Violet, aged 51, is an asylum seeker who fled Sri Lanka after her husband and brother were murdered by the Tamil Tigers. Since coming to live in Britain she has developed a condition which has left her with severely impaired vision and is 'registered blind'. With help from the Royal National Institute for the Blind she has learned not only to cope with everyday life but to use a computer and telephone switchboard. She speaks five languages and is able and willing to work.
The Home office want to return Violet to Sri Lanka where she would undoubtedly face danger and persecution. Her age plus visual impairment would make her even more vulnerable. The treatment and support she needs are not available there and disabled people are consistently discriminated against in Sri Lanka.
She would also be without the support of her companions in Wembley, where she now lives. She also has an excellent support network of students and friends at Redhill College run by the Royal National Institute for the Blind. The NATFHE union at the college have pledged their support to help any campaign to keep Violet in the UK. Is an active member of Brent and Harrow Respect: the Unity Coalition and works with and is supported by Brent Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers.
Violet is strongly committed to her local/national community and works three days a week as a volunteer at the Sri Saddhatissa International Buddhist Centre (SSIBC) in North London. Many hundreds of people visit the temple each day and Violet will be there to guide and advise them on a whole range of topics.
We believe it would contravene her human rights to be sent back. If forced to return to Sri Lanka, she would not only be in danger from the Tamil Tigers, she would also face discrimination on account of her disability. David Blunkett the Home Secretary has first hand experience of blindness and also of how much blind people can achieve if given the opportunity. We are therefore appealing to him to give Violet leave to remain here on compassionate grounds in that to lose Violet would be a severe blow to the local community whom she supports and they support her.
What you can do to Help:
Friends and supporters have set up a campaign to persuade David Blunkett, the Home secretary, on the strength of her links to the community and the communities links to her, and that she should be allowed to remain in the UK on compassionate grounds.
The campaign has drawn up a petition and model letter attached, which they are asking recipients of this message to fill in and get as many other people as possible to do the same, and return them to the campaign office. When they have collected enough signatures, the campaign, with Violet, will ask her local MP Barry Gardiner to present them to the Home Secretary.
If you can afford a donation to Violet's campaign, it would be most welcome as her original solicitor, who did not do a very good job of presenting her case, still charged her for taking it on, and the next steps will also be expensive. Please make out any cheques to 'Brent Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers' and mark on back of cheque, 'for Violet Pethiyagoda Campaign'.
Please also forward this email to anyone else you know who might collect signatures.
Violet's campaign is supported by NATFHE, students and staff of RNIB Redhill College, NCADC, Brent Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers (BCDAS), BCDAS is supported by, Brent Trades Council, Brent Asian Women's Resource Centre, Brent Teachers Association, Brent UNISON, Brent East Labour Party, Manor Branch Labour Party, Brentwater Branch Labour Party, Brent Refugee Forum, Brent and Harrow Green Party, Brent and Harrow Socialist Alliance, Holborn APEX(GMB), Harlesden UCATT UG115, North West London SWP, College of NW London NATFHE, Barnet College NATFHE, Kensal Green Branch Labour Party, and many individuals.
A dedicated webpage has been set up for Violet, where you can download campaign material:
Brent Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers (BCDAS)
u n i t e d k i n g d o m - - >
>> Removals to Zimbabwe will put many at risk
The resumption of removals to Zimbabwe reflects a changing political climate
in Britain rather than any lessening in the merits of Zimbabwean asylum
The government announced on 16 November 2004 that it was lifting the
suspension on returns to Zimbabwe. Its spokesman said that 'we suspended
temporarily all enforced returns to Zimbabwe in 2002 for the best of motives
but it has been exploited'. Zimbabweans were arriving on false documents
and, with manifestly weak claims, were confident in the knowledge that they
would be allowed to stay in Britain even if their asylum claims were
disallowed. As supporting evidence, the Home Office asserted that, between
January and November 2004, 1,825 of the 2,025 Zimbabweans who applied for
There are several grave flaws in this official position. However good the
motives of the initial suspension, it was rapidly followed by the
introduction of a visa regime. No Zimbabwean could travel to Britain without
a visa; no-one could apply at the British High Commission (now Embassy) for
a visa on the grounds that they wished to claim asylum. Even the most
genuine of asylum seekers, therefore, had either to pretend some other
reason for wishing to visit Britain or else to obtain false South African or
Malawian passports - both taken as adequate reasons for refusing their
Moreover, the very high numbers of refusals in the last eleven months
contrast strikingly with statistics for the previous period subsequent to
the stay on removals when there was an unusually high proportion - over 40
per cent - of successful appeals by Zimbabwean asylum seekers. The change
during this year reflects not so much the increased number of 'bogus'
claimants as the imposition of a new regime. Fast track assessments allow no
time for proper investigation or representation. The drastic cut-back on
legal aid means that fewer expert reports are commissioned. Many of the best
asylum legal practitioners have withdrawn their services because of the
manifest impossibility of adequately representing their clients. Anyone who
has written expert reports knows how arbitrary initial Home Office refusals
can be. They are now unlikely to be challenged.
