Pony Express

WITH the Tories trumpeting their intention to slash benefits and tear up the European Convention on Human Rights, and their papers plainly convinced they're on a winner, we have to face two of the less pleasant features of British politics.

One is the readiness of too many people to forgive and forget whatever our rulers are doing to us, so long as we are persuaded it is doing things a damn sight worse to "them", the less deserving poor, and "foreigners"  (that category can be extended to include "the enemy within", whom Thatcher was preparing to denounce before the Brighton bombing). This is what some are satisfied and even proud to call "British justice".

The other is that whatever contrary facts or pictures of reality you try to raise will only exasperate those who are already, while waxing indignant, comfortable in their prejudice.  It is thus out of a sense of duty to their readers and viewers that some media endeavour to keep nurturing ignorance and are reluctant to admit anything which might disturb it.

As my fellow blogger Tom Pride reveals this week:

The Daily Express - like most of the UK press - doesn't like to be criticised. And - like most of the UK press - it doesn't like to give a right of reply to anyone, not even to respected organisations such as the British Red Cross.

That's why the newspaper is refusing to publish a joint letter from the British Red Cross, Refugee Action and the Refugee Council which is critical of it. This is the letter the Daily Express doesn’t want you to see. So please share it as widely as possible.

Dear Sir,

The stream of aggressive stories about asylum seekers appearing in this paper in recent days is of serious concern to all of us who work with and support people fleeing persecution.

Your readers would be forgiven for thinking the UK is being flooded by asylum seekers. This couldn’t be further from the truth, with asylum applications around the 23,000 mark a year the UK is home to less than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees and takes proportionately below the EU average.

To characterise the people housed in Folkestone as having a ‘lovely break’ by the sea that Brits would be envious of is hugely misleading and dangerous.

Asylum seekers are people who have often fled horrifying experiences in their home countries. Some have been raped. Some have been tortured. Many have witnessed the death of a loved one. Be assured, people who have suffered extreme trauma and whose lives are hanging in the balance will not be focusing on the sea view of temporary room.

There are no refugee visas available for people fleeing persecution. The fact that people are forced to travel clandestinely is recognised within the Refugee Convention and British Law. Entering Britain illegally can be a necessity; it is not an indication of the validity of someone’s asylum claim.

Additionally, appealing a refusal does not indicate someone cheating the system. Decisions on asylum claims can be life or death and the appeal overturn rate shows the Government frequently gets it wrong the first time.

Stirring up hostility against asylum seekers is as unwelcome as it is unsavoury in a country with a proud tradition of protecting refugees.

Maurice Wren, Chief Executive, Refugee Council
 Mike Adamson, Acting Chief Executive, British Red Cross
 Dave Garratt, Chief Executive, Refugee Action

.

Which reminds me, talking of human rights, I'm sure we'll be hearing they are safe in the Con Dem government's hands, but I wonder how the government is getting on with its Lobbying Bill, not the price of big business lobbying, but the law which besides requiring trade unions hand over lists of their members, restricts what charities like the Red Cross can spend or do on putting their views across.

That could be handy before the elections coming up.

But hang on. Besides his ownership of the Express, over whose contents he modestly disclaims control, Richard "Dirty" Desmond likes to be known for his charitable works. He started up the Health Lottery, and has even donated to the Labour Party. Perhaps he will come out against what the government is doing?  Not that I'm holding my breath.


That pony?  Pony and trap, cockney rhyming slang.




http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/daily-express-censors-letter-from-british-red-cross-criticising-it/

https://www.publicaffairsnews.com/articles/analysis/unanswered-campaign-questions


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/4/contents/enacted

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&article=106& 

Raising consciousness and solidarity

BAHRAINIS at London May Day rally.
Now Manchester is centre of solidarity.

WITH scenes of police brutality in Egypt, the continuing death toll in Syria, and Israeli forces attacking the funeral procession of someone they had killed earlier, we can see why some people have said despondently that the euphoria of the "Arab Spring" has been succeeded by a Middle Eastern Winter.

But if we are looking for rays of light, one is that the people are plainly not giving up, nor going away, not even when the surely desperate forces of "order" have to drag women by their hair from Tahrir Square.

Another is that there is a movement of support and solidarity sprouting, more aware and conscious than anything we saw in the anti-war movement, maybe because it is centred on people with first-hand knowledge of the struggles because they and their families are directly involved. Refugees and exiles, from being merely people we ought to help, can help us know the score, the better to understand and fight the policies and regimes our governments are supporting.

Here's a report about Bahrain, and the arrest, physical violence and ill-treatment practiced against human rights defender Zainab AlKhawaj:

" We are deeply concerned about her safety after seeing the violence that she was subject to during arrest. Zainab Al-Khawaja is a 28-years-old member of Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, famous human rights blogger as @angryarabia and a mother of 2-years-old girl from Bahrain.

"On 15 December 2011, Zainab was arrested by Bahraini security forces from a roundabout on Budaiya highway, west of capital city Manama where she was taking part in a peaceful-sit-in-protest. The security forces responded with firing tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the protest, while Zainab continued the sit-in before the police moved in to rough her up. She was arrested, handcuffed, assaulted and punched in her back by the police officer as she was forcibly dragged off into custody. She, as well as another woman Masooma Al-Sayed were then taken to the police station.

"Zainab is a mother of a two-year-old child, whose husband Wafi Al-Majed is in prison along with her father, Bahrain’s most prominent political activist and human rights defender, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja who was imprisoned for life in June by special military court. Zainab faces grave danger and is at risk of being tortured, as the regime has systematically attacked human rights defenders, health workers and professionals who are speaking up against the repression and human rights abuses.

"We condemn ill-treatment of Zainab Al-Khawaja in public in the strongest possible terms, and arbitrary detention and demand the authorities to release her and Masooma Al-Sayed immediately and unconditionally. We ask all concerned people to take immediate and urgent action in support of Zainab Al-Khawaja and Masooma Al-Sayed. Zainab Al-Khawaja and Masooma AlSayed are to be detained for seven days.

"According to their lawyer:
Masooma Alsayed was kicked in her leg and is now limping, was not seen by doctor
Zainab when arrested had something sprayed in her eyes and was unable to see for approx an hour. Zainab in police station was beaten on head, arms and legs, as she was unable to see
Zainab recognized the voice of the policewoman who beat her, but the prosecutor refused to write it down. When her lawyer attempted to show the prosecutor video of the arrest, he refused to see it. A policewoman came in with bandaged arm claiming Masooma and Zainab hit her.

Zainab refused to sign statement unless policewoman's name was taken who hit her. The prosecutor got angry and made everyone leave the room, awaiting decision.

The moment Zainab was arrested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Zdk98x9TM

http://www.rapar.org.uk/bahrain-solidarity-campaign.html

This information from Bahrain was relayed to us via Manchester, where there is a Bahraini people's solidarity campaign that has demonstrated with support from health workers and other local trades unionists and students against a Bahraini business conference, and in support of Bahraini doctors and nurses who were brutally attacked by the regime there.

At the weekend there was a conference in Manchester about the struggle for freedom and equality in Bahrain, addressed by among others, Tony Lloyd MP who is chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party. (Just for the record we note that Manchester Central MP Lloyd did vote against the Blair government on Iraq, and on the renewal of Trident.) This conference "In support of the Bahraini revolution" was made possible with the help of the refugee rights and political asylum research group RAPAR which says it will work with rather than merely for its clients, and has been assisting Bahraini students whose funds were stopped by their government.

As a Mancunian "exile" who grew up proud of Peterloo and the Chartists, and the area's historic lnks with colonial and Irish freedom and anti-Apartheid struggles , I award full marks to those who are maintaining the tradition in today's world! And best wishes to the Bahraini freedom struggle!


http://www.rapar.org.uk/bahrain-solidarity-campaign.html

http://menasolidaritynetwork.com/2011/10/15/bahrain-manchester-protest-highlights-medics-plight/

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26378

And Iraq - Kurdistan

Meanwhile, and to set aside the mutual back-slapping between allies that has accompanied the US withdrawal from Iraq, here's a friend on Facebook posting pictures of an event that happened in London recently:

"On the occasion of International Human Rights Day our group Freedom Umbrella: Action for Kurdistan organised a seminar in UK parliament on the violation of human rights in Kurdistan. The seminar was hosted by Labour MP John McDonnell the speakers included Asos Hardi from Awene Newspaper in Kurdistan, Bashdar Ali Journliat and brother of journalist Sardasht Osman who was assassinated last year for criticizing the Kurdish authorities, Houzan Mahmoud from Organisaiton of Women’s freedom in Iraq and Mufid Abdullah journalist also editor of Kurdistan Tribune website. The seminar was chaired by Gona Saeed from Freedom Umbrella".

