UK Border Agency Offices, General Buildings, 31-33 Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 6AB

This Wednesday 20th August at 12 noon, No Borders South Wales will be holding one of our regular pickets outside the UK Border Agency offices on Newport Road, Cardiff. (map)

These are the offices where people made the decision to deport Ama Sumani to her death, who tried to deport Kemi and Taiwo and their baby, who has put Jean Pierre in detention, who refused Babi Badalov the right to remain, where the snatch squads leave from, where local asylum seekers have to sign and are treated like criminals. 

We hang banners, hold placards and distribute leaflets to draw attention to the activities of the UK Border Agency. The pickets only last for an hour, between 12noon and 1pm, so take  your lunch break from work, study or whatever else with us to demonstrate your solidarity with migrants and show that we won’t tolerate the brutal practises that take place inside the building!

At our last picket, one of our activists was interviewed live on Radio Cardiff. you can listen to that interview here.

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There isn’t a No Border Camp planned in the UK this year, as there was last year near Gatwick. There are however three camps planned this August and September across mainland Europe. No Border Camps act as a focal point of resistance to border regimes, and are also an opportunity for communication between different section of the free migration movement through debate and cultural events.

Antira Summer Camp will be happening in Hamburg, the largest port city in Germany on 16th - 24th August in conjunction with a Climate Action Camp. There will be workshops, talks, film showing, concerts and direct action against a number of targets, not least Hamburg’s charter deportation airport. A demo is planned at Hamburg airport on the 21th August. Coincidentally, on the very same day, an ‘Ethnic Charter flight’ to Nigeria will be leaving the UK. Flight PVT640 (one of numerous charter flights that forcibly deport people back to places they have risked everything to escape) will carry families and individuals and is due to leave the UK at 10.00. In Austria it will connect with Flight PVT641, presumably to pick up more Nigerian refugees who have been denied sanctuary there. It is due to leave Austria at 15.20 and arrive in Lagos at 22.30.

No Border Camp - Patras will take place on 29th - 31st in the Greek port city that has a shantytown which is home to thousands of refugees. There will be discussions, parties, solidarity actions and demos.

Dikili No Border Camp will take place on 3rd - 7th September at Alder Beach, Dikili-Izmir, Turkey from where huge numbers of migrants leave to attempt to enter the EU.

No Borders is a transnational network, these camps are no less part of our network because they do not take place on this island, reports from all these camps will appear on this blog in due course.

Cardiff Radical Socialist Forum is an arena for discussion amongst left wing people in the Cardiff area. Taking place once a month upstairs at the Model Inn, Quay Street, Cardiff (map), each forum has tackled a different subject. The next forum on Wednesday 3rd September, 7.30pm, will be about immigration.

No Borders South Wales will be giving a presentation on the case for free migration, going through the arguments for abolishing all border controls and examining the current state of UK border controls, resistance against this and why socialists should engage with that resistance.

In private socialists will say they are in favour of free migration, it is, after all, the only true socialist position on immigration (“Workers of the world unite”). However in public many left wing groups and parties are ominously quiet on the issue, claiming that such a demand is “too advanced” or “too abstract” to argue in public. We believe the issue of freedom of movement is too important to ignore. Anyone of a left wing persuasion should come along and engage in the discussion. 

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Immigration and inclusion in South Wales by Terry Threadgold, Sadie Clifford, Abdi Arwo, Vanessa Powell, Zahera Harb, Xinyi Jiang and John Jewell has recently been published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Well worth a read; it makes important points about how integration is much smoother for migrants who are allowed to work and points out that social class is a highly significant factor in determining life changes for everyone, migrant or otherwise.

The Trade Union Congress & Refugee Council Right to Work campaign aims to overturn the 2002 legislation that denies asylum applicants the ability to seek employment of any kind. The altering of the inequalities of social and economic hierarchy in the UK will require a class struggle of wider proportions.

in other news

There has been further coverage of Kemi and Taiwo’s case here, and here. Jean-Pierre has also been the subject of a news story featured on WalesOnline, which was picked up by Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns continue to cover all our anti-deportation campaigns in detail.

Meanwhile this blog has been featured by Aya’s Blog review and Our blog review you can review us for yourself on Blog Catalog . There is now also a facebook group, plus you can become a fan on technorati.

Pregnant mother Kemi Ayinde and family have been told this week that their application for a Judicial Review of their asylum claim has been refused. They are liable to be detained and deported at any time.

The family returned to Cardiff three weeks ago after being detained in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, after being snatched by UK Border agents from their home in the early hours of 17th June this year.

Two attempts were made to deport the family in July but after a high profile campaign and an application for a Judicial Review, the family were released.

Kemi has been told that the baby is not growing normally and her pregnancy may have to be terminated. Her GP and midwife have both stated that they believe that the problems she is having with her pregnancy have been caused by the stress and shock of being detained and threatened with deportation.

Kemi’s partner Taiwo has volunteered with Sue Ryder Cancer Care in Cardiff in the past and is due to begin volunteering with the Big Issue Cymru next week. He says

“Me and my family hope to be able to stay in Cardiff where we have made many friends and where we feel welcomed.”

Tuesday evening friends and supporters of Babi Badalov got together for a curry and a chat about how the campaign is going. The appeal against the rejection of Babi’s asylum application was recently dismissed. This means he is in a state of legal limbo and may be subject to detention or deportation. However Babi’s solicitor is filing a fresh claim for asylum. Considering what faces him in Azerbaijan, being granted asylum should be a formality, however the reality in the 21st Century UK means it’s far from that.

