On 12th April 2007, there will be a "directions hearing" for the Country Guidance tribunal on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This will be a meeting between the judge, the barristers bringing the case and the home office to ensure all parties have been served with the information they need. After this the date for the full hearing will be established.

So we need to be out in force on 12th April, and on any subsequent tribunal dates, to show our solidarity with the legal team defending the cause of Congolese asylum seekers and to protest against further deportations to DRC.

Since the so-called democratic elections last year, more than 150 people have been gunned down by the security services in Bas-Congo for peacefully protesting about local election results; hundreds more have been killed in Kinshasa in violent clashes between president Joseph Kabila's guard and forces loyal to his contender in the presidential elections Jean-Pierre Bemba; tens of thousands of people have been displaced by conflict in the east of the country. Massacres, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture and rape are endemic, while thousands continue to die each week as a result of starvation and disease.

As we are weary of repeating on this website, deportation to countries like DRC, Sudan &c, is illegal under the Refugee Convention which Britain signed up to in 1951. The Convention obliges signatories not to "expel or return a refugee to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened".

The foreign office is advising British nationals not to travel at all to eastern and north eastern DRC, and against "all but essential travel" to the rest of the DRC because the country is too unstable, yet the home office is continuing to try and remove or deport Congolese asylum seekers to a situation in which they risk losing their lives.
For futher information
www.nobordersnottingham.org.uk
www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk