Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Turkish Kurd family loses UK asylum battle

Thomas J - repost from Guardian | 05.08.2003 14:06 | Anti-racism | Migration | Repression

(from  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Refugees_in_Britain/Story/0,2763,1012761,00.html)

A family of Turkish Kurd asylum seekers was today deported to Germany after losing a long-running battle to stay in the UK.

The Ay family, who were told that they were to leave the country this morning, were believed to have flown from Stansted airport to Frankfurt at 10.12am.

Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, who had lodged an asylum appeal on behalf of the family's four children, said that he had spoken to the Treasury solicitor, who informed him that the children were airborne.

The family had claimed that, if they were sent back to Germany, they would be returned to Turkey, where they feared they would face persecution.

There were no signs of an expected protest at the airport today, despite a high-profile campaign to allow the family to stay in the UK.

The Ays, who had been in the UK for four years, were last week transferred from Dungavel detention centre in Strathaven, Lanarkshire, where they had been held for a year, to a removal centre at Gatwick airport.

The mother, Yurdugal Ay, lost her final appeal to remain in Britain in the House of Lords on Thursday.

Afterwards, Mr Anwar lodged a fresh application for asylum on behalf of the family's four children, who are aged between seven and 14, and then said that the Home Office had refused to consider it.

Scottish Socialist MSP Rosie Kane has taken up the family's case, and has said that she will fly to Berlin to plead with German government officials not to return the family to Turkey.

The Ays have made and lost a series of applications for refugee status in Germany since first arriving there from Turkey in 1988.

After the multiple applications failed, they travelled clandestinely to Britain in a lorry in June 1999.

They faced removal when it was discovered that Germany had already dealt repeatedly with their asylum claim.

The case has caused controversy in the UK. The children are believed to hold the record for the length of time that minors have been held in an immigration detention centre, and their health is said to be suffering as a result.

The family were sent to Dungavel last July, when their mother absconded rather than returning to Germany with her husband, Salih.

He was returned to Germany last March, and the German authorities then returned him to Turkey. The family's lawyers say that he has not been heard from since.

Mr Anwar said that he was in the process of contacting members of the German government, the Green party, Amnesty International and campaign groups.

"The message we are sending to Germany is 'please do not treat the children in the same barbaric fashion that the UK government has'," he said.

Mr Anwar said that the children were issued with a third country certification at the same time as the immigration papers, meaning that they can appeal the decision to deny them asylum from outside the UK.

"We are going to appeal that from Germany on behalf of the children, and we will start work on that today," he said. "Germany continually transfers Kurds to Turkey, and then they disappear."

Thomas J - repost from Guardian

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

no answers from the left

05.08.2003 18:26

While the treatment of many asluym seekers is appaling and a disgrace on our nation, and the right wing and moderate papers get off on telling scare stories to the masses there does appear to be a silence on the left as far as what to do with the issue.

While the right uses it to firmly promote its own agenda, the left doesn't appear to have a valid comeback, other then the issue of human rights. Is the lefts answer merely to continue letting in everyone and anyone who cares to fill out an application form or is there another, more promising approach that will help see the English public see the right wing sensationalism of the subject for waht it is?

karic


interesting point

05.08.2003 22:53

i am/ by absolutely no means/ an expert on the asylum&'illegal immegrant' issue/ but i think you may have a point here/ my hearts belief is fuck borders/ but realistically that won't happen/

speaking in terms the right would appreciate/ the abandonment of national borders would solve many of the problems we have in the world/ it would create a fairer market for emloyment etc/ think about it/ people would follow the jobs and competition would take hold/ great/ just what we need/ everyone in the world competing against one another/

isn't that what the right want/

going round in circles........../

paul


borders don't help workers!

06.08.2003 10:41

I keep hearing this argument lately that migration is a neo-liberal plot against the workers.. I suspect it's being spun quite deliberately at us as another bit of divide-and-rule.

As both a trade unionist and economist I have to say it doesn't add up. Think about it. With borders firmly enforced, capital is free to move where it likes but labour cannot. What effect does that have? It means capitalists can easily shift investment to where labour costs are lowest, and workers can't do a damn thing about it. Hence, f'rinstance, manufacturing jobs going from Europe to the Far East. Workers can be played off against each other without any migration at all.

If the borders were open for people too, at least they could flee the worse conditions. Of course in itself that's no solution, what's really needed is international workers solidarity to set minimum wages and conditions for work, or even better to overthrow the whole rotten system.

But don't be fooled, borders don't help workers.

kurious


Hooray, brilliant

09.08.2003 17:32

Now all we need is to send the others back - we don't want a mongrel nation.

Johnson


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech