Please forward widely>>>>

Hi, There's been quite a lot going on down here in Brighton over the past week or so after an Iranian guy called Amir - someone who attends the Migrant English Project at the Cowley Club - had his house raided at 6am in the morning last tuesday. He has subsequently been detained and is being threatened with deportation. He was fist taken to the local police station, then Harmondsworth detention centre, and he is now at Colmbrook detention centre.

He has put in one application for asylumn, which has been turned down, but fresh evidence has arisen to support his claim and he is currently appealing against deportation. It seems like information about this appeal was overlooked and the Home Office attempted to deport him anyway - something which was only halted by his English teacher (who also works as a paralegal) who happened to be at the airport at the time.

A campaign has been set up in Brighton to try and prevent Amir's deportation. People are following all the possible juridicial routes, media work is being done, a petition is being collected in the streets of Brighton, and a degree to support has been given to Amir's case by his MP. There was a meeting of around 35-40 people in Brighton yesterday to discuss other ways in which Amir could be supported.

The first cause of action will be a demo in front of the Home Office on Monday 21st November at 3pm. The Home Office is at: 2, Marsham Street, London, SW1 4DF (for an online map, see:  http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=51.4928&lon=-0.129&scale=5000&icon=x)

It'd be great to see as many people there as possible!