tling against efforts by the Home Office to deport them from Britain.
Salih Ay was deported to Germany (supposedly a safe country) some time ago, but in May was deported from there back to Turkey to an uncertain future.
His wife Yurdugal Ay and her four children aged 14, 12, 1l and 7 were snatched from their home by the Home Office and sent first to Tinsley House Detention centre (Gatwick) and then to Dungavel near Glasgow.
In mid-October the Home. Office asked for and were granted a 2l-day adjournment of the oral hearing in the Court of Appeal. This seems to be for two reasons: to wait for the result of the report on the state of the mental health of the children.
This report makes it clear that the middle two in particular could suffer serious and permanent damage caused by stress if they are forcibly returned to Germany. The new medical evidence could be very helpful in the family's battle to stay.
Unfortunately on Friday 18 October an adjudicator refused to give Mrs Ay, then in Harmondsworth with her four children, bail because of her "immigration history" (ie having sought asylum in Britain after failing to gain the protection she needed in Germany, not having turned herself in to be removed with her husband, and allegedly allowed to appear at the bail hearing. All of them were clearly distressed; the children and their mother were all in tears at times, though after Mrs Ay, the eldest girl, Beriwan, also bravely gave evidence about the unpleas antness of being in detention, the dirtiness of conditions at Harmondsworth and about the unsuitability of the "education" at both Harmondsworth and Dungavel.
If the Court of Appeal hearing is unsuccessful, the Ays face removal Germany and almost certainly to Turkey, though an appeal to Strasbourg (final court of appeal for asylum cases within the EU) might be possible. They have now been disptached back to Dungavel, creating even more upheaval and distress.
The Ay family's MP, Chris Pond, wrote to the Home Secretary on 18 September noting the parallels between the Ahmadi case and the Ay family's case, asking him to ensure that the Home Office takes this into account, explaining that the family have lots of local support in Gravesend, and pointing out that removal will have espe cially adverse effects on the children.
He also contacted the Home Secretary again after the family were moved to Harmondsworth.
Those who have recently written to the Secretary include Rudy Vis Fortress Dover: protests at another immigration prison
MP, Dr Siddiqui and Lord Dholakia. The Home Secretary has been asked to meet a delegation of Kurdish women who want to present him with the petitions and letters which the community have collected. A definite answer has not yet been forthcoming, but the community is determined to convey their message about the Ay family to the Home Secretary. The Kurds have been told that to David Blunkett do not usually reach National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns www.ncadc.org.uk.email [email protected] him and he may not even be informed by the Immigration and Nationalities Directorate that people have written to him!
We know that the Home Office are worried because of the support they know the Ays are getting and the resemblances to the Ahmadi case.
It is vital for people to keep writing to the Home Office (or to write to their own MPs, asking them to take the case up) so that they accept the justice of her request to stay here.
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