To which an Iraqi woman solidarity activist has commented:

"Great work Houzan, to have this meeting in parliament at this crucial time when the US/UK are congratulating themselves on what they have done to Iraq! The Kurdish region is often referred to by lobbies like 'Labour Friends of Iraq' as a shining example of people who benefited from the invasion and are living in democracy! Corruption, nepotism and lack of accountability are the main ills in Iraq today!"

To which Houzan Mahmoud replies:
"Thank you dear friend, well the so called Labour Friends of Iraq are standing with dictators not with the workers of Kurdistan. We know what is going on that's why we are hosting such meetings to make these issues known. best wishes".

To which I concur.

From Russia to death in Glasgow

WE have heard a lot in recent years about wealthy Russians moving to Britain, sending their kids through expensive public (i.e.private) schools and laundering their money through the City of London, and buying big houses, jewellery, football clubs and newspapers. No problems about being a "small, overcrowded island", or protecting "our culture", any more than questions about how their wealth was acquired.

We recently heard about some different Russians. But we did not hear much. Just imagined the thud of their bodies hitting the ground. Neighbours on the Glasgow scheme did hear the screams as Sergei Serykh, his wife Tatiana and their 21-year-old son fell from the 15th floor of a tower block at 8:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning. All three were killed instantly.

The family had recently been told by the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) their asylum claim had been rejected. They had been asked to leave their high rise accommodation in the city’s Red Road flats. Facing deportation or, at the very least, destitution consequent to failure to make it through the UK’s asylum machinery, the family concluded that their situation was beyond hope.

People did show sympathy, holding a vigil at the foot of the tower block in the Springburn district. Among those attending, besides local residents, current and former asylum seekers and civil rights campaigners, was ten-year-old Precious Mhango. Precious and her mother Florence have recently won the right to a judicial review of the UKBA’s decision to deport them to Malawi.

One man attending the vigil told the BBC, “We feel afraid from the Home Office. Everybody is afraid. Today all asylum seekers are here to pay tribute to the three people who died. Everybody is worried about their own situations as well. If I go back to Pakistan I will be killed.”

Robina Qureshi, for the rights organisation Positive Action for Housing, called for a public enquiry into the circumstances around the Red Road deaths. “We want to know what role the UKBA played,” Quereshi said. “In particular, we want to know: did the UKBA recently communicate with the three victims over their asylum case? Were officials knocking at the door of the three suicide victims at 63 Petershill Drive, Springburn on Sunday morning when the suicides took place?”

The Glasgow site is one of several to which asylum seekers are dispersed throughout Britain, usually places with poor employment prospects or local amenities. The 20 storey blocks of flats at Springburn are half-empty and due to be demolished. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work here legally, in any case, yet they can also be cut off from benefits if their application is unsuccessful, and put in detention centres pending deportation. Only a tiny minority of applicants are accepted for refugee status.

Suicides are not uncommon. The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns says at least 55 asylum seekers have taken their own lives since 2000. In Glasgow in 2006, Zamira Sadigova jumped out of an 11th floor flat. She was killed as police were breaking down the door to section her under the Mental Health Act. The following year, also in Glasgow, Uddav Bhandari, from Nepal, doused himself in petrol and set himself alight in the offices of the Immigration Tribunal. He died shortly after.

Unlike the shocked neighbours who showed their sympathy at the Russian family's death, MPs and media appeared indifferent or defended the asylum system, saying it had to work properly in judging cases. Tom Harris MP said. “You can’t make that judgment a hostage on the basis of threats by the individuals to take their own lives.”

Melanie Reid, a Times columnist. Reid described Sergei and his family as “members of the vast tribe of lost souls who swirl around the world, their past unverifiable, their present precarious, their future uncertain.” But she insisted, “In asylum policy emotion must never replace hard facts. Britain cannot be the world’s social worker, and we must acknowledge that some people in this twilight world are beyond help and that their deaths should not lie on our conscience.”

Thanks to Steve James and the World Socialist News Network for their report on this tragedy.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/asyl-m13.shtml

And here is another angle and further information from Tony Greenstein, of Brighton Unemployed Centre
:
You won't have read about it in our 'free' press, because it hasn't been reported. And anyway asylum seekers occupy a position not that much different to that of Blacks in the United States in the era of segregation, who were considered 2/5 of a human being.

But last week three asylum seekers, living in slum accommodation administered by the YMCA in Glasgow, took their own lives. They had received a decision turning down their application for asylum and the YMCA had been preparing their eviction.

And to top it all, a young Afghani refugee also living at the same bloc, attended a demonstration in commemoration of this family. As he attended the YMCA pulled the same trick - they cleared out his room and threw all his belongings in the rubbish bin.

The YMCA has been well known for its addiction to mammon. It takes money for workfare schemes that the government runs, i.e. work for your dole and from New Labour to 'house' asylum seekers. A lucrative business it must be, if at times a little unpleasant for these collaborators with Britain's persecution of asylum seekers.

Tony Greenstein

http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/03/ymca-christian-partners-in-murder-of-3.html

Good news: Behnam can stay!

BEAUTY from an artist under threat. Mirror, Butterflies and Freedom stepping from behind bars with peace dove.



NOT often we get a bit of good news to wite about in this blog, but I'm pleased to be able to pass some on.
The Home Office has relented and agreed that young Iranian artist Behnam Askari, his mother Masoumeh, and his younger brother, Behrad, have indefinite leave to stay in Britain.

The family had come here for his father's job, but when Dad returned to Tehran on a visit he was arrested.

Fortunately he managed to get a message warning them not to return. The Iranian authorities had arrested two students who had been staying at the family flat, for possessing anti-government leaflets, and decided it was a conspiracy. Behnam and his mother faced flogging and jail if they returned to Iran.

The British authorities did not seem concerned about the consequences of sending them back.

Staff and students at Behnam's school, Quintin Kyneston, in north-west London, protested on the family's behalf. One of his teachers, Pauline, took retirement , but carried on campaigning.
Behnam, winning a place at St.Martin's school of art, carried on painting, and his art was exhibited as part of the campaign.

Friends raised funds, and collected signatures on petitions.

So congratulations to Behnam and his mom, and to friends like Pauline who persisted in campaigning. You got a good result. And showed people can win.

And to keep up with the creative side:
www.askariart.com

Behnam Askari: " Decision soon" . Let's hope it's the right one.

WOMAN KNITTING, by Behnam Askari

BRILLIANT young artist Behnam Askari and his family, and their many friends, are waiting anxiously for news from the British Home Office, and if this government wants to do anything for its reputation and standing it had better be good news.

Behnam, 22, a student at University of the Arts London, has lived here since 2002, when his father who was working here brought the family over from Iran. Behnam was still at school in north-west London when the family heard two lots of bad news.

First, Behnam's father, who had gone back to Iran on a visit was arrested on political charges.

Then when he managed to contact Behnam's mother from Tehran it was to warn the family not to return to Iran or they too would be facing arrest and punishment. The charges all relate to two high school students who m the Askaris had let stay at their Tehran flat while the family were in England. The two had been caught in possession of anti-government leaflets, and police found printing equipment at the flat. For this, the Iranian regime decided that they must all be part of a conspiracy. Behnam is accused of "jeapordising Iran's national security".

Since Behnam's father's arrest in 2005, Behnam and his mother have been sentenced in absentia to 5 and 7 years' imprisonment, respectively. Behnam has been told he will receive 70 lashes, a barbaric punishment which constitiutes torture. His mother has been told she will receive 100 lashes. Their lives are in danger.

