from a NCADC news release:
NCADC has been contacted by several detainees facing forcible removal to Iraq on the two charter flights scheduled for the 1 September 2010 and 6 September 2010. Rabar, whose campaign began several weeks ago when the UKBA reassessed his age at 20 instead of 16, is to be deported on the charter flight to Baghdad on the 1st of September.
Two other detainees that have contacted NCADC, who will be on the charter flight PVT010 to Baghdad on the 6th are Hussein Samer Mahmood, HO Ref. No. M1371631, and Ibrahim Hussein Sharif Sahidi, HO Ref. No., S1361211. Both men have been in Campsfield for about a month and have received threats to their lives in Iraq.
Ibrahim fled to the UK in 2006. His asylum claim was refused in 2007 and he has struggled through the asylum system since. His father was murdered in 2007 and his brother was murdered this year. New evidence is on its way from Iraq and he hopes that it arrives in time to file a fresh claim.
Hussein arrived in the UK in 2008 and his case was refused in 2009. He moved to Jordan and became an informal translator to the British Foreign Embassy and also made a living by assisting immigrants file their applications. However, he and his family began receiving threats in 2006 and while he was visiting the UK in 2008 he received a call from his family in Iraq saying that Hussein's brother had been threatened with kidnappings on a number of occasions and then shot and blinded. Because of this incident he decided to claim asylum from the UK.
UNCHR remains deeply concerned that returning Iraqi's to Baghdad could put them in serious danger as is outlined in the April 2009 UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Iraqi Asylum-Seekers and Note on the Continued Applicability of the April 2009 UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Iraqi Asylum-Seekers, 28 July 2010.
Write to the Home Secretary, Theresa May and let her know that you are strongly against these forced removals to Iraq.
Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Office,
2 Marsham St London SW1 4DF
Fax: 020 8760 3132
July 2010
Saturday, 28 August 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
Immigration: Why Let The Truth Spoil A Good Story?
The Telegraph: Immigration up by a fifth. WRONG.
The Sun: Net immigration up 20% in year. WRONG.
Daily Mail: Number of immigrants living in the UK long-term soars by 20% in 1 year. WRONG.
London Evening Standard: Rise in immigration adds 200,000 to British population. WRONG.
Press Association (UK): Students lead 20% immigration rise. WRONG.
The Guardian: Figures show 20% increase in net migration to UK. CORRECT.
BBC News: Net migration to UK rose in 2009, statistics show. CORRECT.
The Associated Press (Canada): Number of immigrants to UK falls 4 per cent last year, statistics agency says. CORRECT.
Yet again the right-whinge press have manipulated the latest migration figures from the Office for National Statistics. Either that or their reporters still cannot get their head around a really simple concept that we have explained on a number of occasions before: IN MIGRATION (immigration + live births) - OUT MIGRATION (emigration + deaths) = NET MIGRATION.
So, for the idiots at the Telegraph, Mail and Sun to claim that IMMIGRATION has RISEN when it has in fact FALLEN by 4%, down from 590,000 in 2008 to 567,000 last year, is either an outright lie or a perfect illustration of the fact that they just do not know what they are talking about.
In the case of the Daily Flail it looks very much like the former, as they chose to feature their latest on-line version of the story [we don't buy the paper, so we don't actually know what the hard copy version looks like] chooses to focus on the fact that "The number of babies born to immigrant mothers has doubled in a decade" to one in four, "polluting our precious bodily fluids". [The last bit isn't in the Flail, but you get what we mean.] This of course is to be expected, as the ONS put it: "If the number of non UK-born women living in England and Wales increases then it follows that the number of births to these women is likely to increase." But that didn't put the Flail off from making a big thing out of it. Methinks, they do complain too much!
Here a nice helpful graph to illustrate exactly why immigration (the blue line) hasn't increased by 20% in the last year. And it is exactly the same one as in the Flail if you were wondering.
The Sun: Net immigration up 20% in year. WRONG.
Daily Mail: Number of immigrants living in the UK long-term soars by 20% in 1 year. WRONG.
London Evening Standard: Rise in immigration adds 200,000 to British population. WRONG.
Press Association (UK): Students lead 20% immigration rise. WRONG.
The Guardian: Figures show 20% increase in net migration to UK. CORRECT.
BBC News: Net migration to UK rose in 2009, statistics show. CORRECT.
The Associated Press (Canada): Number of immigrants to UK falls 4 per cent last year, statistics agency says. CORRECT.
Yet again the right-whinge press have manipulated the latest migration figures from the Office for National Statistics. Either that or their reporters still cannot get their head around a really simple concept that we have explained on a number of occasions before: IN MIGRATION (immigration + live births) - OUT MIGRATION (emigration + deaths) = NET MIGRATION.
So, for the idiots at the Telegraph, Mail and Sun to claim that IMMIGRATION has RISEN when it has in fact FALLEN by 4%, down from 590,000 in 2008 to 567,000 last year, is either an outright lie or a perfect illustration of the fact that they just do not know what they are talking about.
