Protect freedom of speech, help Charles Atangana
tom | 09.11.2010 08:22
Bristol NUJ is calling on people to contact their MP and ask them to stop the deportation of journalist Charles Atangana. Take a few minutes to contact your MP and ask them to help...
Here is the full story:
Charles Atangana, a Cameroon journalist who has been living Britain since 2004, is facing deportation after losing his case for asylum. He believes he will be killed if he returns to Cameroon.
The National Union of Journalists is staging a last-ditch fight on his behalf by seeking an injunction against any deportation order.
Atangana, 42, was an investigative business journalist in his home country - specialising in stories about financial corruption - and before fleeing to Britain had been detained without trial and tortured.
He has been living in Glasgow, where he worked as a volunteer adviser with the Citizens Advice Bureau and with a refugee body. He also continued to write articles for a Cameroonian magazine. He is now being held in an immigration detention centre.
The NUJ has organised a protest outside the UK Border Agency building in Glasgow at 1pm today.
A report by the Federation of African Journalists in May described Cameroon as "one of the worst jailers of journalists in Africa". It noted that 13 prominent journalists were currently being detained or had been attacked or threatened.
The report concluded: "Arbitrary arrests and criminal prosecution of journalists, as well as torture, have become routine forms of abuse against press freedom, inflicting huge damage to any confidence in the rule of law and democracy."
from; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/aug/02/...eroon
Please take a few minutes to contact your MP:
You can contact them via; http://www.writetothem.com/
Here's what I wrote (feel free to base your letter on this...)
Dear Stephen Williams,
I am writing to you about the case of exiled journalist Charles Atangana. He is a Cameroon journalist who has been living Britain since 2004. It is not surprising that he has fled his native country as a report by the Federation of African Journalists recently described Cameroon as "one of the worst jailers of journalists in Africa... Arbitrary arrests and criminal prosecution of journalists, as well as torture, have become routine forms of abuse against press freedom, inflicting huge damage to any confidence in the rule of law and democracy."
Yet the government still plans to deport him. He believes he will be killed if he returns to Cameroon. I ask you to pressure the government to allow him asylum and in doing so help protect global free speech.
Yours sincerely,
Here is the full story:
Charles Atangana, a Cameroon journalist who has been living Britain since 2004, is facing deportation after losing his case for asylum. He believes he will be killed if he returns to Cameroon.
The National Union of Journalists is staging a last-ditch fight on his behalf by seeking an injunction against any deportation order.
Atangana, 42, was an investigative business journalist in his home country - specialising in stories about financial corruption - and before fleeing to Britain had been detained without trial and tortured.
He has been living in Glasgow, where he worked as a volunteer adviser with the Citizens Advice Bureau and with a refugee body. He also continued to write articles for a Cameroonian magazine. He is now being held in an immigration detention centre.
The NUJ has organised a protest outside the UK Border Agency building in Glasgow at 1pm today.
A report by the Federation of African Journalists in May described Cameroon as "one of the worst jailers of journalists in Africa". It noted that 13 prominent journalists were currently being detained or had been attacked or threatened.
The report concluded: "Arbitrary arrests and criminal prosecution of journalists, as well as torture, have become routine forms of abuse against press freedom, inflicting huge damage to any confidence in the rule of law and democracy."
from; http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/aug/02/...eroon
Please take a few minutes to contact your MP:
You can contact them via; http://www.writetothem.com/
Here's what I wrote (feel free to base your letter on this...)
Dear Stephen Williams,
I am writing to you about the case of exiled journalist Charles Atangana. He is a Cameroon journalist who has been living Britain since 2004. It is not surprising that he has fled his native country as a report by the Federation of African Journalists recently described Cameroon as "one of the worst jailers of journalists in Africa... Arbitrary arrests and criminal prosecution of journalists, as well as torture, have become routine forms of abuse against press freedom, inflicting huge damage to any confidence in the rule of law and democracy."
Yet the government still plans to deport him. He believes he will be killed if he returns to Cameroon. I ask you to pressure the government to allow him asylum and in doing so help protect global free speech.
Yours sincerely,
tom
Original article on IMC Bristol:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/698231