Small victories are important

John ‘Bosco’ Nyombi

From The Wardman Wire

Following an eight year ordeal the Ugandan gay asylum seeker John ‘Bosco’ Nyombi has finally won asylum in the UK.

Bosco had been returned to Uganda where he was arrested, imprisoned more than once, and beaten. This was despite the fact that a judicial review of his case was still outstanding.

Therefore Judge Sir George Newman, saying the Home Office was guilty of “a grave and serious breach” of the law, demanded his return.

Deportation had been violent:

At the airport, when he resisted leaving the van, he was handcuffed, punched in his private parts to make him straighten his legs so they could be belted together. Crying, he was lifted on to the plane and flown out of the country. (Jacqui Smith has ordered an inquiry into widespread reports of violence during removals).

His mobile phone had been taken from him and he was given no chance to contact friends or lawyers, even though Home Office rules required that he should have 72 hours’ notice of removal to give him a chance to make calls.

Judge Newman said he was satisfied that Bosco was telling the truth and that the actions of the Border Agency officers were “deliberately calculated to avoid any complication that could arise from Mr Bosco ’s removal becoming publicly known.”

Lawyers for the Home Secretary conceded in court that his removal was carried out illegally. But they argued that flying him back to the UK was pointless because the 38-year-old was bound to lose the fresh asylum claim he now wanted to make.

Rejecting their arguments, Judge Newman said: “I find it impossible to conclude, on the basis of the evidence as it now is [Bosco's situation on returning to Uganda], that there is not the real possibility that a judge might find that he is at risk if he is returned (to his homeland) by reason of his homosexuality.”

Emphasis added.

Even for the Home Office this is bad. To argue that illegality can be allowed to stand because they have decided he will eventually lose his case is the argument of tyranny.

But there are possibly hundreds of cases where there is no publicity and the Home Office (and the UK Border Agency) can and do get away with all sorts. They have a culture of disbelief of anyone's claim. They bend (and make) the rules to suit themselves. They will argue black is white in court. They work hard to avoid external scrutiny. If they feel they are being challenged, whether by public campaigns or individual lawyers, they give every impression of responding like spoilt bullies - lashing out at anyone in their reach.

I accept the issues are complicated. I accept that openhandedness is not acceptable politically (though you have to ask how we got to this point), and I know I am out of my depth. But to act outside the law, to act on the assumption everyone else is an enemy, to disbelieve everything and everyone, is inexorably to become what you are nominally fighting: criminal, deceiptful, uncontrollable.

And quite right too

Welsh Refugee Council

Archbishop of Wales blasts policy towards refugees
Dec 18 2008 by David Williamson, Western Mail

ARCHBISHOP of Wales Barry Morgan last night warned that the nation would be
judged by its attitude to the poorest members of society.

He said he was alarmed at the plight of refugees and asylum-seekers in
Wales who are in abject poverty. The Anglican leader is concerned by the effects
of 2002 legislation, which withdrew social support for rejected asylum seekers.

Tomorrow, the Welsh Refugee Council will relaunch its hardship fund to
provide blankets for newborn babies, a winter coat for a newly-arrived refugee,
and food parcels for destitute families.

Nearly half (47%) of all people using the UK’s main refugee advice
services this year were destitute – of these 56% were from Iran, Iraq, Eritrea
or Zimbabwe.

Questioning whether it was realistic to expect people to return to
countries defined by danger, Dr Morgan said: “Very often their countries are
unsafe and unstable. Are you going to send people back to Zimbabwe or the
Congo?”

Describing his shock at learning of the Congo’s mortality rate, he
said: “I heard 20% of children under five die either as a result of disease or
war, but the thing is there is a child at the heart of Christmas. God reveals
himself as a child.” Dr Morgan said that in the Christmas story Jesus was
revealed as the child of refugees.

He believes the Nativity story should inspire society to protect the
most vulnerable children.

He said: “It is interesting. According to the Christmas story Jesus was a kind of refugee, having to flee to Egypt.

“If you believe that God reveals himself in Jesus then he reveals
himself as a refugee and he reveals himself as a child. What does that tell you
about the value of a child?”

Adamant such modern-day families should not live in destitution, he
said: “A country is ultimately judged by what it does with its poorest people.”

The policy of cutting off support to failed asylum seekers who could
not return to their home nation and banning them from working was earlier this
month condemned in a report from a think-tank founded by former Conservative
leader Iain Duncan Smith.

At least 26,000 failed asylum seekers in the UK survive on Red Cross
food parcels.
....

For more information about the Welsh Refugee Council’s hardship fund, click
onto http://www.welshrefugeecouncil.org/

Wanted: Compassion and Justice

Irony is not a strong suit in the Home Office

Ekklesia reports that

Three of Britain's leading Free Church denominations have called for
justice and compassion for asylum seekers, following a statement from immigration Minister Phil Woolas criticising human rights groups and lawyers for assisting the vulnerable.

Speaking on behalf of The Baptist Church, The Methodist Church and The
URC, the Rev Dr Rosemary Kidd said: “Genuine asylum seekers are frequently
escaping from persecution and torture. They often arrive in the UK, speaking no
English and with no identifying documents.

They are vulnerable, deeply traumatised people, seeking sanctuary and human
kindness.

“There are inevitably some ‘false’ claimants who should, of
course, be efficiently identified through proper legal processes, and then
deported to their country of origin. The view of the Joint Public Issues Team,
however, is twofold – and quite the reverse of the concerns of Mr Woolas.

“Firstly, the asylum appeals system places these already abused people
under further intense suspicion, and the onus is on the individual to explain
his or her circumstances under repeated investigation. Secondly, the recent
introduction of the Immigration Points System is likely to make it increasingly
hard for genuine asylum seekers to enter the UK legally, and thus to claim
sanctuary within these shores at all.

