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NCADC News Service
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News Thursday 20th March 2008


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Urgent/Important news


On the 17th March 2008 BIA completely replaced the 'Operation Enforcement Manual' (guidance and information for officers dealing with enforcement immigration matters within the UK), which had been in place since May 2006, with a new manual;


Operational Enforcement Activity/IND Enforcement Instructions and Guidance


This manual contains guidance and information for officers dealing with enforcement immigration matters within the United Kingdom.


There seems at first glance to be many changes and items/texts that were in the old manual have been completely re-written or texts removed.


NCADC would caution all recipients working with anyone facing removal to read the new manual to check for any changes.


NCADC have placed on their website all the chapters of the new 'Operational Enforcement Activity' manual:
 http://www.ncadc.org.uk/OEA-March-2008/OEA.html


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Cancer victim deported to Ghana dies
Ama Sumani, the Ghanaian woman who was deported despite undergoing treatment for terminal cancer, has died, friends said last night. The 39-year-old mother of two died on Wednesday afternoon in Korle Bu Hospital in Accra, Ghana. Friends had told her recently that £70,000 had been raised to get her the treatment and drugs that she so desperately needed.

Ms Sumani, a widow, had been treated for malignant myeloma at the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, but was deported in January after her visa expired.

The Government's decision to return her to Ghana provoked a public outcry amid claims that she could not receive life-saving treatment in her home country.

Her friends, who set up a campaign to try to secure her treatment in Britian, claimed that her return to Africa meant she would not have access to the thalidomide drug that she needed to treat the illness that was attacking her kidneys.

The medical journal The Lancet described the removal of Ms Sumani as atrocious barbarism.
Full story: The Times, March 20, 2008
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3586752.ece


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Zimbabwe: Free and Fair Election Unlikely


Repression, Intimidation, Electoral Flaws Threaten March 29 Vote


- As Zimbabweans head to the polls in the country's March 29 elections, serious electoral flaws and human rights abuses by the government undermine any meaningful prospect of free and fair elections, Human Rights Watch said today.


" Despite some improvements on paper to the election regulations, Zimbabweans aren't free to vote for the candidates of their choice. While there are four candidates running for president and many political parties involved, the election process itself is skewed. " Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch

In a 59-page report, "All Over Again: Human Rights Abuses and Flawed Electoral Conditions in Zimbabwe's Coming General Elections," Human Rights Watch documents how the government and the ruling party ZANU-PF, in the run up to the 2008 elections, have engaged in widespread intimidation of the opposition; have restricted freedom of association and assembly; and have manipulated food and farming equipment distribution to gain political advantage. Human Rights Watch also documented biased media coverage in addition to numerous incidents of police and state-security violence against human rights activists and perceived opposition supporters throughout Zimbabwe. The report is based on research conducted over seven weeks across the country and in the capital, Harare.
Full story: Human Rights Watch, Johannesburg, March 19, 2008
 http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/03/17/zimbab18303.htm


End of Bulletin:


Source for this Message:
Human Rights Watch
The Times
NCADC
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