UK government steps up assault on asylum-seekers

Some cases recently highlighted include:

* Two 18-year-old Jewish sisters, Kamila and Karina Kaya, who are currently being held at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre. They had fled Kyrgyzstan in 2003 after their parents had been killed (murder is suspected). The twins, who had settled in Birmingham, were doing well at college and hoping to become doctors. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC), they have been given a temporary reprieve subject to a juridical review. They are, however, still held at Yarl’s Wood and according to friends and supporters showing signs of extreme distress.

* Two Algerian men recently sent back to Algeria. Amnesty International (AI), the human rights group, has raised concerns for their safety. They had been held in custody in Britain from 2001 to 2004 under the anti-terrorism act. They were never charged and were released after the Law Lords (Britain’s supreme court) ruled that detention without trial was illegal. After release, they were subject to close supervision. On arrival in Algeria, the men were arrested by the Algerian military police, the DRS. The British director of AI, Kate Allen, said, “We are deeply concerned about that these men are at risk of torture.... [T]hese men have been labelled ‘suspected international terrorists’ by the UK authorities, they were always at risk of torture and should have never been returned to Algeria.”

* Alnour Yousif Fasher was due to be deported back to Darfur in Sudan on January 22. Fasher, from a prominent family, is a member of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) opposed to the Sudanese government. The government plans to send back other refugees from Darfur in the Sudan. Their applications for asylum have been rejected by the British Home Office. Dr. James Smith, executive director of the Aegis Trust (which campaigns against genocide), explained, “The sending back of Darfuris to Sudan is dangerous and misguided. Alnour is at particular risk.... By telling such people they can return to Khartoum, the city where the organisers of the atrocities are still operating, Britain is becoming part of the thread of brutality in Darfur.”

* The case of a Sibtain Bokhari, a human rights lawyer originally from Pakistan who had settled in Grimsby, was taken up by local MP Austin Mitchell. Writing in the Independent newspaper February 1, Mitchell described how Bokhari and his family had been deported back to Lahore.

Bokhari, a Shia, had lived in a Sunni-dominated area in Lahore. After attending a rights conference in Britain in 2001, he became the subject of attacks and intimidation on his return to Lahore and was branded a stooge of Tony Blair. He fled to Britain in 2003 and applied for asylum. He settled in Grimsby with his wife and four children, who all went to school locally. The family’s application for asylum was turned down, and in June 2005, the family was arrested prior to deportation. Mitchell then intervened on the family’s behalf and was able to get the case reconsidered. The MP describes how his representations to the Home Office immigration ministers led nowhere. The family was eventually deported at the end of January this year.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/asyl-f17.shtml