On Sat, 23rd October we demonstrated outside HMP Forest Bank against detention and deportation of asylum seekers. We understood that seven failed asylum seekers were detained there after being jailed for working illegally at Stateside Foods in Bolton.
At their trial, the judge said “ "The desperate circumstances that you found yourself in led you into this dishonesty. I know and accept that each of you desperately wanted to stay in this country. I also accept that you resorted to dishonesty because of your desperate plight. But using a false document to gain employment strikes at the very fabric of our society."
Noel Chivavaya, 27, from Zimbabwe, Blaise Nkieekobo, 30, from Ethiopia, and Guylan Akela, 25, Kinola Kikeni, 34, Bonnet Mbombila, 34, Muledi Kingombe, 29, and Matoumona Gisunda, 38, all from the Congo had exhausted all rights of asylum appeal and expected deportation.
On Tuesday this week, Bonnet Mbombila was facing deportation via Air France. The good news is that thanks to the frantic actions of campaigners, Air France refused to carry Bonnet and he is still in the UK. On Wednesday, Air France also refused to carry another person whose asylum claim had failed (and who wants to remain anonymous, as he is now back on the Congo fearing for his life.)
In cases such as this, we don’t know what tips the balance. Could it have been the last minute fax-storm to the airline and the Home Office? Was it the letters and petitions, engaging the MP and the public? The article in the newspaper? the radio interview? Or that we spoke to ‘normal’ passengers at the airport boarding that flight?… or is it a mixture of everything?
It doesn’t happen often but when it does its brilliant. Air-lines will bow to pressure. Those removals were to very dangerous countries - you may well have
contributed to saving two lives.
Thank you to everyone who tried everything to keep Bonnet and *a now anonymous person* in the UK. It was your persistence and your efforts that have made the difference.
For more information on the demo at Forest Bank
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2004/10/300106.html
For info on the abuses of human rights in the Congo
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/congo/
No Borders meets the last Tuesday of every month at the new Social Centre in the basement of 14 Lever St, Manchester. The no border network is a tool for all groups and grass root organizations who work on the questions of migrants and asylum seekers in order to struggle alongside with them for freedom of movement, for the freedom for all to stay in the place which they have chosen, against repression and the many controls which multiply the borders everywhere in all countries.
http://www.noborder.org (No Borders webpage)
http://www.ncadc.org.uk (National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns)
http://www.defend-asylum.org (Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers)
At their trial, the judge said “ "The desperate circumstances that you found yourself in led you into this dishonesty. I know and accept that each of you desperately wanted to stay in this country. I also accept that you resorted to dishonesty because of your desperate plight. But using a false document to gain employment strikes at the very fabric of our society."
Noel Chivavaya, 27, from Zimbabwe, Blaise Nkieekobo, 30, from Ethiopia, and Guylan Akela, 25, Kinola Kikeni, 34, Bonnet Mbombila, 34, Muledi Kingombe, 29, and Matoumona Gisunda, 38, all from the Congo had exhausted all rights of asylum appeal and expected deportation.
On Tuesday this week, Bonnet Mbombila was facing deportation via Air France. The good news is that thanks to the frantic actions of campaigners, Air France refused to carry Bonnet and he is still in the UK. On Wednesday, Air France also refused to carry another person whose asylum claim had failed (and who wants to remain anonymous, as he is now back on the Congo fearing for his life.)
In cases such as this, we don’t know what tips the balance. Could it have been the last minute fax-storm to the airline and the Home Office? Was it the letters and petitions, engaging the MP and the public? The article in the newspaper? the radio interview? Or that we spoke to ‘normal’ passengers at the airport boarding that flight?… or is it a mixture of everything?
It doesn’t happen often but when it does its brilliant. Air-lines will bow to pressure. Those removals were to very dangerous countries - you may well have
contributed to saving two lives.
Thank you to everyone who tried everything to keep Bonnet and *a now anonymous person* in the UK. It was your persistence and your efforts that have made the difference.
For more information on the demo at Forest Bank
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2004/10/300106.html For info on the abuses of human rights in the Congo
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/congo/ No Borders meets the last Tuesday of every month at the new Social Centre in the basement of 14 Lever St, Manchester. The no border network is a tool for all groups and grass root organizations who work on the questions of migrants and asylum seekers in order to struggle alongside with them for freedom of movement, for the freedom for all to stay in the place which they have chosen, against repression and the many controls which multiply the borders everywhere in all countries.
http://www.noborder.org (No Borders webpage) http://www.ncadc.org.uk (National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns) http://www.defend-asylum.org (Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers)