LGBT Asylum News: Demonstration to end destitution of refused asylum seekers in UK

Sunday 7 June 2009

Demonstration to end destitution of refused asylum seekers in UK

Saturday 20th June as part of Refugee Week. It will start at 12 noon at Embankment and head off past Westminster to Trafalgar Square, where a rally in support of asylum seekers will be held.

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Amnesty International groups in London have teamed up with the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, Hackney Refugee & Migrant Support Group, London Detainee Support Group and others to organise a demonstration calling for an end to the destitution of refused asylum seekers.

The march takes place on Saturday 20th June as part of Refugee Week. It will start at 12 noon at Embankment and head off past Westminster to Trafalgar Square, where a rally in support of asylum seekers will be held.

Thousands of asylum seekers in the UK who have had their claims to asylum refused find themselves trapped in utter destitution. Most are refugees from countries torn apart by conflict where human rights abuses are rife. They cannot return to their countries of origin for fear of their lives. Yet they are prohibited from working in the UK and cut off from receiving benefits. They are condemned to live in poverty, dependent on the charity of others and vulnerable to the worst kinds of exploitation.

Many people have acknowledged the need to change a system that condemns refugees to poverty. A report in March last year by the Independent Asylum Commission states that the UK's treatment of asylum seekers "falls seriously below the standards of civilised society". The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP wrote in a recent report for the Centre for Social Justice that "the policy of making asylum seekers destitute is mean and nasty and has not worked".

Speakers at the rally will include: Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK; Jeremy Corbyn MP; Maurice Wren, director of Asylum Aid; Donna Covey, director of the Refugee Council; Jean Roger Kaseki, human rights campaigner from the Democratic Republic ofCongo; Marilyn Bonzo, refugee from Zimbabwe; Makola Mayimbika, Poetic Justice;Emma Ginn, Medical Justice; and Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism.

Amnesty International is part of StillHuman Still Here, a broad coalition of 29 organisations campaigning to bring all refused asylum seekers out of destitution by extending asylum support, permission to work, and access to healthcare and education until they are safe to return or granted leave to remain.

The coalition also includes the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, the Red Cross, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and the Archbishop's Council of the Church of England.

Amnesty International groups in London have teamed up with the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, Hackney Refugee & Migrant Support Group, London Detainee Support Group and others to organise a demonstration calling for an end to the destitution of refused asylum seekers.

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Northern March Against Immigration Prisons!

Saturday 20th June 2009
Assemble 11:00 am
Centre for Life
Newcastle (Next to Central Station)

Tyneside Community Action for Refugees has called a Northern March Against Detention centres to highlight the grim reality that many refugees and other migrants have faced in Britain's Immigration Prisons.

At present there are a total of 3,105 bed spaces, in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) and Short Term Holding Facilities (STHFs), a planed increase of 1,300 bed spaces will bring the capacity to 4,405

For more information please contact: