Report on protest at removals.    There was snow on Wednesday 6^th January so many people who wanted to be at the protest couldn’t make it, and many assumed the removal would be cancelled.

However, even though the Bristol buses weren’t running at that time in the morning, the coach for Cardiff turned up.

Asylum seekers were arriving, some with cases, some just with bags, one man carrying his belongings in a black plastic bin liner.

There were probably 50 friends and supporters to show their solidarity, and protest at the treatment.

All the people being removed were men, some who had lived in Bristol for many years, some with family .. wives, partners  and children they were leaving behind, some who had worked and paid taxes - one for 6 years before he had suddenly had his employment rights taken away, one who was receiving regular and essential hospital treatment.

Refugee Action were not involved in the removal. They hadn’t been consulted and when informed about it had expressed their concern. The location was chosen as a pick up point presumably because all the asylum seekers would know where it was and how to get there.

As far as I could tell, no one was in charge of the process apart from the bus driver who was checking people’s papers. We queried some of the cases by phoning up MP Kerry McCarthy’s secretary who advised some not to go. In response to previous messages, Kerry McCarthy MP, Stephen Williams MP and Steve Webb MP had expressed concern to the UK Border Agency and challenged the reasons for the removal. Their support and speaking out is really appreciated but it was a shame that there was no person there to represent them and witness what is being done in our name.

We believe that 22 people went on the coach in the end. I think our presence there made a difference to the asylum seekers and their friends, lifting their spirits to some extent and restoring some dignity. We gave them details of Cardiff support groups and phone numbers. Many of us, including the friends put up some passive resistance, with snow sculptures and linking arms and singing and chanting. The police presence increased and we were removed!!

The BBC were there the whole time filming and interviewing and the report was on radio and throughout the day on TV. They have been thanked for their interest.

We should continue to protest and express our concern. The MPs who have questioned this action have not yet been given credible or satisfactory answers.  We believe that the people who decided and implemented this removal should be held to account  and there should be no further removals.

Please sign our petition by going to the following site :-

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dignitynotdestitution

Thousands of people fleeing conflict or persecution seek sanctuary in Britain. Three out of four of them are refused, but for various reasons it is impossible for them to return to their home country. They remain here, often for long periods of time, living in poverty, lacking adequate support from public services, and denied the right to support themselves by taking paid work.

Believing that such people deserve to be treated fairly, humanely and with dignity, we call on the Government to :-
- end the threat and use of destitution as a tool of Government policy against refused asylum seekers;
- provide all asylum-seekers with adequate financial support and access to public services, including health care and education;
- give such support in the form of cash, and end the use of supermarket gift cards;
- allow asylum-seekers, including those whose application has been refused, the right to work if, after six months in the asylum process, they have neither left the UK nor been given leave to remain.

Sue Njie

15th July 1951 – 15th July 2009

Bristol Refugee Rights and its Refugee Welcome Centre grew out of Sue Njie’s vision and determination.

It was Sue who, during the past ten years, saw the gap in provision for people newly arrived in Bristol, who seek asylum in UK, and set about organising for it to be filled.

She recognised the way isolation and exclusion affect asylum seekers in Britain. She understood the importance of a place where asylum seekers could come together, feel welcomed, and begin to find the support they so desperately needed. She knew, from many years community work experience, that to start things you have to take risks – have to be prepared to put yourself on the line. She took every opportunity that presented itself to speak about this need, to bring together a steering group, to attain wider recognition for the project, argue the case often in the face of scepticism and discouragement, to raise initial funds and to realise her dream. In April 2006 the doors opened, with a hot meal and a handful of volunteers.

Since then, the centre has grown enormously and gone through many changes – in name (from the imaginative but impossible to keep repeating Holding Refugees and Human Rights in Mind to the snappier Bristol Refugee Rights, in location (St Paul’s to Easton), in staff and volunteers, in users of the service, and in the Board of Trustees. It is now becoming recognised as a meeting point and real resource for new arrivals in Bristol. But it has remained firmly based in Sue’s initial vision – a place of welcome for asylum seekers and new refugees, where people from all over the world meet each other as human beings, and form a community that grows and works together.

Innovation of this kind requires more than dotting i’s and crossing t’s. It requires passionate commitment, insistence, clarity of purpose, and refusal to be diverted. Sue had all this. And as well she had a huge heart, and a capacity to meet and respond to everyone equally. Besides the strength to inspire and initiate, she noticed and responded to individual need. This is how she will be remembered by many dozens of people – for her generosity, wisdom born of experience, her straightforward kindness and her capacity to meet, appreciate and enjoy people on their own terms.

