Two campaigns in suport of asylum seekers threatened by Britain's repressive laws.
STOP THE DEPORTATION OF THE KHANALIS!
The racism of immigration controls operates in many different ways. One way is to take asylum seekers out of the welfare state and make them dependant on a new poor law where they are involuntarily dispersed throughout the country and supported at 70% of income support level. The whole scheme is run by a Home Office body — the National Asylum Support Service (NASS).
The latest way controls operate is through Section 9 of the 2004 Immigration and Asylum Act. This allows NASS to order the eviction onto the streets of failed asylum seekers with children who persist in pursuing their case and refuse to return to the country from which they fled
The Khanali family, now living in Bury, are in this situation. The family fled from Iran where they were under threat from the religious security forces. The Home Office refused their application – just like they refuse most applications. Now NASS want to evict the family onto the streets – one consequence being that Bury council will take the children into care, thus splitting the family
The final appeal against NASS was heard on Tuesday 23 August, miles away in Croydon (so far that the family couldn’t get there) - and unsurprisingly it failed. The family now face imminent eviction, though Bury council is apparently reluctant to carry out this decision (though at the same time it refuses to help the Khanalis resist their removal).
Partly as a result of all this, the family has acute illness issues. The mother Zoreh has long term depression made worse by fear of homelessness, while the father Vahid has severe back and heart problems. The child Mobina is seven months old. No family, no one, should be treated in this way. For this family it is torture.
The Home Office and NASS seem determined to evict the Khanalis. We must be determined to prevent the eviction!
PLEASR WRITE IMMEDIATELY TO The Adjudicator (in the Khanali case), Christopher Wren House, 113 High Street, Croydon, CR0 1QG. Quote NASS ref number is 03/10/022855 and appeal ref ASA/05/08/9824
Come to the public meeting against Section 9 on September 3rd at the Friends Meeting House, Manchester City Centre, 2pm-4pm
Join the Khanalis on the national demonstration against deportation in Bolton on 1 October. Assemble 12 noon at Lever Edge Lane CP School, Bolton BL3 3HP
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MOSES MUST STAY!
Moses Kayiza is a gay asylum seeker who fled Uganda in May 2004. Under Ugandan law, homosexuality is strongly criminalised. The official maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Yoweri Museveni, the current President of Uganda, once proposed the arrest of all homosexuals — though he subsequently modified his position and called for a return to the good old days when “these few individuals were either ignored or speared and killed by their parents”.
Moses fled to Britain after being arrested and tortured by police, including systematic sexual abuse. Now the Home Office is threatening to deport him. The adjudicator who dealt with Moses’ application refused to grant him asylum, saying, “If, as the appellant says, homosexuality is illegal and persecuted in Uganda I find it unlikely that on four nights in a police station police officers would indulge in it.”
Moses is suffering from ill health caused by the torture and by the way he has been treated in this country. If he is deported to Uganda he faces more torture and a life in prison. Sign the petition and join the campaign:
www.mosesmuststay.org.uk, Moses Must Stay Campaign PO Box 153, Manchester, M60 1LP