Note submitted by Mr Nicholas Bond
LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE
GOVERNMENT POLICY
ON POLITICAL
ASYLUM APPLICANTS
IN DETENTION
On Tuesday evenings I visit Harmondsworth Immigration
Detention Centre (both DA and JA blocks) after work, as part of
a group. I have raised some concerns with my own MP, and have
been directed by a member of her office staff to contact you in
your capacity as Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee.
I would like to raise the following issues:
1. Detainees are very distressed that they
are treated like criminals although they have committed no crime.
They would understand a fixed and known duration of detention
(eg one month), but at present they do not know if they will be
released tomorrow or in two years' time!
2. I have spoken to a number of torture victims.
I think it is wrong that they are being detained.
3. Detainees have to share rooms. This means
that a torture victim will have to get undressed in a shared room
each night, exposing torture wounds to the sight of his or her
room-mate? This can be deeply humiliating. How would a man such
as John in attached case A feel?
4. Detainees feel frightened to complain
about abuses in case they are branded trouble-makers and deported.
I heard a claim that a detainee had his mouth taped while being
transferred from one centre to another. Recently a member of Group
4 described a colleague as a bitch ("tell the bitch to. .
.") in my presence in the signing-in portacabin (DA Block).
What is to stop her abusing a detainee?
5. I have spoken to a middle aged, far from
athletic man, in JA Block, who was handcuffed before being taken
to Harmondsworth. In his country of origin, being handcuffed was
the prelude to having teeth punched out as a start to the torture
he suffered.
6. Torture Victims may not like to reveal
more about their suffering than necessary (see case B attached).
They may tell what they think is enough to obtain Political Asylum,
and only reveal the true horrors as a last resort. This means
that they may fail on first hearing, but succeed on appeal after
a full medical examination. However, the lack of legal aid at
appeal stage effectively rules out the ability to appeal.
7. Members of our group have seen several
children in detention, either with mothers or unaccompanied in
the last year or so. On 28 April a number of us saw a 15 year
old girl (Magdalene Uwaifo from Nigeria—Date of birth—Feb
1983) in DA Block.
8. On 28 April I spoke to a man who had been
badly tortured. The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims
of Torture is currently compiling a report following a visit.
He has developed toothache, but on 27 April he was told that he
can only see a dentist if he goes handcuffed. Apart from the humiliation,
this would risk giving him flash-backs and panic attacks as he
was handcuffed during torture. He feels no choice but to put up
with his toothache.
9. On 15 July 1996 (Hansard columns 808 and
813) Jack Straw said that a Labour government would not operate
the White List elements of the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act
and described aspects of the Act as:
One year later, the Labour Government is not
only operating the Act but planning to increase the number of
detention centres.
I feel I must draw your attention to the suffering
caused to torture victims and others by current Home Office policies
towards Political Asylum Applicants. In detention they are shut
away, unpopular, humiliated, depressed, and in despair and have
no effective voice of their own.
2 May 1998
CASE A: JOHN
Client from Nigeria with complex story where
medical evidence essential
John was a Christian minister in Nigeria, as
was his father. His father was critical of the government's handling
of the oil deposits in the area and the family were persecuted
in consequence. He himself was arrested and beaten with whips
and batons on many occasions between 1990 and 1992. He was accused
of inciting people to oppose government policy.
In December 1993 he was arrested while conducting
a church service along with his mother, brother and sister, and
almost everyone else in the church who had not already been shot.
Arriving at the church almost unconscious from beatings already
received, he was then stripped, handcuffed and beaten further
with a whip, a metal rod, and a chair leg. He was suspended by
his wrists and beaten on his feet. The following day he was brought
into a room with his mother. Both were stripped and abused in
front of each other. His interrogators then shot his mother in
the legs. She collapsed bleeding and was then killed in front
of him. He was threatened with the same treatment.
In the days that followed John was subjected
to further torture, including being forced to sit on a broken
bottle and having a large needle passed through his penis and
scrotum.
Eventually he escaped from detention through
bribery and was assisted in fleeing to the UK for a large sum,
in spite of the fact that he was a wanted man for whose capture
a substantial reward was offered. He was escorted to London, where
he was left after one night. He had no idea what to do about claiming
asylum. He knew no one in the UK at all. After a while he met
people at a church, including other Nigerians and a lawyer who
helped him to apply for asylum.
Initially the Home Office proposed to consider
his case under the Short Procedure. However, John found good legal
advice from an experienced asylum lawyer and support and help
from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.
Following representations from them, the Home Office agreed that
his case needed to be dealt with in more depth, including the
submission of medical and psychiatric evidence.
John is in a very vulnerable psychological state,
being cared for in a special hostel. He will probably need surgery
for his injuries.
Without the benefit of legal advice, and help
from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture,
it is likely that John's case would have been dealt with rapidly.
It is most doubtful whether the full horror of what John had suffered
would have emerged.
CASE B: SARAH
Case where last minute medical evidence was
crucial
Under the proposed new procedures, Sarah
would be even less likely to be able to produce the essential
evidence needed to allow her to remain in the UK
Sarah's husband was an opposition activist in
Zaire. Following an incident of soldiers being attacked by youths
in her area, soldiers raided her house. She was gang-raped, her
brothers-in-law shot dead when they tried to protect her and her
husband arrested. She had no news about her husband and a few
days after the incident soldiers had tried to discover where she
was. She immediately fled the country.
This was the account given by Sarah to the Home
Office. While both they and the Adjudicator believed her story,
they formed the impression that it was an isolated revenge attack
and that she would not be in danger if she returned. Without proper
legal advice, Sarah did not know she needed to explain her husband's
political involvement, that her attackers thought that she shared
her husband's political views, that the men who raped her had
also threatened to kill her. Nor did she find it possible to reveal
to officials the full details of her rape. It was only with a
doctor and counsellors whom she trusted that the full extent of
what she had suffered came to light. A medical report from the
Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture provided
evidence of the rape she had suffered. Under the Government's
new speeded up procedures, the essential details of Sarah's case
would be even less likely to come to light.
Although the Adjudicator had recommended that,
because Sarah was "an honest young woman who has suffered
and witnessed appalling brutality" about whom he had "serious
doubts as to her ability to cope without expert help", she
should be given Exceptional Leave to Remain, the Home Office refused.
Instead they made arrangements to deport her. It was only because
it was possible for further evidence to be gathered, submitted
and considered, that eventually the Home Office allowed her to
stay and receive the help which as a torture victim she so much
needs.
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