In the case of the Daily Flail it looks very much like the former, as they chose to feature their latest on-line version of the story [we don't buy the paper, so we don't actually know what the hard copy version looks like] chooses to focus on the fact that "The number of babies born to immigrant mothers has doubled in a decade" to one in four, "polluting our precious bodily fluids". [The last bit isn't in the Flail, but you get what we mean.] This of course is to be expected, as the ONS put it: "If the number of non UK-born women living in England and Wales increases then it follows that the number of births to these women is likely to increase." But that didn't put the Flail off from making a big thing out of it. Methinks, they do complain too much!
Here a nice helpful graph to illustrate exactly why immigration (the blue line) hasn't increased by 20% in the last year. And it is exactly the same one as in the Flail if you were wondering.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Legal Challenge To Australian Off-Shore Processing
One of the most amusing ironies of the Australian election is not that the two sides' anti-immigration rhetoric and desire to 'process' asylum claims even further from the mainland* got them nowhere further than a neck-and-neck finish and a hung parliament, rather it is that this situation coincides with a High Court challenge to the very basis of off-shore processing.
Christmas Island, like Manus island and Nauru, was specifically excluded from the Australian Migration Zone, the territory where a non-citizen must hold a visa to legally enter and remain, as part of the Pacific Solution. The legislation involved also removed the right of non-citizens to apply for visas when there, allowed the Australian state to remove them to other countries and limited access to the Australian legal system.
This ultimately means that, unlike in the UK, immigration department officials and private contractors rather than the courts have the final approval of any asylum application. Now two Tamil refused asylum seekers are seeking judicial review, challenging the constitutional basis to off-shore processing. if successful it would defeat one of the core purposes of government policy to severely limit the rights of 'boat people' to asylum.
The Immigration Minister in fact has the ultimate say in these cases but it is government policy to waive the right in favour of immigration officials. That he is not choosing to examine such cases as he would do for asylum applications made on the mainland by refugees that arrive by air, for example, also forms part of the challenge
* In fact in a completely different country, not just on an island specifically excluded by law from certain sections of the Australian legal process.
Christmas Island, like Manus island and Nauru, was specifically excluded from the Australian Migration Zone, the territory where a non-citizen must hold a visa to legally enter and remain, as part of the Pacific Solution. The legislation involved also removed the right of non-citizens to apply for visas when there, allowed the Australian state to remove them to other countries and limited access to the Australian legal system.
This ultimately means that, unlike in the UK, immigration department officials and private contractors rather than the courts have the final approval of any asylum application. Now two Tamil refused asylum seekers are seeking judicial review, challenging the constitutional basis to off-shore processing. if successful it would defeat one of the core purposes of government policy to severely limit the rights of 'boat people' to asylum.
The Immigration Minister in fact has the ultimate say in these cases but it is government policy to waive the right in favour of immigration officials. That he is not choosing to examine such cases as he would do for asylum applications made on the mainland by refugees that arrive by air, for example, also forms part of the challenge
* In fact in a completely different country, not just on an island specifically excluded by law from certain sections of the Australian legal process.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Recommended:
recent articles we have come across that you might have missed.
Public rage against Tamil refugees has a nasty, xenophobic odour - an article from the Vancouver sun that is summed up in its subtitle "Why this mean-spirited furore over a few Tamils? Perhaps it's because they aren't white".
Xenophobia illogical in Canada - a similar story for this Calgary herald article on the MV Sun Sea.
Europe's union riven by government attacks on minorities - comment piece by James A Goldston in the Law section of the Guardian on the "wave of governmental hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities [that] risks undermining the common values of "human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity", in the words of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, upon which the European Union is founded."
French crackdown on Gypsies raises concern - an American view on the French Roma deportations from the Las Vegas Sun that shows that this is not a recent phenomenon.
Foreign workers abusing their children - an interview with Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai from the right-wing Shas party, who is responsible for implementing the latest and controversial policy on the deportation of the children of 'illegal' foreign workers. It is a long and highly illuminating interview, not just in his use of language about 'them' but also in his obvious pious paranoia about being labelled a racist whilst claiming that everybody else's attitude to him is based on racism.
Public rage against Tamil refugees has a nasty, xenophobic odour - an article from the Vancouver sun that is summed up in its subtitle "Why this mean-spirited furore over a few Tamils? Perhaps it's because they aren't white".
Xenophobia illogical in Canada - a similar story for this Calgary herald article on the MV Sun Sea.
Europe's union riven by government attacks on minorities - comment piece by James A Goldston in the Law section of the Guardian on the "wave of governmental hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities [that] risks undermining the common values of "human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity", in the words of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, upon which the European Union is founded."
French crackdown on Gypsies raises concern - an American view on the French Roma deportations from the Las Vegas Sun that shows that this is not a recent phenomenon.