She leaves a profound sense of loss but also a powerful legacy – in the flourishing voluntary community groups she worked so hard to establish, and also in personal gratitude from an astonishing number of people in every walk of life in Bristol, including many users of the Refugee Welcome Centre.

BRR sends deep condolences to Josh and all Sue’s friends

2 coaches went to London for the Strangers into Citizens rally in Trafalgar Square on 4^th May, on coaches organised by Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers campaign. .  The great majority were asylum seekers.  The atmosphere was lively.  It was great to be amongst a few thousand others who feel that people seeking asylum should be treated as human beings, have the right to work, and be welcomed in Britain.  As someone said on the way back “I didn’t know that there were so many people who knew and cared about our situation” and someone else:  “I felt hope knocking on the door”.

Feedback from 24 Welcome Centre service users who attended the rally

27^th April was the first public meeting for our service users, and a fitting celebration of 3 years since the centre opened in April 2006.  It was exceptionally well attended – perhaps 150.  The majority were people who come to the Welcome Centre, and we arranged the hall in café style, in tables based on language groups.  There was a very good supporting turnout from our volunteers and trustees, and also from the congregation of St Nick’s.  Two councillors came and spoke.  The atmosphere was buzzing, alive and focussed on the injustice and indignities of the asylum system, with a strong sense of community amongst those present.  

Minoo Jalali spoke forcefully about her experience as a solicitor working on behalf of asylum claimants.  We then broke into language group discussions, and refreshments were taken round by volunteers.  Then people experiencing the system were invited to speak.  5 people took courage to stand and speak to the pin-drop silent attention of everyone in the hall.  M from Zimbabwe, A from Eritrea, M from South America, I from Somalia and A from Rwanda, spoke in different ways of the psychological torture of uncertainty and humiliation as they seek refuge in Britain.  Fleeing from one kind of persecution and suffering they have found another here in UK.  

UK residents were invited to suggest ways of working and campaigning to change asylum legislation and support people seeking asylum in Bristol.  

·       Attending and supporting the Defend Asylum Seekers Campaign which meets first Tuesday of each month at Malcolm X centre

·       Buying supermarket gift cards to give cash to those on Section 4

·       Through local groups and churches, collecting signatures on the petition “Dignity not Destitution” for a group presentation to local MPs

·       Attending the rally on 4^th May in London “Strangers into Citizens”

Feedback from everyone attending the meeting was very positive indeed, with asylum seekers and refugees expressing relief at feeling heard.   

See how the Bristol Bike project is helping refugees here :-

http://www.thebristolbikeproject.blogspot.com/

Bristol Refugee Rights - Membership Newsletter No.2   March 2009

“STRANGERS INTO CITIZENS”

Bristol Refugee Rights believes that people seeking sanctuary in Britain should be treated fairly, humanely and with dignity.  Among other reforms, we want asylum seekers to be given the right to work, in order to end the destitution which many suffer while they are awaiting a resolution of their asylum claim.

With this in mind, we are jointly organising a public meeting with the church of St Nicholas Tolentino on Monday 27 April at 7.30 pm.  It will take place on the St Nicholas church premises (junction of Stapleton Road and Lawford’s Gate, Easton). We are inviting all BRR members and supporters to come, together with the refugees and asylum seekers who attend our weekly Welcome Centre.

Our guest speaker, Minoo Jalali, a human rights lawyer with great experience of the asylum control system, and herself someone who came to the UK as a refugee, will explain how the asylum system forces thousands of people, through no fault of their own, to spend months, sometimes years, living in poverty, denied adequate support from public services, and denied the right to support themselves by taking paid employment.

The demand that they should have the right to work has the support of many organisations, including Amnesty International UK, Refugee Action, the Refugee Council, trade unions and employers’ organisations and many faith groups.  It will be one of the issues raised at a big national “Strangers into Citizens” rally in Trafalgar Square, London, on Monday 4 May, a week after our Bristol meeting.  Asylum seekers resident in Bristol will be going to the rally, and BRR members who would like to be there can book places on the coaches taking campaigners to it by ringing 0117 9441481

In preparation for our own meeting, we attach a copy of a petition form which already has much support.  We ask you, please, to invite people to sign it and to bring the completed form with you on 27 April, or send it to us.  The petition forms will then be taken by a group of asylum seekers to the surgery of one of our Bristol MPs.

Please put the date – 27 April – in your diary, tell your friends about the campaign, and bring them with you to St Nicholas Tolentino.

Refugee Week 2009 will take place from 15 - 21 June 2009. During Refugee Week hundreds of events exploring refugee experiences take place across the UK. These range from small community and school activities to art exhibitions, political debates, film screenings, conferences, big music festivals, sports events etc