“The Joint Public Issues Team calls on the minister to ensure that all
claimants are treated with dignity at every stage of the asylum process, and to
ensure that people who have already suffered greatly in their country of origin
are not further damaged by unsympathetic treatment or rejection by the
UK.”

Yesterday Ekklesia also reported reactions to Woolas' comments here. Comments included:

Vaughan Jones, director of the agency Praxis, which works with displaced people
across London, who is also a United Reformed Church minister, described the
statement from the new Immigration Minister as "a disturbing
development."

"Asylum seekers and migrants are human beings with rights and
it is quite proper and legitimate for the law to defend those rights and for
people of good will to advocate for and support people in need, vulnerable to
exploitation and potential victims of miscarriages of justice," said Mr
Jones.

He continued: "Attacking the defenders of human rights is not the most
edifying of stands, although it is regrettably not without precedent.

...

The Law Society, the governing body for solicitors, has accused the
minister of running "against the rule of law" and making "unacceptable"
comments.

Paul Marsh, President of the Law Society, said: "The issue of
immigration is one for the politicians to debate, but central to that debate
must be the fact that those seeking asylum can do so in a legal system that
operates under the rule of law.

He continued: "There is no reason why anyone should be denied access to justice on the basis that they are from another country and seeking asylum, which is what the minister seems to suggest."

.

Woolas: blame the lawyers

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas

In The Guardian the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has laid into lawyers involved in the asylum process.

Immigration minister Phil Woolas has attacked lawyers and charities working on behalf of asylum seekers, accusing them of undermining the law and "playing the
system". In an interview with the Guardian, Woolas described the legal professionals and NGO workers as "an industry", and said most asylum seekers
were not fleeing persecution but were economic migrants.

One comment is worth attention:

In one case, Woolas said, an asylum seeker had won the right to stay after going through six layers of appeal. "That person has no right to be in this country
but I'm sure that there is an industry out there [with] a vested interest."

This is a simple assertion that the politicians (and/or the Home Office) are the ones to decide, not the courts. Of course, if the Home Office is to be judge and jury then every case will undoubtedly be correctly decided.



Perhaps a central element of the problem was set out later:

Woolas told the Guardian the "primary purpose" of immigration policy was to reassure the public that the government was in control of immigration. "The
public recognise that we don't know the exact numbers. They see the asylum
backlog and what they fear is that we don't have any control over the system,"
he said.

Hence this comment in the equivalent article in the Mail Online

The number of people arriving in Britain, minus those leaving, hit 200,000 last
year. [and why 'hit'?]

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'These estimated figures
betray a Labour Government that is not in control of immigration policy.
Immigration can be of real benefit to the country but only if it is properly
controlled.

The primary purpose is not to protect people in fear of their life or fleeing persecution. It is not to enact the requirments of the Geneva Convention and other treaties that successive govenments have signed. These are peripheral considerations, much less important than feeding people's instinctive chauvinism, even racism.

In fact it seems that asylum seekers, and economic migrants (in both cases as amorphous, threatening groups, not as people), are politically useful - they enable politicians to attack one another on a playing ground they understand and simultaneously to ignore the desperate plight of some applicants.

There may also be a wider political benefits to all politicians and certain newspapers - portraying up asylum seekers as less than human enables the poor to blame those who are even poorer for the plight they are in.

On the BBC Radio 4 PM programme later in the day Phil Woolas was insisting that its was only some lawyers and NGOs that he meant. Alistair Mackenzie, an immigration barrister, firmly rejected the idea that the problem with the asylum system was the lawyers. The fundamental problem, in his opinion, was delay, incompetence and poor decision making by the Home Office.



In my limited experience (with one of the NGO's I suppose Woolas thinks is to blame) this is surely the case. The 6-month decision making timetable under the New Asylum Model is frequently missed. People have had reports from the Medical Foundation for the victims of torture simply dismissed. There seems to be a presumption that every applicant is lying (and the burden of proof lies with them). People are challenged to prove their nationality - someone cannot prove they are from Eritrea, say, then the rest of their asylum claim is simply not considered. And it is very hard to prove which country you are from if you've had to flee - few people go back for their birth certificate, for example. And if you do have documents the Home Office will argue they are forgeries.

Many people go through the system with no legal assistance at all. They are seldom successful. (Though I recently met a lady who had won her appeal against the initial refusal of asylum with no help from a lawyer. The Home Office then appealed against that decision, of course.)



Nicholas Sagovsky observed that human rights are indivisible, its just that the rights of asylum applications are worth rather less than those of other people.

I just hope that the minister's statement doesn't presage another reduction in public funding for asylum cases. It's hard enough now to find a solicitor - and (I think I'm right in saying) there are tight limits on the time a lawyer can give to a client (about 5 hours at the first stage, I think - not much help if you have to work through an interpreter).

End detention at Dungavel

Pictures from a protest at the Dungavel Prison in Scotland, 2005

From the Church of Scotland:

We will stand by failed asylum seeker's children

Church offers support network to the government

A senior Kirk official today praised the
government for listening to its concerns about Dungavel - and asked that
churches be part of the solution.

Reverend Ian Galloway, convener of the Kirk's Church and Society
Council, made the remarks ahead of the Moderator's visit to Dungavel detention
centre on Monday.

Mr. Galloway commented:
"We are pleased that the government has listened to us, as the Dungavel regime was inhumane, especially for young children.

"But following Jim Murphy's announcement, there must be action. And we
want to be involved in that action."

He felt that churches had a lot to offer the government and failed asylum seekers:
"The Kirk has always been regarded as being a place of support and safety for the vulnerable in society.
"I know of church members who stood as surety for a family of failed asylum seekers, and they fulfilled their bail conditions without fail."

All here.