Foreign workers abusing their children - an interview with Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai from the right-wing Shas party, who is responsible for implementing the latest and controversial policy on the deportation of the children of 'illegal' foreign workers. It is a long and highly illuminating interview, not just in his use of language about 'them' but also in his obvious pious paranoia about being labelled a racist whilst claiming that everybody else's attitude to him is based on racism.
Monday, 23 August 2010
More Roma Bashing
Ashamed of being out-bigoted by the French, well-known right-whinge racist demagogue and Italian Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, has resurrected one of his favourite excuses for expelling the Romani from Italy: if they live solely on welfare benefits they should be deported.
The European Commission have already refused Italy permission to carry out this pogrom once before but for Moroni the logic behind such a move is inescapable: because the Romani are persecuted and ghettoised*, denied the normal everyday rights that anyone else would expect, forced to live in penury with a chance of finding a proper job, home, education and health care, and therefore end up living on welfare benefits, it is a legitimate excuse to persecute them further.
And where is Moroni going to deport them to, as many have lived in Italy for generations? Any where but Italy obviously. And of course, many of the Romani will not be able to prove any connection to Italy because they have been systematically denied their citizenship and it has long been police policy to confiscate documentation that can prove such rights.
* And have been so for centuries wherever they have tried to make a home.
The European Commission have already refused Italy permission to carry out this pogrom once before but for Moroni the logic behind such a move is inescapable: because the Romani are persecuted and ghettoised*, denied the normal everyday rights that anyone else would expect, forced to live in penury with a chance of finding a proper job, home, education and health care, and therefore end up living on welfare benefits, it is a legitimate excuse to persecute them further.
And where is Moroni going to deport them to, as many have lived in Italy for generations? Any where but Italy obviously. And of course, many of the Romani will not be able to prove any connection to Italy because they have been systematically denied their citizenship and it has long been police policy to confiscate documentation that can prove such rights.
* And have been so for centuries wherever they have tried to make a home.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Hunger Strike In Greece Enters Second Month
Hamid Saddeqi, a 36-year-old Iranian refugee, has entered the second month of a hunger strike protest outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Athens. He has sewn his lips shut and is refusing food to highlight the fact that he is still waiting for his application for political asylum to be processed after his papers were first submitted 8 years ago.Since the protest began, the hunger strikers have suffered harassment and arrest at the hands of the Greek police. But that has not stopped the number of hunger strikers and supporters protesting outside the UNHCR offices swelling to twenty and all are in the same boat, victims of the fact that Greece only grants 0.04% of all asylum applications it receives each year.
Recommended:
recent articles we have come across that you might have missed.
Why MigrationWatch are wrong: a plea for a more robust debate on immigration - a excellent demolition in the New Statesman of MigrationBotch's latest scare story on immigration, showing up the way this glorified micro-pressure group abuses statistics. It may be well-funded and punch above its weight because it panders to the right-whinge prejudices of the likes of the Daily Flail and Excress but it just doesn't seem to understand the science of statistical analysis, or much else.
A rising global tide of xenophobia - self-explanatory comment in The Independent linking the expulsion of Roma in France to the Australian election and beyond.
Our national disgrace: The detainees wrongly held in UK 'prisons' - an expose by The Voice about the people who languish in immigration detention
Forgotten children - an alternative take on the children of migrants who, despite being born in Israel, are still being disenfranchised and forcibly deported.
La Raza: Deporting 12 Million Illegal Aliens ‘Not a Realistic Solution’ and U.S. Should Stop Trying - a self-explanatory piece on a report entitled 'The Impact Of Section 287(G) Of The Immigration And Nationality Act On The Latino Community' published by the National Council of La Raza last week.
Deported for Running a Red Light - Arizona is not the only U.S. State where racial profiling is leading to people being deported for minor infringements of the law.
Why MigrationWatch are wrong: a plea for a more robust debate on immigration - a excellent demolition in the New Statesman of MigrationBotch's latest scare story on immigration, showing up the way this glorified micro-pressure group abuses statistics. It may be well-funded and punch above its weight because it panders to the right-whinge prejudices of the likes of the Daily Flail and Excress but it just doesn't seem to understand the science of statistical analysis, or much else.
A rising global tide of xenophobia - self-explanatory comment in The Independent linking the expulsion of Roma in France to the Australian election and beyond.
Our national disgrace: The detainees wrongly held in UK 'prisons' - an expose by The Voice about the people who languish in immigration detention
Forgotten children - an alternative take on the children of migrants who, despite being born in Israel, are still being disenfranchised and forcibly deported.
La Raza: Deporting 12 Million Illegal Aliens ‘Not a Realistic Solution’ and U.S. Should Stop Trying - a self-explanatory piece on a report entitled 'The Impact Of Section 287(G) Of The Immigration And Nationality Act On The Latino Community' published by the National Council of La Raza last week.
Deported for Running a Red Light - Arizona is not the only U.S. State where racial profiling is leading to people being deported for minor infringements of the law.
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