Christine Mulumba, a Congolese asylum seeker who has been living in
Birmingham for almost 4 years, has been illegally detained by immigration
authorities and is due to be deported this Thursday on flight number ET711,
to the "Democratic" Republic of Congo via Ethiopia, which is due to leave
Heathrow Terminal 3 at 21.35 on Thursday 5th July.
Christine, who had been housed in Kings Heath and was signing on regularly
at Solihull Immigration Reporting Centre, was detained by immigration
officials there on Friday 29th June and informed that her application for
asylum had been rejected by the Home Office in January. She had had no
official communication about her status during this time and had been
signing on without incident during the 6 months since her supposed refusal
of asylum. She is now being held in Yarl's Wood detention centre, near
Bedford, in preparation for her deportation from Heathrow. She has not been
told why her claim for asylum in the UK was refused. It has taken almost 4
years for her claim to be processed - she claimed on her arrival in the UK
in August 2003.
A campaign has just been formed to take action to stop Christine from being
sent back to the DR Congo. For information or to get involved, email
nodeportationsbrum@riseup.net
The DR Congo is still effectively at war and is an incredibly unsafe country
for anyone to be deported to. Both the government and the FDLR rebels
arbitrarily execute civilians, and women in particular are at extremely high
risk of systematic rape and sexual violence, as documented by the UN here:
http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=14800
Christine Mulumba is among 4000 Congolese asylum seekers in the UK whose
imminent deportation was announced recently by the British Ambassador to the
DRC, Andy Sparks. Deportees to the DR Congo are immediately handed over to
the authorities on arrival, and are often imprisoned and tortured or starved
to death. Most of those detained in Congolese prisons die within a year. The minister of Christine's church was recently jailed for speaking up about human rights abuses by the government and members of the church were attacked and forced to flee the country.
People of all nationalities must stand together to oppose the unjust and
murderous policy of the British government - seemingly unchanged under
Gordon Brown and new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who incidentally is the MP
for Redditch, only a few miles from Christine Mulumba's home, from what it
was under Blair and John Reid - which treats those who flee from violence
and persecution as presumed liars, to be forced into destitution or
exploitation as disposable labour in unregulated industries, detained
arbitrarily and then sent back to the very intolerable situations they
escaped from, often to be delivered into the hands of those from whom they
were running for their lives. Immigration controls are fundamentally racist
and serve as part of a "divide and rule" strategy to encourage paranoia and
prejudice in order to turn the working class against itself.
For more information about the anti-deportation movement, see No Borders
http://noborderslondon.blogspot.com/ and the National Coalition of
Anti-Deportation Campaigns http://www.ncadc.org.uk/
NO BORDERS! NO NATIONS! STOP ALL DEPORTATIONS!
Birmingham for almost 4 years, has been illegally detained by immigration
authorities and is due to be deported this Thursday on flight number ET711,
to the "Democratic" Republic of Congo via Ethiopia, which is due to leave
Heathrow Terminal 3 at 21.35 on Thursday 5th July.
Christine, who had been housed in Kings Heath and was signing on regularly
at Solihull Immigration Reporting Centre, was detained by immigration
officials there on Friday 29th June and informed that her application for
asylum had been rejected by the Home Office in January. She had had no
official communication about her status during this time and had been
signing on without incident during the 6 months since her supposed refusal
of asylum. She is now being held in Yarl's Wood detention centre, near
Bedford, in preparation for her deportation from Heathrow. She has not been
told why her claim for asylum in the UK was refused. It has taken almost 4
years for her claim to be processed - she claimed on her arrival in the UK
in August 2003.
A campaign has just been formed to take action to stop Christine from being
sent back to the DR Congo. For information or to get involved, email
nodeportationsbrum@riseup.net The DR Congo is still effectively at war and is an incredibly unsafe country
for anyone to be deported to. Both the government and the FDLR rebels
arbitrarily execute civilians, and women in particular are at extremely high
risk of systematic rape and sexual violence, as documented by the UN here:
http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=14800 Christine Mulumba is among 4000 Congolese asylum seekers in the UK whose
imminent deportation was announced recently by the British Ambassador to the
DRC, Andy Sparks. Deportees to the DR Congo are immediately handed over to
the authorities on arrival, and are often imprisoned and tortured or starved
to death. Most of those detained in Congolese prisons die within a year. The minister of Christine's church was recently jailed for speaking up about human rights abuses by the government and members of the church were attacked and forced to flee the country.
People of all nationalities must stand together to oppose the unjust and
murderous policy of the British government - seemingly unchanged under
Gordon Brown and new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who incidentally is the MP
for Redditch, only a few miles from Christine Mulumba's home, from what it
was under Blair and John Reid - which treats those who flee from violence
and persecution as presumed liars, to be forced into destitution or
exploitation as disposable labour in unregulated industries, detained
arbitrarily and then sent back to the very intolerable situations they
escaped from, often to be delivered into the hands of those from whom they
were running for their lives. Immigration controls are fundamentally racist
and serve as part of a "divide and rule" strategy to encourage paranoia and
prejudice in order to turn the working class against itself.
For more information about the anti-deportation movement, see No Borders
http://noborderslondon.blogspot.com/ and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/ NO BORDERS! NO NATIONS! STOP ALL DEPORTATIONS!
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