The new policy makes no pretence that Zimbabwe has become a safer place
since 2002. The government says that there has been no change 'in our
opposition to human rights abuses in Zimbabwe' and that it will work to
'restore democracy so that all Zimbabweans can in time return safely to help
build a prosperous and stable Zimbabwe'. In the meantime, however, it
proposes to send many Zimbabweans back to an unstable Zimbabwe in a state of
economic collapse and with continuing human rights abuses. What has changed
since 2002 is not Zimbabwe but the British political climate. In 2002,
Zimbabwe was much in the news because of the take-over of White-owned land.
Even the Conservative Party supported the suspension of removals. Now
Zimbabwe has dropped out of the news headlines. Few British politicians seem
to care any longer about what happens to Black Zimbabweans.
But those of us who do care wish to register a strong protest against the
resumption of removals and to call for the re-instatement of just processes
of assessment of asylum claims.
Terence Ranger is Emeritus Professor, Oxford University, and President of
The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate
view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.
Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns ( http://www.ncadc.org.uk )
Forcing refugees back to Zimbabwe
From the Director of Amnesty International UK
Letter to the Editor The Times Wednesday 24th November 2004
Sir, The Government's decision to start sending unsuccessful asylum applicants back to Zimbabwe (report, November 17) is astonishing. As government officials must know, Zimbabwe is systematically repressing all opposition - through arbitrary arrests, torture, political killings and new legislation to curb freedom of speech and assembly. Movement for Democratic Change members, trade unionists, teachers, journalists and human rights activists are just a few of its targets.
Why then, with the human rights crisis in Zimbabwe deepening by the month, is it now right to start returning unsuccessful asylum-seekers? Just as mystifying, the Government had told Amnesty International that its Zimbabwe no-returns policy was "not based on asylum or human rights reasons but on the view that in the wider context of its position on Zimbabwe it would be inappropriate to forcibly return failed asylum-seekers at this time". What has changed to make forcing people back to Zimbabwe "appropriate"?
This year, the Home Office began forcibly returning male asylum-seekers to southern Somalia, which has no effective national government, justice system or police force, and where fighting between armed factions continues.
Despite the manifest insecurity in Iraq, the Home Office is also pursuing plans for the enforced return of asylum-seekers even there.
When it comes to asylum, a "return at any cost" culture now appears to reign at the Home Office.
Amin Buratee is back in his community
Great news, Amin Buratee has been released from detention and the deportation has been stayed. Immigration Minister Des Browne has conceded that Amir can stay to *complete his A Levels which gives him until summer 2005 and allows a breathing space for us to continue building a campaign for him.
The news was given to us at a rally of at least 300 people outside Canterbury Cathedral supported by the Dean and the Mayor organised by Canterbury High School students. It was later confirmed by the MP, Julian Brazier's office.
Amin on release from Dover Removal Centre said: "Fantastic" - "I'm so glad that I'm here... I feel happy." - "It was really frightening, because I didn't know what was going to happen,"
Thank you every one who signed and faxed letters to the Home Office for Amin and well done Jade, Katie, Lianne, Esar and Sher from Canterbury High School. It was your passionate commitment to your friend Amir that had people queuing to sign the model letters in the street. You have set the standard!
Kent Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers
(*For the time being Amin is safe, but will again face removal after he finishes exams, he will be able however to ask for a review of his asylum claim before any enforcement.)
Kent Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers
Amin Buratee Must Stay Campaign
Kent Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers