of children. Glasgoü Campaign to Welcome! I hárs. Bécause Blunkett tuled that Mts Ay's 1 and goverhments, many liberals now accept Yurdugal Ay, a Kurdish woman from Turkey, and her four children, Beriwan (14), Newroz (13), Medya (8) and Dilovan (1 2), were finally deported after several days of last-minute battles to keep them in Britain. They left from Stansted airport on Tuesday August 5 by specially chartered private jet. Sarah Parker reports.
In arrival in Germany they were O
kept for several hours at Frankfurt airport. The British authorities had not sent the correct paperwork and had not informed the appropriate German authorities. If they had done the family could have been sent straight to Turkey that afternoon.
After strenuous efforts by Mrs Ay's German lawyer and the asylum rights group Pro Asyl, they were released. An application for asylum in Germany is being made. This will point out that the children have been seriously traumatised by fear of being sent to Germany and then on to Turkey, as well as by their lengthy detention. This means that they have medical grounds to be allowed to stay in Germany. The application will also point out that Mr Ay's has disappeared since being sent back to Istanbul from Germany in May 2002 and that there is an extra risk of persecution to the family caused by the publicity the case has received.
The family are not in prison and are attempting to recover from their ordeal while awaiting a decision on their case in Germany, which may happen quite quickly. Fight in British courts continues
When Mrs Ay's solicitor finally got a negative answer from the House of Lords (see SR 8), Beriwan contacted Aamer Anwar, a leading Glasgow human rights solicitor, to ask him to make a claim for asylum for the children in their own names.
This is not usual, but has been successfully done before. The Home Office were furious and put all sorts of obstacles in the solicitor's path. They told Dungavel staff not to let him in to take statements from the children. He had to argue his way in.
Then they said he couldn't represent the children, and tried to intimidate him. He lodged the claim the same night, and the next morning the Home Office moved the children to Gatwick - out of Scottish jurisdiction - in another attempt to stop Anwar from acting for them. Meanwhile they were telling the public that the claims were being looked at.
In the end they dealt with the claims. They refused them and certified them, which meant there was no legal basis to prevent the family's removal. But as a result of the children making the claim, they havet he right to appeal on their asylum claim in Britain, though this is an appeal that can only be heard after removal.
The lawyer will pursue the childrens appeal, and campaigners will keep demanding that mother and children be allowed to return to Britain. This will go on in parallel with the work in Germany. What did the campaign achieve?
Obviously the campaign did not achieve its main aim of winning the right for the Ays to stay here. But it did provide support to the family, making it easier for them to fight. They put their case as Kurdish people fighting for their rights, wanting to be accepted as Kurdish with Kurdish names. They didn't just sit there passively waiting to be deported. The fact that the case has become wellknown means there will be more people ready to protest if they lose the claim in Germany.
Their fight focused existing concerns in Scotland about Dungavel Removal Centre, Scotland's only asylum detention centre, and particularly the outrage of the detention. Asylum Seekers worked with a number of The campaign opened many people's eyes to the cruelty of the detention system and to how hardhearted Labour politicians are. MSPs from the Scottish Socialist Party but also the Scottish National Party and the Greens and a number of religious leaders to highlight these issues. Rosie Kane, SSP MSP went to Germany to support the family and to assist German MPs to make representations to the authorities on their behalf.
The campaign opened many people's eyes to the cruelty of the detention system and to how hard-hearted Labour politicians are. Both the Ays case and the general issue of children in detention received massive coverage in the Scottish press as did the failure of the Scottish Executive to act on the case.
Individual anti-deportation cases are increasingly hard to win because the law and the Home Secretary are both now so
The government is also moving to seriously cut back legal aid and restrict to five hours the time a lawyer can spend on an immigration or asylum claim. If they get away with this it will be a disaster
I think we can only start to turn the tide if we have stronger general campaigns to defend asylum rights and the right of people to live where they wish. Role of the Home Office
The Home Office knows that after they sent Mr Ay back to Germany he was then sent straight on to Turkey, where there has been no news from him. But despite this they were still unwilling to accept that it would be wrong to remove the rest of the family. This is disgusting behaviour.
The government is continuing the usual British policy of supporting the Turkish state, no matter how destructive its policies, and ignoring the Kurdish question as far as they can.
We heard that the Home Office decisions on the Ay case were coming straight from the top. But the only comment I saw from David Blunkett was when he refused the Catholic Bishop of Paisley's request that the Home Office stop using detention centres like Dungavel. He said: "We are not fortress Britain, but we cannot simply allow everyone who seeks a better life to come here."
That was like saying he thought that the Ays were economic migrants. Of course some people are economic migrants; and why shouldn't they be? Europe has a big labour shortage after all.
But Mr and Mrs Ay left Turkey because they were persecuted for being Kurds who were caught up in the war. So it's also an attempt to cover up the reality of Turkey, and the fact that the Home Office systematically refuses large numbers of people in danger of death or persecution to keep numbers down.
The tactics of Blunkett's deputy Beverley Hughes showed very neatly how the criminalisation of asylum seekers works. She took every opportunity to comment publicly on Mrs Ay's so-called immigration sins, but avoided addressing the question of why the family is desperate not to be sent to Turkey and why it is now almost impossible for people to get asylum. Demonisation and criminalisation
Because asylum seekers have been demonised and criminalised. by both media case had "no merit" she was never allowed 'that stróng immigration controls are needThere were other factors against the Ays. The case was treated as a "safe third coun try" case as the family had tried unsuccessfully to claim asylum in Germany. Germany often doesn't grant asylum to Kurds from
Of course there are grey areas and the Dublin Convention governing third country cases has some flexibility. The Home Office could have allowed the family to stay within the rules; but they obviously didn't want to Blunkett could also have allowed them to stay on compassionate grounds. Wide campaign
Many people contributed to the campaign, not least Mrs Ay and the four children who all had to stand up to incredible pressure - a year's detention punctuated by periods of hope or anxiety about the next court decision
Beriwan and Newroz did many newspaper and radio interviews, and at the last major press conference organised by Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, a phone link was set up, so thousands of peo ple heard on the TV news Beriwan describing tearfully what it was like to face deportation.
Teachers, school-friends, former neighbours from Gravesend all worked very hard to try and keep the family in Britain. The judges were aware of their letters of support. As the publicity grew, the family received lots of cards and letters from wellwishers. Members of the Dungavel Visitors' group visited regularly, as did some from the Kurdish community
A lot of ordinary people understand why refugees leave their homes and are very sympathetic. It is often easier for those who actually meet refugees and their children and hear their stories to realise that they should be welcomed
Even though the campaign was not ultimately successful, there is growing opposition out to the government's asylum policies. The challenge for activists is how to make that opposition more co-ordinated and effective. This is one more reason why the conference being called by a number of campaigns around asylum, which will hopefully take place in London on November 29 is so important. • Campaign against cuts in legal aid for asy lum and immigration cases: contact Steve Symonds at Asylum Aid on 0207 377 5123 or Tim Bastor at Bail for, Immigration Detainees on 02072473590 ni.
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