Despite the threat facing Behnam and his mother and younger brother if they returned to Iran, the British authorities hive been unsympathetic to the Askari family. Pupils at Behnam's school held a demonstration in his support, and one of his then teachers, Pauline Levis, took up a campaign on the family's behalf.

The Home Office turned down an asylum claim. A fresh claim for asylum, based on substantial new evidence, was submitted in April 2008. After an anxious wait of almost 17 months, Behnam has finally been informed that the fresh claim will be considered "soon".

The recent demonstrations after Iran's presidential election, the state violence, arrests and show trials, as well as reported deaths in prison, have drawn worldwide attention to the repressive character of the regime. The British government has criticised Ahmadinejad's regime. Now it has the chance to show some real support for freedom and human rights, and to show its compassion to a gifted young artist and a decent family.

Over 10,700 people, including many prominent figures, have so far signed a petition to the Home Secretary on the family's behalf calling for them to have the right to remain in the safety in the UK.
Following an agonizing wait of almost 17 months, a caseworker has finally told the family's solicitor that the Home Office will be considering the family's fresh claim "soon".

Let it be soon, and let the decision be the right one.
Behnam and his family must be given the right to remain in Britain. .





PLEASE SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/talented-young-artist-and-family-under-threat-of-deportation-to-iran.html
.

Contact Details

Website:	http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/tale...

Folk und Kinder

I'D been planning to go to Liverpool Street station today to see an unusual Suitcase. It's a drama commemorating the arrival at the station seventy-years ago of a special train - the first of the Kindertransport trains which were to bring almost 10,000 mainly Jewish children out of Nazi Germany and Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia.

The site-specific work has been developed by Ros and Jane Merkin from the memories of their mother Johanna who was one of the children on that train, from Vienna, in December 1938.

The audience will not be seated comfortably in a theatre, but conducted around the station to come upon scenes telling the story, with bewildered children, waiting foster parents, bemused railway workers and bystanders. The performance also incorporates music, seasonal carols and tunes from the Old Country, provided by Max Reinhardt and the Trans-Siberian Marching Band.

There's to be three one-hour performances, numbers have had to be restricted so as not to cause too much disruption to a busy station, and the good news is that the reason I could not go is I received a message at the weekend regretting to tell me the event was fully booked, indeed over-subscribed.

At least I can think of those who never made it to those trains.

It was after the Nazi 'Kristallnacht' pogroms in November 1938 that a delegation prevailed upon Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his government to allow up to 10,000 child refugees into Britain. It was not easy. Homes had to be found for the children, and a £200 bond paid for each child. The children had to leave their parents behind, and few ever saw their parents or relatives again after the Nazi genocide. In all, some 9,500 children came to Britain this way including some 2,000 whose parents though not Jewish were persecuted by the Nazis as political opponents.

The last train came as war broke out between Britain and Germany. The Refugee Children Movement committee which had organised the trains had already run out of funds in August 1939. Meanwhile in the United States, though some children were brought in informally, the Wagner-Rogers Bill to admit 20,000 Jewish refugees under the age of 14, co-sponsored by Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-N.Y.) and Representative Edith Rogers (R-Mass.), had failed to get Congressional approval in February 1939.

By sheer coincidence, though I could not attend the Liverpool Street performance of 'Suitcase', I happened to borrow a David Roberts novel from the library the other day, it's called 'The Quality of Mercy', and features his period gentleman sleuth and agent Lord Edward Corinth and intrepid communist journalist Verity Browne as well as such unlikely characters as Lord Louis Mountbatten and Lady Edwina, and Hitler-admiring Unity Mitford. But apart from the country house polo playing set and London art scene this book brings its heroine and hero into Vienna as the Nazis take over Austria, and to the rescue efforta of the kindertransport.

Among the real-life figures who stand out for such efforts, we think of Nicholas Winton. the young British businessman who made it his business to organise the rescuse of children from Czechoslovakia as the Nazi jaws closed on that country following Munich. He apparently never considered he had done anything special, and it was not till half a century later that his wife Greta was going through an old scrapbook in the attic and found out the story. He was knighted at the end of 2002, and the Czech government nominated him for a Nobel peace prize.

Among various individuals and organisations which helped receive the children in Britain, one which has been quite modest about its part is the Woodcraft Folk. Emerging from efforts to form a non-militaristic alternative to the Scouts, following World War I, this youth movement, founded in 1925, drew its name from the outdoor, nature-loving "woodcraft" ideas of American Edward Thompson Seton, looking to the Native American tribes; but combined with the democratic and egalitarian comradeship ideals of the labour, and more especially co-operative movement. On the Continent, particularly Germany and central Europe, its links are with the social-democratic Red Falcon youth movement.

It was not till looking at some letters from Kindertransport children that I noticed references to the Woodcraft Folk, and started discovering more about its part. But here is one witness, Zusana Medusova, writing in a Prague magazine in 1998:
"My father was already in hiding from the Gestapo...an Austrian socialist, political editor of Vorwarts
, the daily paper of the Social democratic party...Of course he had to flee at once. ..the paper was forbidden and its editors were enemies of the new state! So, together iwth many other anti-nazi refugees, both Jewish and non-Jewish, Czechoslovakia was their first place of exile...Very soon the children of these refugees were formed into a youth group called Die Rote Falken...Some of us Rote Falken had attended an International youth camp in the summer of 1937. It was held in England, near Brighton. ..None of us could guess that two years later Britain would beome our new homeland.

"The organiser of this large camp - the head of the Woodcraft Folk - was a young married man, an idealist, keen trade unionist, humanitarian - we all love this man. He was eager to know from our youth leaders what was then the situation in Czechoslovakia and he kept in touch with them after ourreturn from this wonderful holiday. When it became obvious that the Germans had their eye on their Czech neighbours Henry fair wrote a pleading letter to all members of the Woodcraft Folk, asking them to volunteer to take some of the children whose parents were once again threatened by the Nazis. It must be said that these were working-class families and that, by taking a refugee child, they would certainly have to make financial sacrifices... none of us could imagine that we would neevr see our parents agin - in my case out of 52 members of my mother's extended family, only eight survived two returned from the horrors of Auschwitz and Belsen."

(Article from Rosh Chodesh magazine, quoted in Fashioning a New World: A History of the Woodcraft Folk, by Mary Davis).

Susanna Pearson, was born Susanne Ehrmann on 11 April 1928 in Moravska Ostrava, a town in Czechoslovakia… The family moved to Prague when she was four years old, for her father’s job

"My mother had many friends, loved parties and nice clothes. We were both members of the Rote Falcons, an international youth movement which had links with the Woodcraft Folk in Britain, Mother as a helper. I have happy memories of the camps we went to. At that time, we little knew that it was probably the membership of this organization that would save my life"

As the Nazis closed in, Susanne's parents and their Jewish friends were seeking ways to leave the country. "This was proving impossible as the world had closed its doors to Jewish refugees. However there were efforts made to bring out children, particularly by a British stockbroker called Nicholas Winton who was on holiday in Prague. He realized the plight of the Jews and resolved to do something. He gained permission from the British government to bring out children, providing he could find families to care for them and a guarantee of £50 per child for re-immigration. In this way he made it possible for 1,000 children to come to Britain. The start of the Second World War prevented the last transport train leaving, but nevertheless he was able to rescue about 680 children.

"The demand for places was very high, but I was probably given one because the Woodcraft Folk in England were able to offer 20 homes for Rote Falcons. They were prompted to do so having met up with some of us at a camp in Brighton in 1938. It is difficult to know how my parents felt when they learned that they had been successful in their application for me to be one of these children. I have often wondered, particularly when my own daughters were the age I was then. The decision my parents made to send me must have been a very brave and difficult one, because they knew they could not come with me. Nor did they know whether they would ever be able to join me".

"My transport left Prague on 29 June 1939 with about 241 children aged 2-15. I find it difficult to remember how I felt on that day when my parents took me to the railway station, and I became one of the children on one of the last trains to safety before the war started. Perhaps it seemed an adventure, and I certainly did not realize that I would never see my parents again…"

Susan concludes her account thus: "My own beliefs remain intact. My Jewishness is a positive part of myself, although I am not observant. I am on the left of politics, and like to think of myself as tolerant and anti-racist. My hope is that by telling my story, it will help young people to begin to understand what can happen to ordinary people when they become the victims of racism, discrimination and prejudice".

