Monthly demo in support of asylum seekers. Also launching the Kanyama Must Stay Campaign.
For further information phone 0207 837 1688
Kanyama must stay!
Kanyama from Zambia is a maths teacher, with a BSc. Having lived and worked in Botswana, he came to England in 2002 to study for a Masters. His then partner and two children, 6 and 9, were already in Britain and had settled status. In June 2003 Kanyama was diagnosed HIV positive with generalised joint pains.
In November 2005 the Home Office wrote to Kanyama to tell him Britain was not responsible for his treatment and he must return to Zambia. He appealed, but unsuccessfully.
In Zambia people are dying daily of HIV/AIDS. In 2003, 89,000 people died of AIDS and life expectancy dropped to below 40 years. There are 630,000 AIDS orphans and over 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS.
Kanyama is extremely fearful of returning, aware that anti-retroviral drugs are barely available in Zambia. ‘I am still only 40 and will die in one year's time if forced to return. My children will be left without a father’.
Help prevent Kanyama being deported to Zambia!
Campaign supported by: Africans Getting Involved, UK Coalition, The Raintrust Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! NCADC, OPAM, Brent East MP Sarah Teather, HIV/AIDS association of Zambia, Hammersmith, Fulham and Hounslow Service User Forum, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
Fight Britain’s racist immigration and asylum laws
Britain is a rich country because of hundreds of years of plundering and impoverishing other nations. Imperialism divides the world into oppressor and oppressed nations. Asylum seekers are either fleeing from countries directly colonised such as Zambia or Zimbabwe or from countries where British imperialist wars are creating refugees, like Iraq and Afghanistan. However, when people flee the war, poverty and destitution that they face in the oppressed nations they find that they are not welcome in the rich nations.
Dawn raids, detentions and deportations are on the increase. In this process, families are torn apart and there is a rising toll of self-inflicted deaths among those who fear that deportation will literally be a fate worse than death.
Asylum seekers have committed no crime, yet face arbitrary imprisonment in detention centres. Children are also being imprisoned. Many asylum seekers don’t have access to legal representation. In detention, they are faced with racist and abusive staff, many from private companies which run seven out of the ten main immigration detention centres.
Stop detentions! Stop deportations!
Asylum is not a crime! No one is illegal!