40. Supplementary memorandum
submitted by Louise Massamba (Brides Without Borders)
In his answer to Question 682, Andre was trying
to vocalise that we had to register our intention to marry at
the Registry Office where they checked his immigration status.
Following this we were allowed to get married as the registrar
had no concerns about the authenticity of the marriage. Then the
authenticity of the marriage was questioned. How can one Government
organisation have no issues and another then have doubts.
Another thing I would like to mention is that
during Andre's time in DRC whilst waiting for his Visa he did
experience a very negative experience at the hands of the Entry
Clearance Officer. He was asked to return to the Embassy on a
particular day at 12 noon with the medical documents. When Andre
advised the ECO he had no documentation which indicated he was
expected at the Embassy and this would be a problem because the
security officers were not allowed to let anyone into the Embassy
without he was advised not to worry as the ECO would phone the
gate and add him on the list of expected attendees for the day.
When he arrived at the Embassy at 11.15 he waited to be called
in but after four hours he was still outside in temperatures of
110 Degrees. It was only when he asked an employee of the Embassy
who was returning to work to tell the ECO he was outside that
he was admitted. When he entered the ECO was extremely disrespectful
and demanded to know why he was late.
Andre explained he was outside for over four
hours and it was the ECO's fault he was late not his and he thought
the ECO owed him an apology for his own mistake he was spoken
to very unprofessionally and told he would get no apology and
he was lucky his application was being dealt with at all. This
is wholly unacceptable and another symptom of lack of respect
for human beings. It only leads us to believe that the whole system
is set up to be as oppressive as possible in the hope that applications
for visa's will decrease. Government employees are representatives
of the state and this clearly shows they need basic training in
public relations. Power can be a terrible thing!!!
I would be most grateful if you could add this
to the evidence as Andre only spoke about it at a later date.
He had only been back in the UK two days when we gave evidence
and really had not had much time for him to relive his whole experience
in the DRC before coming to London.
I would like to thank you for giving us the
opportunity to express ourselves.
May 2006
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