(extracts from Susanne Pearson’s account in Survival: Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Story, published by The Quill Press, in association with The Aegis Trust.
http://www.swallowcliffehall.com/pearson.html

I've been struck by the fact that not only do these one time child refugees pay tribute to those who helped them, but often they, and their children in turn, rather than dwell exclusively on their own experiences, as well they might, show ready sympathy, understanding, and support for today's refugees and victims of oppressive regimes. I might return to that.

Meantime, from those of us who have been fortunate enough not to go through such experiences, and are sometimes inclined to sneer at organisations like the Woodcraft Folk as twee, or neglect the importance of practical help to people in deperate need, let's hear it for the aptly-named Henry Fair, for Sir Nicholas Winton, and the Woodcraft Folk! Without them some of our friends would not be here.


For a Kindertransport memory on Czech radio:
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/66834

Also, Nicholas Winton
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/96301


Susan(na) Pearson and Somali refugee on community TV
http://www.communitychannel.org/index.php?option=com_rnvideoarchive&task=view&vidclip=395&Itemid=139


after not making a fuss of their part in helping the child refugees, Woodcraft Folk is making it part of their educational work on refuge problems then and now:
http://www.woodcraft.org.uk/archive/pdf/time_capsule_1.pdf

Quest for truth and justice for Jeremiah Duggan

THE family of student Jeremiah Duggan have come a step nearer winning a fresh inquest into his death after a hearing in the High Court yesterday. But while agreeing there were "sufficient unusual circumstances in this case" to warrant granting permission for further proceedings, the judge, Justice Wyn Williams, declined to give an opinion, and said he was "not going to tell the Attorney General what to do".

Jerry Duggan, a north Londoner who had been studying at the Sorbonne, was found lying on a motorway outside Wiesbaden in Germany in the early hours of March 27, 2003. He had gone there to attend what he thought was an anti-war conference, organised by Lyndon LaRouche's Schiller Institute.

After Wednesday's hearing, Jerry's mum, Mrs Erica Duggan said: "What kind of justice system puts a bereaved mother in the situation of having to fight through the courts for what is my right to find out why my son died?"

German police had said Jerry Duggan had run into the path of two oncoming cars. A German coroner recorded a verdict of suicide. But no explanation was given as to why the previously happy and successful student should have decided to take his own life, or how he came to be where his body was found, some miles from where he was staying. After hearing about two phone calls Jerry made, to his mother and to his girlfriend Maya, a British coroners report said Mr Duggan was in "a state of terror" when he died. .

But in a letter on February t6 this year, the Attorney General concluded there was no prospect to order another inquest. At Wednesday's hearing, Dinah Rose, QC, counsel for the Duggan family said there were precedents for a fresh inquest to be ordered if new evidence came to light. Evidence uncovered by Erica Duggan's own inquiries might lead to the conclusion that her son's death was neither suicide nor a road traffic accident.

No witness statements had been produced, not even from the drivers of the two cars that were supposed to have hit Jerry Duggan. He was supposedly hit by a Peugeot, then run over by a VW Golf. The vehicles had been moved when police arrived on the scene. Neither vehicle appeared to have any biological traces such as skin or blood. We were not told how or why this young man apparently ran for some miles, with a full bladder (as was ascertained) before hurtling himself into the path of the cars.

The pathologist who examined Jerry Duggan's body found no evidence such as glass fragments or tire marks, such as would be expected if the young man had been hit by one vehicle and run over by another. The victim had swallowed and inhaled blood - indicating that he died after repeated blows to the head, rather than being fatally struck once by a vehicle going over it. There was bruising on the arms and hands, such as would be suffered by someone trying to defend themselves.

"Your son was severely beaten around the head," the pathologist, Dr.Schon told Erica Duggan when she went to see him. For some reason this pathologist had not been called to give evidence at the inquest, and yet the Attorney General in seeing no reason for a further inquest had not addressed this aspect.

Experts who viewed police photographs of the vehicles had said damage to the Peugeot windscreen and door was not consistent with the impact of a human body but looked more like it could have been done with a crowbar or a baseball bat. There had been broken glass on the driver's seat. But where was the driver?

In contrast to the doubtful evidence of a collision, counsel noted that wet sandy substance had been found on Jerry Duggan's trainers and jeans, and on the vehicles, but not on the road where the accident had supposedly occurred. This indicated that they could have been somewhere else.

Arguing that the Duggans were trying to reopen the case in order to point the accusation at the LaRouchites, Cecilia Ivimy, appearing for the Attorney General, said if their evidence was accepted it would lead to "incredible" conclusions. "Police and doctors attended very promptly," she said. "The police and doctors and an independent investigator found nothing odd about the scene to suggest to them this was not a traffic accident, as it appeared."

The Attorney General's representative said there was no evidence of a crowbar, or of the cars and Jeremiah Duggan having been in a builders' yard, as suggested. The police had interviewed the drivers, and there had been no evidence that the drivers had any reason to lie, or any connection with the LaRouche organisation.

Watching Mrs.Duggan listen to the grisly evidence about her son's death, as I guess she has now had to do several times, and sit patiently through the courtroom niceties and bonhomie - though she did pass detailed notes to her counsel as Ms.Ivimy was speaking - I could only admire her fortitude. Having to track down witnesses and evidence, and consult experts, when neither the German police nor British authorities seem interested, must be exhausting, but each rebuff seems to have strengthened her resolve.

I hope she perseveres, however many legal hoops she has to go through. She has many supporters - family, Jeremiah's student friends, people who have followed the case, and those who know something about American-born cult leader Lyndon LaRouche. Hopefully they will help uncover the truth. Whatever is behind the reluctance of the authorities to look further into this, it is a matter of shame.

for background and campaign news:
http://www.justiceforjeremiah.com/


Meanwhile - Tiger in a Trap? Sri Lankan in Catch 22

WHILE I was waiting for the Duggan hearing, I caught a glimpse of another little aspect of our justice system at work. The case concerned a man from Sri Lanka who was appealing against being sent back to that island.

I heard a counsel arguing that the man had only been involved at a low level with the guerrilla movement
known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam(LTTE). He had not been a guerrilla fighter, in fact he had refused to fight for them, but had dug bunkers, and provided food when they asked for it. The Sri Lankan authorities had no record of his detention, although he got out with a bribe, and had been able to leave from the airport with the help of an agent.

At first I thought this counsel must be speaking on the Tamil man's behalf, saying he was not such a bad fellow. But then the Tamil's counsel got up to argue that his client had been arrested in 1997, his fingerprints.had been taken, and there were documents on his detention. Then I realised that it had been the government's lawyer who was arguing that the man was not important enough to face any dangers if he was sent back to Sri Lanka, though he had a family member who was in the LTTE. The Tamil was apparently arrested for something else in
Britain, and served a sentence, but has since been held in an immigration detention centre and will have been there three years come January.

It struck me that if the man wanted to prove he faced danger of ill-treatment in Sri Lanka, he might have to convince the authorities here that he was really a big cheese in the LTTE, a serious combatant upon whom the
Sri Lankan authorities were determined to lay hands. Only trouble is, the LTTE is on the British Home Office's list of proscribed "terrorist" organisations, and so claiming to be a Tamil Tiger would not be such a good idea. How do you get out of that one?

Visions of Freedom

BEHNAM ASKARI is an impressive young artist, a pleasant and polite young fellow, whose talents and imagination won him a place at St.Martin's school of art in London and whose bright and colourful work has already been exhibited and praised.

Ah, the carefree life of an artist...Well not quite.

Behnam came to this country from Iran with his parents at 15, when his dad got a post in London. It was when his Dad returned to Iran for a visit that the trouble began.

The Iranian authorities had arrested two
students over an illegal political leaflet, and found they had been staying at the Askari family's flat in Tehran. Mr.Askari was arrested and interrogated. When he managed to get a message to his wife in London it was to warn her and his two sons not to return to Iran.

Behnam and his mother have been told they could be arrested, flogged and imprisoned if they do return.

But the Home Office in Britain does not apparently see this threat as anything to worry about. Since the Askari family were not seeking asylum or refuge when they came here, it is unwilling to grant them the right to stay here now.

Friends, including a former teacher of Behnam's , have rallied to oppose the
threatened deportation into the hands of their persecutors.

This week an exhibition of Behnam's work opened at the Watermans Arts centre in Brentford, west London. It is on till June 29. It is a chance to see some fine art and support this family's right to remain in freedom. Visions of Freedom is the title of Behnam's exhibition.

Buses 237 or 267 from Gunnersbury or 65 from Ealing (or Kingston) run by Watermans Art Centre.

http://www.watermans.org.uk/exhibitions/visions_of_freedom/

Galloway disgraces anti-war platform

YOU don't often hear speakers at major public rallies stung into trading insults or accusations with hecklers. Club comedians yes, some find a bit of badinage with an audience drunk helps fill the time and inspires witty one-line put-downs that win the audience. Then there's the kind of Hyde Park orator (though it's many years since I squandered a Sunday afternoon listening to them) who counts on a heckler (genuine antagonist or stooge?) to attract a crowd looking for entertainment.

It's a bit different in Trafalgar Square, when the platform speaker, one of a line-up, wants to make best use of their time, to inspire the crowd and get their message across, with the help of a powerful sound system.

So I was surprised to hear Respect MP George Galloway, at Saturday's World Against War demonstration, turn from denouncing Gordon Brown's government, its subservience to Washington, squandering of young soldiers and introduction of military propaganda in schools, to attack some people at the front of the rally, accusing them of being "useful idiots", and the "pink contingent" of the khaki war machine.

Galloway is an experienced and capable speaker. He had a good PA system. Where I was standing I could hear every word he said, whereas I could neither see nor hear anyone who might have been heckling him. Other people have said the same. So if anyone there was trying to create a diversion, it was Galloway, alone among the speakers, who allowed himself to be diverted, perhaps because he wanted to be.

But worse than any tactical error was what Galloway actually said. Declaring that "The khaki war machine now has a pink contingent", he went on to declare that if the bombs fell on Iran they would not discriminate, killing gays and straight alike. Very true. And of course his admirers dutifully applauded. To round off, calling for action if Iran was attacked he warned that although the anti-war movement has been peaceful so far it might not remain so.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-FBVj1U4Y8A

Being unable either to see or hear what was going on at the front, one could only assume from what Galloway said that the people annoying him were gay campaigners and others rightly concerned at repression in Iran. But what right had Galloway to pretend that these people must favour imperialist war, let alone to smear them as part of the imperialist war machine?

There has been some online discussion about this episode, from quite different viewpoints, in two groups to which I have the honour to belong, Iraq Occupation Focus, where someone complained about heckling of Galloway, and Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI), where people were incensed by Galloway's remarks. To complicate matters, if there was any heckling it is not clear who it was from. Peter Tatchell says neither he nor anyone else from his gay rights group Outrage heckled at the rally. I may add that Peter is also a member of HOPI, and as such, firmly opposed to war on Iran. Likewise the Iranian comrades who were there, who have been with the anti-war movement from the start, and continue their anti-war campaigning even though the Stop the War leadership has tried to stifle their voice and excluded HOPI from affiliating.

Attention has been focused on the Iranian regime's treatment of homosexuality -which according to President Ahmadinejad at the UN does not exist in his country - by the case of Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year old gay Iranian national whom the British government intended to deport because his student visa had expired. Mehdi had appealed for sanctuary after hearing that his former boyfriend in Iran, Parham, had been tortured until he gave his lover's name, and then executed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gay-teenager-faces-return-to-iran-after-dutch-ruling-794463.html

Under the Dublin Treaty, the young Iranian cannot apply to another EU country for asylum.
He tried fleeing to the Netherlands, and thought he might head for Canada. But the Dutch government - notwithstanding Holland's reputation for enlightened attitudes on sexuality, and claims to oppose Islamicist pressures - detained the desperate young man and said it would send him back to Britain. Here, following representations by Green MEP Jean Lambert and some Labour and Liberal MPs, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has agreed to review the case. But Mehdi could still face deportation to Iran, and a possible death penalty.

Another case has come up, of a lesbian woman, Pegah Emambakhsh, 40, also threatened with deportation back to Iran.

We might have expected George Galloway MP to champion such cases, both to show his commitment to human rights and to expose the hypocrisy of the British and other Western governments which affect concern over the regime in Iran but don't show any willingness to shelter its victims. It would not be too difficult either, to point out the British and US government's complicity with a far worse repressive regime in Saudi Arabia, which they are competing to arm; nor for that matter to point to the way women and gays are suffering in Iraq since their country was "liberated". But then the stooge Iraqi government installed since the occupation is, as we have seen, supported by Ahmadinejad. And Galloway, the one-time hand shaker with Saddam Hussein has now apparently thrown in his lot with Ahmadinejad.

At any rate, the Respect MP has defended the Iranian regime and claimed on Channel 5 television's Steve Wright show that Mehdi's friend Parham was not executed for homosexuality alone but for "sex crimes". He has been challenged to give his sources for that. http://gayswithoutborders.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/uk-george-galloways-iranian-anti-gay-propaganda-mehdi-kazemis-boyfriend-defamed/


The MP, who finds time for so many things, is joining Respect stablemate Yvonne Ridley on the Iranian government-funded Press TV, though we should note that the Evening Standard's Andrew Gilligan and Michael Dobbs also have their niches there.

To be fair, Galloway did say he was against the young Iranian being deported, and that he did not support the death penalty. But he did so in reply to questions, and after beginning by saying the issue was being taken up to reinforce anti-Iranian propaganda. It was also on TV, before he could claim to be provoked by any hecklers, that he introduced his remark about "giving the khaki war machine a tinge of pink". He must have been so pleased with it that he saw the Trafalgar Square diversion as a chance to more or less repeat it.

It is true that some of the people now keen to seize on this issue have had a longstanding urge to get Galloway. But these are not coming from the gay rights movement nor are they the Iranian and other campaigners in HOPI. Nor is there the slightest justification for Galloway's smear that people are pro-war or in league with the government.
What Galloway adds to the prejudices of his Islamicist allies is the method of the Stalinists, and for that matter their McCarthyite counterparts, whereby criticism of a regime is equated with war conspiracy, and political opponents are branded as "agents".

It will be interesting to see what some of his supporters have to say, not least former members of the International Marxist Group, once to the fore in proclaiming gay liberation, and now ensconced in Galloway's Respect Renewal, where they remained loyal after he ditched his Socialist Workers Party allies. But more important, the Stop the War Coalition must either dissociate itself from Galloway's attack or risk becoming increasingly discredited with him.
If we want to oppose war on Iran, we need an anti-war movement that is not afraid of the truth, as the British government is, and can call on the wider public to act because it is respected and trusted.

* SUPPORTERS of Mehdi Kazemi, though pleased with the Home Office review, want to make sure he and others are allowed to stay. They are going ahead with a demonstration this weekend in London. It is from 2pm -3pm, in Whitehall opposite Downing Street.

* Hands off the People of Iran (HOPI) website:
http://www.hopoi.org/

Escape from Campsfield, but no escape from Capitalism

OUTSIDE Campsfield, bold message. Now protests are inside.

FOLLOWING protests over conditions at the privately-run Campsfield detention centre near Oxford, and a kitchen fire at the weekend, police with helicopters and dogs were hunting down about 26 escaped detainees and by last night had caught twelve of them.

Most of the inmates at Campsfield have committed no crime except to be here but it is being reported that the escapers included previous convicts who had been placed in the camp pending deportation. Last night we saw on TV a proud Middle Englander boasting how he caught one poor escapee pleading for shelter, and when the man then tried to flee over the garden fence pulled him back and detained him for the police. (But there are some people who are not only sympathetic to the plight of the detainees but inclined to help - see e.g. http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk/
(NB some information in the above paragraphs has been corrected in the light of better information).

The Campsfield camp is now run by an American-owned company called GEO, which presumably makes a good profit employing low-paid staff to supervise people held in poor conditions and fed cheap food. The great British public seldom hears about the existence of such places unless there is a major riot, or escape, and then not for long. So we are meant to go on believing that Britain is over-run with foreigners pouring in freely to both take our jobs and live off generous benefits, as well as taking our homes. We used to be told about "bogus asylum seekers", then the press dropped the pretence that it welcomed "genuine" cases and "asylum seeker" itself became a term of abuse. What used to be the speciality of papers like the Sun has now been taken up by the BBC, whose objectivity is on a par with the fairness of its prize competitions (currently suspended) .

After all, just because British business makes money exporting weapons to brutal dictatorships, encouraging wars, and collecting debt interest from the impoverished nations, is no reason why Britain should take responsibility for sheltering those victims who make it over here.

Nor are we anti-foreigner. Few question the right of foreign companies like GEO or Sodexho to come in and make money from running parts of the system, any more than we blame the Ford Motor Company say for taking away people's jobs. We don't even mind letting migrants build this country or staff its health services, so long as they don't expect homes or treatment. And though we keep reminding ourselves that this is "only a little island", anyone with enough money is welcome to come over and buy as many homes or anything else they like.

So, bearing in mind that "An Englishman's Home is His Castle", what else is happening in this green unpleasant land? Here's one story that illustrates the kind of problem we needn't think about since it's difficult to find a hapless poor or immigrant scapegoat to blame:

Fears of mortgage debt crisis as UK repossessions hit eight-year high
·Saturday August 4, 2007
Guardian

The prospect of a mortgage debt crisis loomed yesterday after the number of home repossessions in the UK soared by 30% to an eight-year high as households struggled to keep up with mortgage payments in the face of higher interest rates.

With the Bank of England expected to increase borrowing costs again before the end of the year, analysts warned that repossessions could surge even further.

The first half of this year saw 14,000 properties repossessed, a 30% rise on a year ago, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said. This is the highest level since 1999 and equivalent to about 77 homes a day.

The unexpected jump was blamed on an increase in lending to borrowers with a poor credit history in the so-called "sub-prime" mortgage sector.
Interest rates, which have risen five times in under a year to 5.75%, were also a big driving force in rising debt and missed mortgage payments.
Economists cautioned that the impact of the recent rate increases was yet to be felt and homeowners would not be able to rely on rapid rises in the value of their homes as the housing market cools.

"With the housing market slowing into 2008 and interest rates expected to hit 6%, homeowners slipping behind with their repayments may be left stranded, unable to sell their way out of trouble," said David Stubbs at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Nearly 2 million homeowners will be coming out of fixed-rate mortgage deals in the next 18 months and find themselves having to renegotiate terms with interest rates 1.25 percentage points higher.
The CML said that 125,100 homeowners had mortgage arrears of three months or more, 4% higher than the six months to the end of December, but 3% lower than for the first half of 2006.
The housing charity Shelter criticised irresponsible lending to people who could not afford the repayments.

... experts warned that the fall in insolvencies did not signal the end of a tidal wave of debt that has built up since the turn of the millennium. Insolvencies are still fairly high at about 300 a day.

"Gordon Brown's 10 years as chancellor have left Britain with record personal debt, rising taxes and falling take-home pay," said the Conservative shadow treasury secretary, Philip Hammond. "No wonder he couldn't wait to get out of No 11."
For full report see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2141337,00.html

Ignoring the fact that similar news of debt and repossessions came in the past year from Ireland and the United States (and most media did ignore it), we can smile at the Tories' trying to rely on short memories. Last time I remember record numbers of people losing their homes to debt was in the days when Mrs.T was at No.10.

At least it fulfilled her Churchillian dream.
Never had so many owed so much to so few, as the old man said.
It might not have been what he had in mind. But now its coming true again.

Just to add to the picture:
Average English house price will top £300,000 in five years, says study
· More parents will have to pay children's mortgages· 40% rise to bring more grief for first-time buyers

Monday August 6, 2007
Guardian

The average house price in England will rise by 40% in five years to break the £300,000 barrier, according to research published today by the National Housing Federation.
It said the boom might provide short-term reassurance for homeowners, who would profit from the increase, but warned that the rise "carried a sting in its tail" as a growing number of parents would face paying their children's mortgages. The federation, which represents 1,300 housing associations, also said that a generation of first-time buyers would have their aspirations dashed or be able to buy a home only at "enormous personal and financial cost".
Home Truths, which was researched by Oxford Economics, described the current housing market as "distorted and dysfunctional" with the average house price nearly 11 times the average salary and more than 4 million people on waiting lists for social housing.

The independently owned group, which provides quantitative analysis and public policy advice, argues in the report that the increase in buy-to-let and second homes is "undoubtedly contributing to the overvaluation of housing".
In response to the housing crisis, the government published a green paper last month in which it announced plans to build 3m homes by 2020, with up to 70,000 new units a year being social homes for key workers and low-income families. David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: "Our report shows that continuing house price rises and the resulting housing crisis are set to stay with us for a long time. While Gordon Brown's pronouncements on house building indicate a step in the right direction, it is imperative that ministers turn their words into deeds and deliver on their promises.

Regions hit hard by rocketing projections are the south-east, where the average house price will be £392,900 compared with £247,762 now, and the east, where the average house price will be £340,200 compared with £211,880 now.
The report says there are only seven areas in England where the cheapest homes cost less than four times average local earnings - Barrow, Burnley, Hartlepool, Hull, Pendle, Stoke-on-Trent and Wansbeck. The report's forecasts show that in London, the average house price will be £478,300 against £318,864 now.

Mr Orr said that City bonuses and foreign investment meant that swaths of the capital's housing market were becoming decoupled from the rest of the country. "Bonuses in the first quarter of 2007 were up nearly 24% on a year earlier and have increased nearly threefold since 2003. Some are being used to buy luxury homes or to invest in property."

Some foreign investors buy property, mainly in London, for letting purposes rather than as a main residence. According to London Development Research, two-thirds of all new homes built in the capital are being bought by investors. Mr Orr said London was particularly attractive to buyers from France, Italy, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Wealthy investors were driving price inflation for million-pound houses to more than 30% and the highest rate in nearly 30 years. "Ministers must ensure there is strong investment in social housing for people on lower incomes in the London region. Up to 700,000 people in the capital are on waiting lists for social housing."

See for full story: http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,2142387,00.html

I like the idea of parents paying their youngster's mortgages. With students falling into debt before they leave college, then told to start saving for pensions the moment they start work, it is another burden in between. But who will pay the mortgages for the next lot of sprogs?

I suppose we can blame one type of foreigner for some of this - the wealthy Saudis and Russians etc. coming here to invest their ill-gotten gains. But nobody does. And it won't get us very far.

Again, there's the irony of those City fat cats who are rewarded by their companies that have done so well out of the dire situation they have created, and with their big bonuses are able to make the situation worse. But steady on. Next thing you know we'll be saying it's capitalism that is to blame. And I don't want people calling me an ultra-Left.

Persecuted in Pakistan, denied refuge in Britain

The plight of an Asian Christian family

BRITISH government ministers and media persons condemning "Islamic fundamentalism" and seclusion behind the veil say they are concerned for tolerance and freedom. They only want immigrants and minorities to integrate with "our society", and "our values", so we are assured. And even the most strident voices against Muslim attitudes and behaviour will tell us their views have nothing to do with racialism.

So the Karim family should expect a welcome, and not experience any problems being accepted in this country ...

Nigel and Pearl Karim came to Britain with their children Calvin, now 11, and Crystal, 13, because as practising Christians in Pakistan they faced persecution by Muslim bigots. The family have been living in Nelson, Lancashire since 2002, and are parishioners of the Holy Saviour Roman Catholic Church there. But neither their claim to refugee status nor being respectable working people integrated into the local community is good enough for the Home Office. The Karims are threatened with deportation to Pakistan. In May this year immigration officials took them to Yarleswood detention centre in Bedfordshire. On that occasion it emerged important paperwork intended for the Home Office had been lost.

Then a week ago a letter from the Home Office arrived and the Karims were told by their solicitor their case had been rejected and they had no right of appeal. Devastated by this decision, the family asked why their evidence of being persecuted in Pakistan seemed to have been ignored. They were incensed to discover that the Home Office did not accept their evidence was genuine.

The official letter said: "We are aware that there is a high level of corruption in Pakistan and it is possible to obtain many types of fraudulent documents or documents that are fraudulently authenticated by a bona fide stamp of authority." Another excerpt said it would not be difficult to have newspaper articles published depicting certain situations or a prosecution. It ended by inviting the family to apply to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for money to help fund their relocation to Pakistan.

Pearl said: "I ask why me? Why is this family being singled out? They are just kicking us about like a football and the Home Office want us to get out by hook or by crook."I say make use of me, let me work, don't offer me money. They give money to every Tom, Dick and Harry using and abusing the system, but I want to work." Nigel agreed, he said: "The IOM sends people home voluntarily if they want to go and people can apply for £3,000 a head to help them move. That could mean £12,000 for this family.

"But I came here for the safety of my family. If they gave me £10,000 per person to go back I wouldn't do it. We are not here for economic reasons. What if we were to go back and something happened to my family?"

Despite the fact the family have been in the country for four years the letter also told the Karims that meeting friends and undertaking voluntary work wasn't advisable as they may be forced to leave the country at short notice."My children have to go to school," said Pearl. "But they don't sit in one corner and say 'don't come near us, we are asylum seekers'."The children were very little when they came. They have had their eyes opened and started to learn about life in this country."What these people don't realise is that we do not have a home. We are Christians and in Pakistan that means we are second class Asians, no matter how qualified we are."
http://www.pendletoday.co.uk/

Note that the Home Office does not say the family's evidence has been faked, but simply asserts that it could be, because of the "high level of corruption in Pakistan". This reminds me of a story I heard once about a police constable many years ago saying that he knew the accused was lying and guilty, because of the man's religious background, that they all lied. Only in that story the judge immediately threw the case out. Whereas, it seems when you are up against immigration you are guilty until you can prove innocence - and that's not that easy (except if you are white).

After news on the Karim family was posted in the Labour Left Briefing discussion list, a former Home Office(HO) immigration officer who knows how the department operates was moved to comment:-
"HO has sophisticated forgery detection teams/eqipment, it's probably more that they believe anyone could say they were a member of the Christian church there and easily produce documents so this doesn't necessarily prove that they are being persecuted but of course this kind of generalisation which was used all the time when I was at Heathrow dosen't prove that they weren't either, it sounds like they are one of a block of refusals such as we had to do for Nigerians who said they were in the Campign for Democracy, and usually just had a simple card or letter to state this. But of couse HO know full well that not all asylum seekers will have documentary evidence just as they know that it is impossible to get out of some countries and travel to the West without using forged docs along the way so when I was there (under Howard and Widdecombe ironically) this was accepted but nowthey are using any forged or counterfeit docs as an excuse to remove(deport) people which is morally wrong if they had no other way out. It sounds to me as if this family were meant to be rounded up and detained as one of Blair's latest boasts of high removal figures ...."

Our informant believes things have got worse under Labour, and that because it is not always easy to deport people to some countries, unscrupulous officials may be having to bend their own rules to meet impossible targets.

"To return to the Karims as they (shockingly) have no right of appeal these days their only option is John Reid ..."

Referring to the family's circumstances and entitlement to compassionate treatment, particularly in the current state of affairs, the writer adds: "Don't be fobbed off by a stock refusal letter with a generalised summary of the supposed conditions in Pakistan and assesment of religious persecution there as these are very often economical with the truth or at least over-generalised in nature, I know as I used to serve them. Most of them are the same for applicants from the relevant country, yet the applicants circs may be different, sometimes they put in some justifications pertinent in their opinion to the particular case and I often had to deal with some extremely upset people who said what they's written was wrong, unjust etc or who didn't agree but were sadly subdued into silence.

"I would try to cheer them up a little by making sure they had the papers for an appeal and wereaware of their appeal rights (even if I didn't think they had a hope in hell according to the decisions HO were making for those of their circs/nationality at the time) but I'm afraid some of my less scrupulous and probably more right wing colleagues didn't always do this which is partly why I used to volunteer to do FR interviews and serve these papers myself...

"The HO in my day was very canny as on the training course they warned us not to be swayed by the fact that people may have put down roots here e.g. had children and they know that applicants will use the media etc to get attention and that previous staff like me will sometimes lobby them on applicants' behalf and of course they receive representations from MPs I have now done this myself while working for an MP.

The former immigration officer describes how often even torture victims have found it difficult to get their cases heard and considered properly under changing Home Office rules which on the basis of a few frivolous cases punish the great majority of genuine ones. She also notes that incomers from Australia or white South Africans find it much easier to get permission to stay and work here than applicants from other countries, and that restrictions are being relaxed for some immigrants, but says meantime we have to work within the unjust system as best we can. "Please ensure this family gets a fair hearing".

The Karim family have seen their MP Gordon Prentice, and he wrote to Home Secretary John Reid asking him to excercise his discretion and let them stay.
"This is a last resort for the family as all appeals have been exhausted and there is no further appeal that can be legally made," he said."I have known the Karims for some years now and they have been battling moves to deport them and I have supported them," said Mr Prentice."They are well integrated, they have children here and they are a part and parcel of the local community. The school has spoken vociferously on their behalf and petitions have been given to me and passed on. The Catholic Church and clerics have been to see me and there is just a huge amount of goodwill there for them and I recognise that."I am going to do my best for my constituents so we shall wait and see what happens. I have asked the speaker for a debate in the Commons and if I do get a debate then I will speak about the plight of Christians in Pakistan."

In light of this most recent development a major effort has been launched by friends and supporters of the Karims. Mr Brendan Conboy, Calvin and Crystal's headteacher at Fisher-More RC High School, said the school and church community was desperate to help the family in any way possible.Many people have written to the Home Secretary as well as Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England.Holy Saviour Church, Nelson, has also set up a prayer appeal on its website to raise awareness of the family's situation.The family has urged anyone willing to help to visit the website and write to the Home Office. Pearl said: "I think the more people that get involved the faster the message will get across to the relevant people. That is what we want, more people to to know about our situation and what the Home Office is trying to do to us."
(from Nelson Today)

For more information people should visit www.holysaviour.org.

http://www.pendletoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=8&ArticleID=1844520__._,_.___

Dirty Work by the Irwell?

Salford University
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk

from video, Rhetta Moran on Asylum, by Chris Edwards,
http://www.filmmakersagainstwar.org/index2.htm

SALFORD, the city where I grew up, inspired Ewan McColl's song Dirty Old Town. A city of factories, mills, docks and a mine. They've cleaned it up a bit now, the colliery shut 15 years ago, and the docks are empty but have a marina. Reflecting the social changes there's a new young offenders' institution and prison, HMP Forest Bank, where Agecroft power station used to be.

Salford Tech, as once was, is a University now by the banks of the Irwell. Is someone there doing dirty work for the government?

Dr Rhetta Moran is an internationally recognised researcher on refugee issues, and a member of the National Union of Journalists. In 2002 she took up the case of Abdullah Rahmatullah, an Afghan refugee from the Taliban who had become a leader in his community. Rahmatullah was ‘arrested’ without warning when he reported to a Salford asylum seekers’ centre, and held at Manchester airport before being sent to the Harmonsworth Detention Centre near Heathrow

From there he was deported to Austria, on the grounds that he had stopped a few hours there on his way to Britain. Dr.Moran discovered he was being held at a remote camp near Austria's mountain border with Italy. This is how the British and other western governments are "batting for freedom", as Mrs.T used to put it when talking about Afghanistan.

Since Spring 2004, Rhetta has been battling to defend herself and her research against her employer, the University of Salford. Her colleagues, students, union and supporters believe she was targeted for the sack because she exposed how UK government policy was making people destitute.

