Is this a true story people in UK? 1 Year, 2 Months ago
Ugandan asylum seekers in UK beaten, deported
By PAUL REDFERN
Special Correspondent
Dozens of East Africans are reported to have been beaten up by private security officials following failed requests for asylum in the UK.
The issue was highlighted in a joint report by the UK newspaper, the Independent, and a group co-ordinating the representation and medical care of failed asylum-seekers.
It has presented a dossier of 200 cases compiled by doctors, lawyers and immigration centre visitors that purports to show systematic evidence of both physical and mental abuse of failed asylum seekers.
Some of the claims include sexual assault and racist abuse.
One Ugandan whose case was highlighted by the report was Milton Apollo Okello, a 25-year-old man who was allegedly tortured by the Ugandan security services before fleeing to the UK to request political asylum.
His request for refugee status was, however, turned down and following this he was frog-marched to a plane and tied to his seat by British security officials prior to an attempt to send him back to Uganda.
At the last moment, however, he received a reprieve following which he was taken to a van and allegedly beaten and racially abused.
“The driver opened the sliding door and I was pushed into the middle of the seat,” Mr Okello said.
“Two of the officers got on one side of me and the others came in on the other side. Officer A then punched me hard in the face and he said: ‘These black monkeys don’t want to go back to their country’.”
Force is reported to have been used on asylum seekers as the private security companies are believed to not be paid if they don’t “deliver” the failed asylum seeker to their country of birth.
The Border and Immigration Agency, which contracts the security companies to help carry out the removals, said any allegations of misconduct would be “thoroughly investigated,” and that “all allegations of physical and racial abuse are referred to the police.”
The three security companies involved — Group4 Securicor, International Training Academy and GEO — say that none of the allegations have been proven.
The worst case, according to the Independent, involved 29-year-old Cameroonian woman, Beatrice Guessie, who was so badly beaten on a flight back to Cameroon that she collapsed on arrival.
The Cameroonian airport authorities refused to accept Beatrice, despite allegedly being offered a bribe of $300 to do so.
She was then flown back to the UK and taken to Hillingdon hospital, where she was treated for severe genital bleeding and multiple bruising over her body.
She was subsequently returned to Yarl’s Wood detention centre, itself the subject of numerous complaints over the past five years.
It is difficult to establish exactly how many women have been forced to return to Uganda because the Home Office won’t comment on individual cases and says it does not keep a catalogue of exactly who it deports to where.
But it is known that in the first quarter of last year, nearly 5,000 people were deported from the UK, an increase of 43 per cent on the same period last year.
The British government is happy to be seen as “getting tough” on the issue of asylum to please the increasingly hostile right-wing press and because of growing support for the far-right British National Party.
Human-rights groups say the British government’s policy is a disgrace and that while there are some people who abuse the asylum system, many other vulnerable people, particularly women, are being forced out of the country to face an uncertain and dangerous future.
The Guardian said that in Home Office interviews of asylum seekers, “disbelief is automatic” and interviewers spend their time “trying to catch asylum seekers out in lies.”
Even the United Nations has expressed its concern. A report by the UN High Commission for Refugees last year concluded that “serious problems remain both in the quality of individual decisions and the context in which they are made.”
The National Coalition of Anti-Deportations Campaigns says it is seeing more deported women and children than ever before and this is because “women are easy targets, are always at home and are not likely to put up a fight.”
In 2005, dozens of women at Yarl’s Wood went on hunger strike at their treatment in the detention centre and recently Home Office Minister Tony McNulty ordered that the healthcare of asylum seekers in Britain’s detention centres be independently monitored, following what the Independent newspaper termed “a catalogue of suicides and alleged mistreatment.”
The women’s hunger strike gained support when Anne Owers, an inspector of prisons in the UK, condemned the lack of facilities for children in Yarl’s Wood and the fact that their welfare was being ignored by the authorities.
The matter has also been raised by two MPs — Jeremy Corbyn and Alastair Burt — in parliament.
The private company GSL UK, which runs Yarl’s Wood, said at the time that it had nothing to hide and “welcomes close and independent scrutiny.” It maintains that all the women who were on hunger strike were constantly monitored and were treated “with the utmost care and attention.”
It also said that there was “no question of people not being looked after properly.”
The company added that all its staff had received “thorough training” and there was “huge emphasis” on the fact that there would be “no tolerance of inappropriate behaviour among themselves or towards detainees.”
Staff are said to have behaved very professionally despite having to “deal with very challenging behaviour from detainees who do not have to abide by the same code of conduct.”
However, the women who are detained allege that abuse from staff at the centre is a daily occurrence. One told how the women were allegedly called “black monkeys who don’t deserve to be here.” The women also allege that staff punish anyone they take a dislike to for no reason.
The Ugandan women at Yarl’s Wood alleged they suffer from poor medical attention, bad food, harassment and sexual intimidation by male staff. They say that they are poorly represented legally and have suffered from corrupt lawyers.
The British government has had problems with Yarl’s Wood for some time and human-rights groups have called for its closure. It has suffered fires and allegations of abuse from people who are detained there.
Independent observers say that 33 asylum seekers have taken their own lives over the past five years, seven of whom were in Immigration Removal Centres and six in prisons. Two of these were East African, including a Kenyan who was found hanging from his police cell last year and a Ugandan who was found hanging in the toilet in the psychiatric ward of a hospital in Ascot in 2003.
Britain’s Home Office, which won’t comment on individual cases, insists that all asylum application cases are looked at carefully and anyone has the right of appeal whatever their country of origin.
Re:Is this a true story people in UK? 1 Year, 2 Months ago
That's why some of us are not so sure coming over here is or was a solution to our problems down there. We still have to find a way to make things right over there. By the look of things, we can run but we can't hide. One little something could trigger a widespread negative feeling towards us in this Europe. Everyone should try to follow up and learn about the history of our African America brothers and sisters.
Re:Is this a true story people in UK? 1 Year, 2 Months ago
AngieB - There's a huge backlash on migrants especially against black Africans in Europe in general; but its rearing its ugly head even more so in the UK because of the merging of the European States to form a United Europe.
With the common european market getting wider, this has meant that black Africans or even in fact British Africans face a greater challenge in obtaining jobs of any calibre, be it in the professional, skilled, unskilled, manual labour force etc... The emphasis on giving working visa falls in favour of persons who are caucasians (white) europeans. The most prevalent visas for studying are the ones whereupon black africans figure heavily. However even here, one has to quit resting on their laurels - the hours you get granted to work alongside your student visa is minimal (~20hrs a week). Given the high fees being requested by education institutions quick to make a killing, I'd say this is another sly way of killing off would-be overseas black african students visas. Then again, I'd advice somebody coming from Africa to think long and hard about coming across on private sponsorship whereby they hope to supplement it with odd summer jobs etc - simply that even these are proving much more harder to find.
Some of you may wonder why I emphasis black africans - in short, if you happen to be white african as in south african or any other white person who for reasons of economics has chosen to settle in Africa with a dual nationality etc.., the options are somewhat different and at best, far far from what a black african will meet.
As for the article Redfern raises, I can only go by what a handful of persons I knew directly or indirectly who have all since returned and in fact settled comfortably back home and are even wondering why they put themselves through all that! One young man was unfortunately in a racous with the law. He was picked up after a terrible road traffic accident in which he was the cause unfortunately. He was bundled into a police van (not an ambulance or even emergency aid) after they'd ascertained he was here illegaly and didn't have the relevant vehicle papers let alone a permit to drive. Fortunately there had been no fatalities. He on the other hand, aside from being in shock, had sustained a whiplash injury, had pain in his chest and his car was a complete write off. The medical care he was being offered under custody required that he pay a sum which was beyond his means. On weighing up what it would've cost him back home plus less of the man-handling and grief he was being met with, he opted not to have the medical care but get this done back home - which fortunately worked out well for him.
Sefrex - trudat some of our people keep aspiring to fly out here to green pastures, simply because the hell they think they are in cannot be comparable to what they deal with when they see of some of us who on returning back for short holidays there, enjoy showing off how well we've made it. Back home - the gap between those that have it large and the very very poor is mimicking what one has seen in India. You have slums and mansions alongside one another, where hummer-drivers have little regard for their fellow person on foot. At least here in the diaspora, if you are lucky to get in and stay in, you can make something or even get a broader perspective on life in general. Whilst some of those persons in detention centres may make it hell for you - it cannot be comparable at times to the ingrained injusticies in our motherland whereby life is basicaly seen to measure up to nothing if you are not somehow 'in' with the ruling partisan. At least here there is still some window of redress...
Re:Is this a true story people in UK? 1 Year, 2 Months ago
The thing about this Europe, is that if you want something changed, make a petition. If you keep quiet, you get crushed. There will come a time when you African Europeans will have to get up and take to the streets to fight for your rights. That's how the white mind was set. If you don't fight for it, you don't deserve it. Africa should exploit the knowledge of the people who've been out here for a long time. After getting to the desired social level, then we'll show them of the righteous nature of meekness. Blessed we'll be by the Almighty too.
