney. Nobody ever looks at these people. In Spain I used to watch as the DVD sellers work the bars and streets and even when people bought the DVDs, I noticed they never ever looked at the men. The plastic DVD’s were more visible than the men selling them. I never bought DVDs in Spain but I have bought them here and I cant remember ever looking at the person I bought from.

Tags:

London
Undocumented workers
Immigration Britain

Mr Ayodeji Omotade has been charged with threatening, abusive, insulting, disorderly behavior towards British Airways (BA) crew, as a result of intervening in the violent deportation of a fellow Nigerian.

The man, who was thought to be about 30, was being held down in his seat by four or five police officers as the other passengers filed on board, and was crying out in broken English that he was afraid he would die if he were sent back to Nigeria……………….The officers took him off the plane, then returned and arrested Ayodeji Omotade, one of the passengers who had complained vociferously about his treatment. When others on board protested noisily about Mr Omotade’s detention, the captain ordered them all off the flight.

British Airways need to answer to the question why they are prepared to collaborate with the violent removal of a distraught asylum seeker? Why has the peaceful protest by passengers against the inhumane treatment of a deportee been treated as a criminal act? Other airlines, including Virgin Nigeria have refused to fly victims of ill-treatment from escorts, and those who fear for their lives. .

Mr Omotade is being punished for acting humanely towards someone in distress. This is not an extraordinary act. It is something most of us would do when witnessing brutality. It is a situation that any one of us could find ourselves at any time.

“What would you do if someone on your flight was distressed and crying out for help? Would you stay silent or would you speak? I spoke and BA didn’t like it. This type of corporate tyranny must be challenged and stopped.” Ayo Omotode

PRESS RELEASE

September 14th, 2008RESPECT NIGERIANS COALITION (RNC) TO HOLD A PEACEFUL PROTEST AT THE BRITISH AIRWAYS CORPORATE HEADQUATERS, HARMONDSWORTH ON WEDNESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2008

Fellow Nigerians and well-wishers of Nigeria, This is to inform you of our intention to hold a peaceful demonstration at the Waterside Corporate Headquarters of British Airway Plc at Harmondsworth, London following the airlines persistent refusal to do what is right by Ayodeji Omotade and the Nigerian passengers whom its officials treated in a disrespectful, discriminatory, dehumanizing and racist manner on March 27, 2008 aboard Flight BA 075 from London Heathrow to Lagos, Nigeria [Full details here]

Despite repeated attempts to engage with BA – holding a peaceful protest at their Lagos HQ; discussing with their executives in Nigeria; writing to shareholders and meeting with some of them at the AGM, the company has persistently ignored our demands. Even several attempts by the Nigerian President, Umaru YarAdua and government ministers have been stonewalled.

We are now taking our protest to BA headquarters in London with the hope that the BA Board and senior management will address our demands.

ACTIONS
We are now calling on all those who believe in justice to join us in supporting Mr Ayodeji Omotade at the following two events in London:

Read more…

The New Statesmen publishes a special issue on the detention of non-British children some of whom are detained for indefinite periods of time in a manner which is “cruel and inhuman”.

It is shameful that UK law allows children who are not British to be detained without time limits and without judicial oversight. Many of the 2,000 or so children detained for administrative convenience every year have been here seeking asylum with their families. Others arrive on their own and are detained because, in the absence of identification papers, the immigration authorities refuse to believe that they are children.

For years the British government has tried to cover up the truth of what happens to women and children in detention centers such as Yarlswood. Now Sir Al Aynsley-Green, who is the Children’s Commissioner has exposed the reality for children in Yarlswood, nonetheless the government is refusing to change it’s policy towards asylum seekers in general and the detention of children in particular……

We were told of children denied the use of a toilet (or allowed to go only while being watched with the door open) before lengthy journeys in caged vans. Girls claimed they were made to get dressed in the presence of male officers, and boys vice versa. Virtually every child spoke of their fear and distress at being awakened and shouted at by adults in uniforms who had entered their homes violently. Children said they were separated from their parents, were not told where they were being taken, and were humiliated in front of friends and neighbours as parents were handcuffed and they themselves were marched into vans. One child told me of being removed from his class at school by uniformed officers. Children, even the youngest, are deeply affected and traumatised by these events. Many of them have recurring nightmares about them, and they often demonstrate changes in behaviour. They can become persistently withdrawn, cling to their parents, refuse food or wet the bed. Children’s best interests appear to me to be entirely invisible during the arrest and escorting process……………..

The UK’s immigration policy and detention of children is despicable. This is not just about compassion it is about justice and what is the right way to treat children – all children. Continue reading the rest of the report……….

UPDATE

A Center set up to keep children out of detention centers is due to close

The Home Office is abandoning a programme to accommodate children and their families outside immigration detention centres, it emerged last night.

Millbank, a former old people’s home in Ashford, Kent, was converted into a home for asylum-seeker families as part of an “alternative to detention” government pilot last year.

The project was aimed at keeping children in local schools while encouraging their families – who have exhausted their asylum appeals – to voluntarily return home.

However, the Guardian has learned that after almost a year in operation – during which it was supposed to accommodate up to 170 people a day – Millbank is empty.

Tags:
Detention of Children
UK Immigration and Asylum Policy
Yarlswood Detention Center
Jackqui Smith