Her research led to a Guardian article exposing how the British government was rejecting asylum claims from Iraqi men, telling them to leave this country and return to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, at the same time as Britain was finalising plans to bomb their country.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4629565-103550,00.html

A year later, on Sunday March 28, 2004, the Observer carried an article on how young asylum-seeking women were having to go underground, living in permanent fear in Salford. It drew on work and contacts provided by Rhetta Moran.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4889962-102285,00.html
Soon after this Rhetta was removed from her leadership of the £600,000 Salford RAPAR SRB5 research project about asylum issues. RAPAR, Refugee and Asylum Seeker Participation and Research, although in the "voluntary sector", is funded by government. Rhetta's union colleagues believe her work on the plight of asylum seekers in the north of England proved uncomfortable for the political establishment (Observer, 12 February 2006).

Within a month, the University of Salford wrote to Dr.Moran telling her that her research was not "compatible" and that her contract would not be renewed. An employment tribunal panel that is hearing her case has sat for 23 days so far. The university is insisting that Rhetta was dismissed because she was 'redundant'. But issues exposed in the courtroom so far include:·

• Rhetta's professorial line manager says she is one of the best researchers he has ever worked with
• · Within two weeks of sacking her, university bosses handed a £192,316 research grant from the European Social Fund which Rhetta had secured to a male researcher in the university and, when he could not deliver it because he did not have her networks and expertise, they sent the money back to Europe
• Many of Rhetta's postgraduate students were left without any supervision for at least one year.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, urging supporters to attend the ongoing hearings which re-open this week, says "This case is about academic freedom and human rights: "the rights of researchers to do their research and to communicate their findings about human rights abuses without interference and the responsibilities of universities and governments to protect these rights".

You can send email messages of support for Rhetta's continuing struggle to manchesternuj@nuj.org.uk with copies to rhetta.moran@ntlworld.com

Incidentally, supporters of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions point to their involvment with the state and occupation. Opponents protest that the boycott infringes upon "academic freedom". Perhaps both sides can unite in condemning what appears to be happening in Salford?

My own trades union council, like many others, does not meet in August, but our Secretary has been in touch proposing that we send a message of support to Rhetta Moran. I'm sure there will be lots more.

The other side of the immigrant convicts story

THE THICK YELLOW LINE.
HARMONDSWORTH detention centre
and adjoining Colnbrook removal centre, April 8. Demonstrators were outnumbered by police.
Inside, detainees, were ordered away from windows and locked in cells.
These prisoners have been convicted of no crime. Some managed to speak to people outside by mobile phone. See story below of what happened to Haslar detainee who spoke to press.


BRITISH media are full of stories about foreigners who having been jailed for criminal offences in this country were later released to disappear into the community and, in some cases, commit further offences, when they should have been deported. The Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, is being told he should resign over this discovery.

Naturally it's the big issue for those tabloid newspapers which encourage their readers to regard every incomer, especially dark-skinned, as a menace, and treat "asylum seekers" as a criminal category. Naturally we can expect the British National Party to take advantage of the mood in campaigning for tomorrow's council elections. Even if some of its leading activists have more than average inside knowledge of criminal proceedings.

Its organiser Tony Lecomber has convictions for an attempted bombing and for an assault on a teacher. Its leader Nick Griffin, who only this year got off on inciting hatred charges, was an associate of one Roberto Fiore, whom successive Home Secretaries failed to extradite to Italy when he was wanted on terrorism charges. But apart from specialist publications like the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine there was a strange hush about the Fiore case.

I've no brief for Clarke, nor for the rest of this Blairite government, but some questions occur to me about this foreign criminals row. One, is whether foreign criminals who have served their sentences are any more dangerous or likely to re-offend than the native British variety. If not, why the selective hysteria? Another is whether Clarke was really the only person, or even the first, to know that something was going wrong with the deportation policy?

Home Secretaries, like other ministers, come and go, as indeed do governments. But the senior police officers and the civil servants, the "Sir Humphreys" of "Yes, Minister" go on, collect their gongs, and perhaps start second careers, and dare we ask how much they knew and how much they chose to tell the passing suits in office? Or perhaps they tick the box marked "no publicity"?

There is another side to this immigrant and deportation row, and one the papers and TV barely talk about, expecially not now, and it is the ease with which the authorities here can lock up and deport people who are not criminals. "If you want to be let into Britain, you are best off being a criminal!", was a wry joke I heard from some Kashmiri friends some years back, and that was when the Tories were in office. I heard more or less the same from Bangladeshis concerned about former Pakistan collaborators, alleged war criminals, whom Britain admitted to take religious teaching posts.

On the other side of the story, you have detention centres for people who have committed no crime, beyond being here, and a full-size prison at Harmondsworth next to Heathrow for people being deported. It's good business for the private security firms running the centres, but except when there's a major riot the good British public can doze over its tabloids and pretend such places don't exist. "We never deport anybody", said an elderly neighbour when we were discussing asylum and immigration some while back.

Obviously he hadn't heard about Syed Nasir being dragged handcuffed on to a plane at Heathrow. The Pakistani journalist had fled home after his life was threatened because he exposed the use of some religious madrassahs as recruiting centres for terrorism. (When British newspapers decided to run this story after the London bombings they did not acknowledge the man who had risked his life exposing it two years previously). When the British government decided to deport him he was seeking work here, while living with a relative in Kilburn - not far from one of the "charity shops" run by the Italian fascist Roberto Fiore, who never had to fear deportation.

I heard someone on the radio yesterday talking about the government's reluctance to deport "terror suspects" to countries with poor human rights records. How very fastidious. A friend had just contacted me about two brothers at the school where she teaches. Both learned English well, and became popular with teachers and fellow-pupils alike. One of them has been offered a place at St.Martin's art and design college, his younger brother wants to study medicine. But last year their father, who had been working here with a shipping company was detained when he returned to visit Iran. Two lads whom the family knew were arrested there for distributing leaflets against the Islamic regime. Now the two schoolboy brothers in London and their mother face deportation to Iran. They have been warned they could face floggings and imprisonment there for alleged political offences, or associations.

The Home Office seems to have ignored letters and protests. Now if only this family had been criminals or terrorists! Is this what Labour meant when it promised us "joined-up government"? The details of the family can't be given now, as lawyers advise this would affect the legal case. But when the case becomes public again will the national media give it much publicity?

And now here's a news story that has been published, in the Guardian, and gives an insight into this detention and deportation business:

Detainee 'beaten' after talking to press http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,1764967,00.html

Amos Onokare Alijaibo, an immigration detainee at Haslar Detention Centre, Portsmouth, has claimed that he was severely assaulted by staff after he spoke to the Guardian about conditions at the centre. Detainee 'beaten' after talking to press.
Eric Allison, prisons correspondent Monday May 1, 2006

An immigration detainee claims that he was assaulted and severely injured by staff after he spoke to the Guardian about conditions at the detention centre. A doctor says that the man's injuries and condition are consistent with his allegations and says that he is alarmed at the lack of concern for his medical condition.

Amos Onokare Alijaibo, 39, spoke to the Guardian by telephone
from Haslar Detention Centre, Portsmouth, on April 16. He said that the following day he joined other detainees in a peaceful protest in the exercise area. When the protest finished he and other inmates were taken in handcuffs to the centre's reception area. Speaking yesterday, Mr Alijaibo claims one officer asked if he was "the Amos who had spoken to the newspaper". He replied that he was. He was then punched in the neck and head and pinned to the ground by
officers who twisted his arms and legs and grabbed his throat.

Mr Alijaibo says that he passed out and awoke on his way to Colnbrook removal centre, near Heathrow. He has been told that he will be deported to Nigeria on May 8, where he says his life will be in danger. Frank Arnold, from the Medical Justice Network, examined Mr Alijaibo on Thursday. He says that his injuries are "entirely consistent" with his claims of assault. He voiced concerns about the
management of his patient's condition, calling it, "deeply deplorable". In particular, he questions why no neurological examination is recorded in the medical notes following the inmate's loss of consciousness. "The combination of this man's history, my examination and the medical notes, written by Colnbrook
staff, show that there has been an alarming lack of concern for his medical condition," he said.

Emma Ginn, from the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation
Campaigns, said: "When the police and the home secretary take no action on the [assault] claims, it is no wonder that some guards believe they are empowered to assault detainees with impunity." A Home office spokesman confirmed that there was a demonstration at Haslar on April 17 and that control techniques were used on one individual. He said that no allegations of mistreatment were
received.