Abuse of refugees by Home office

[xmasdale]

Asylum system is criminal

Home Office ministers should be put on trial for allowing the abuse of refugees

By Peter Tatchell

The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 19 November 2007

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/11/asylum_syst em_is_criminal.html


Britain's asylum system is a regime that includes government-tolerated
criminality. Illegal acts and the abuse of asylum applicants are
allowed to happen and are not punished. Many of these violations of
the rule of law are perpetrated by the private companies that are
contracted by the Home Office to run asylum detention camps and the
deportation of would-be refugees.

This outsourcing of asylum abuses echoes the US policy of
extraordinary rendition and torture of terror suspects in third
countries. It does not, however, relieve the government of ultimate
responsibility for criminal acts committed by others on its behalf and
in pursuit of its objectives. The buck stops with the Home Office.

Home Office ministers and officials should be sacked. They should also
face criminal charges of failing in their duty of care.

The latest evidence against them comes in a shocking new report
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/aboutus/cacreport0607.pdf
by the government's own watchdog, the Border and Immigration Agency
Complaints Audit Committee.

The report is one of the most damning condemnations ever made
concerning the Home Office and its private agents. It reveals "glaring
failures" and widespread abuses of people facing deportation,
including allegations of racism, discrimination and physical assault
by contractors hired by the Home Office's Border and Immigration
Agency.

The Audit Committee said complaints about mistreatment by immigrants
and asylum applicants were often not followed up. It found that only
8% of complainants were interviewed and 89% of investigations were
"neither balanced nor thorough".

The committee revealed that 19% of misconduct complaints against
deportation agencies in 2006/07 concerned criminal behaviour – a rise
of 12% over 2005/06.

It condemned the denial of legal and human rights to deportees by the
private firms who act on behalf of the Home Office; detailing "glaring
errors" in dealing with complaints about the mistreatment of people
being deported from the UK.

The committee's report says investigations into misconduct complaints
have been "poor"; with 71% of complaints not being completed within
time targets. In 95% of cases, those investigating the complaints had
been from the companies under investigation. "Upwards of 20%" of
records sought by the committee were missing and 83% of replies
received were "indefensible".

The report says complaints of wrong-doing are of "grave concern to us
because of the risks of injury or death, wrongful arrest and civil
liability arising from the arrest, detention and removal of failed
asylum seekers".


In a case highlighted by the BBC in its report on the committee's
findings, asylum seeker, Apollo Okello,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7093726.stm
said he had been bundled onto a plane at Heathrow Airport and refused
permission to see his lawyer, despite the security guards knowing he
already had permission to stay in the UK. He says he was beaten up in
the back of a van: "That's where I was punched - my ribs, my eyes, my
neck, my back." One of the guards told him: "these black monkeys don't
want to go back to their country", claimed Mr Okello.

I can corroborate these abuses from my own recent work with asylum claimants.

Although they have committed no crimes, they are held in detention
centres, such as the notorious Campsfield House in Oxfordshire. They
are prisons in all but name. People mostly get put in detention if the
Home Office thinks their claims are unfounded and or if they come from
a white list country which is deemed to be safe. In other words, the
Home Office prejudges their application.

In detention centres, run by private contractors appointed by the Home
Office, asylum claimants are at the whim and mercy of the guards. Many
guards are caring, fair and commendable. But in cases bought to my
attention, some guards are bigoted and brutal.

Violent assaults do sometimes take place. They happen mostly in the
'blind' areas, where there are no CCTV cameras. They also occur in the
internal prisons within the detention centres - the high security
segregation units - where 'trouble-makers' who try to assert their
legal rights are sometimes punished.

As well as racist, misogynistic, anti-Muslim and homophobic insults,
abuses include unjustified strip-searches and internal genital
examinations. There are no checks and balances to protect against
these violations. The systems of redress are woefully inadequate.
Detainees are virtually powerless.

A Ugandan torture and rape victim I am supporting, KM, was held in
detention for six months, without receiving any medical treatment or
psychological counselling. He says requests for treatment are
frequently ignored and people suffering severe trauma are sometimes
fobbed off with aspirin.

Some claimants are deported illegally, without removal orders being
served. Others get deported, even though they have a pending judicial
review of the decision to refuse them asylum. Having an upcoming case
in the High Court is no bar to the Home Office forcibly removing
someone from the UK.

Despite filing for a judicial review of the decision to deny him
asylum, a Jamaican national, EB, was forcibly repatriated. When he got
off the plane in Kingston, he could barely walk. EB alleges his
injuries were from violent beatings by Home Office-contracted security
guards who forced him onto the plane and held him down in his seat
during the flight.

I have experienced people being served with deportation notices while
awaiting medical examinations to confirm their claims of torture.
Their removal looks like a deliberate attempt to thwart medical
corroboration. Even those who have their claims of torture confirmed
by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture are not
safe. Some still get deported, without any court ever being allowed to
consider the medical evidence.

It is not unknown for the Home Office to serve removal notices with
little or no warning, perhaps just an hour before asylum applicants
are carted off to the airport. This leaves lawyers insufficient time
to challenge the deportation.

I am also aware of detainees who have had phone access confiscated
when they are due for removal. This means they cannot contact their
solicitors. They end up on the next plane out of Heathrow.

One of my asylum applicants in a London detention centre was bussed to
Scotland shortly before his deportation order was served. His removal
from English legal jurisdiction seems to have been calculated to make
it as difficult as possible for his solicitor to take last minute
action to halt him being sent back to Uganda.

Asylum seekers scheduled for deportation can be shackled, bound and
forcibly injected with sedating medication, according to eye-witness
accounts I have received. To stop deportees screaming en route to the
plane, some escorts allegedly apply semi-strangulating thumb pressure
to the throat and twist handcuffs so tight that they pinch wrist
nerves and cut the flesh, leaving some victims complaining of
semi-permanent nerve damage.

Home Office ministers cannot blithely claim they are unaware of these
abuses. If they don't know, they should. It is their responsibility.
If they do know, why are they allowing it to continue?

The Border and Immigration Agency Complaints Audit Committee has
highlighted many complaints of abuse and the failure of the government
to remedy them. The Home Office is responsible for the Border and
Immigration Agency and its private contactors. The buck stops with the
Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP, and her Immigration Minister, Liam
Byrne MP.

This report is so damning, and the abuses so serious and widespread,
that these ministers should be sacked and face criminal charges of
negligence in their duty of care towards immigrants and asylum
applicants.

ENDS

--
Peter Tatchell is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East
http://www.greenoxford.com/peter and http://www.petertatchell.net

[spiv]

My admiration for Mr Tatchell is climbing fast these days. He seems one of the very few real journalists who are questioning and challenging.

Long may it continue.