Please take time to help Babi’s campaign, sending letters to Jacqui Smith, the local media and telling everyone you know about his situation and encourage them to do the same. There has been more coverage of the campaign online from Therion, Global Voices Online, Caravan23 and Pinknews.

News of Babi’s campaign has also reached Azerbaijan and hit the headlines there. Making it even more dangerous for him to be forcibly sent back. The Home Office regularly deports people that it accepts have been persecuted because of their sexuality, stating that they should go and live in another part of the country and hide their sexuality. Such inhumane treatment shouldn’t have to be endured by anyone. For Babi, such a proposal was even less viable because of his visibility as a well known artist, and now that his sexuality has been made so public, living a life hiding in the shadows would be an absolute impossibility.

Amongst the supporters of Babi’s campaign who came for a curry were Kemi, Taiwo and their baby Yasim. They still have the threat of deportation hanging over them and still need your support.

Picket of the Home Office in Cardiff.

We will be holding another of our monthly pickets of the UK Border Agency, 31-33 Newport Road, Cardiff, on Wednesday 20th August at 12 noon. The pickets generally last for an hour.

Whilst Jean Pierre languishes in Campsfield IRC in Oxfordshire, a volunteer from Asylum Welcome, a charity based in Oxford which helps asylum seekers, refugees and detainees, has a plan of action to stop Jean Pierre disappearing into the prison system in Cameroon, should he be deported.

As in many other countries, on arrival back to Cameroon, deportees are handed over to security forces by immigration officials. Deported refugees often simply disappear into the prison system of the country they have fled. Jean Pierre will undoubtedly face further persecution if this happens to him, as is very likely.

The plan consists of money being sent to a trusted friend in Cameroon on the day any deportation takes place. This money will then be used at the airport and buy Jean Pierre some valuable time so that he can go into hiding. This has been done successfully with other deportees on two previous occasions.

Money is currently being collected. Any donations that you can help with would be much appreciated and could make all the difference to Jean Pierre. If you would like to make a donation please email us

Another deportation flight leaves without one of it's unwilling passengers!

Despite the Home Office’s desire to deport Jean Pierre, on Kenya Airways’ notorious flight KQ101, Jean Pierre didn’t fly yesterday. We’re still not sure what caused the deportation to be cancelled. Appeals to Kenya Airlines to refuse to carry him appeared to fall on deaf ears. Likewise the Home Office, though they actually gave a response, it was hardly illuminating:

You will appreciate the information contained in applications made to the UK Border Agency is treated as strictly confidential and cannot be disclosed to other persons. This reflects the Agency’s legal obligations under Common Law, Human Rights and Data Protection legislation, and the treatment of private personal information under the code of practice on Access to information. It is therefore regrettable that we are unable to comment on the particular details of this case.

Early in the morning we received a phone call from Jean Pierre saying that he’d been told by a guard on his wing that he wouldn’t be flying because they didn’t have enough escorts for him. He also sent the following email out to all his supporters:

Just to let know that the officer in my wing tall me this morning that my flight has been cancel because there was no escort vehicle available for me for today and another one will be booked as soon as possible.

So please watch this space, I will soon need your help again

When we heard this news we were obviously elated, but also dubious about whether the guard was in fact telling the truth. In many cases refugee prisoners in detention centres have been fed false information in order to confuse both them and their supporters. But as the day drew on, and Jean Pierre still hadn’t been taken, it became more apparent that he would indeed be staying.

At 8.30pm half an hour after his plane had flown, we received another phone call from Jean Pierre. He said that the guards had told him that they were taking him to the airport. Jean Pierre refused to go with the guards until they told him where they were taking him. After quite some time he was told that he was going to be moved to Dover detention prison.

Tactics like this, ‘ghosting‘ people around the country at night, out of the eye of the public, are a common reality for those who have to endure time in one of the UK’s ten detention prisons (’Immigration Removal Centres’). They cut people off from their supporters, and make it more difficult for them to keep in contact with legal representatives. But Jean Pierre refused to go, and following a number of phone calls to their superiors, the guards informed him that he wouldn’t be moving to Dover IRC after all.

Jean Pierre is still in Campsfield IRC but hasn’t received new removal directions yet. We are still looking for ways to get him out and back to Cardiff where he belongs! Thanks to everyone who sent faxes, emails, letters and made phone calls to the airline and the Home Office! As Jean Pierre said in his email, watch this space he may soon need your help to stop his deportation once again.

Jean Pierre Gueutchue’s removal flight at 8pm today (Monday 21st July) is on the notorious flight KQ101. This Kenya Airways flight has been charted by the Home Office to forcibly deport ‘failed’ asylum seekers to Nairobi, from where they are flown all over Africa and handed over to the local authorities.

In October 2007 the Independent newspaper reported

The echo of George Orwell’s Room 101 is unhappily appropriate. On this Kenya Airways jet, many asylum-seekers’ worst nightmares do come true. KQ101 is the deportation flight chartered by the British Government to return refugees to Africa. According to human rights groups, this flight carries out the most Africa-bound removals of unsuccessful asylum applicants to the UK. It has also become a flight that has attracted allegations of abuse by guards.

The Home Office has a number of contracts with airlines for removal flights of failed asylum-seekers. Kenya Airways admit that it has one of these government contracts, but claims that “We have not received any complaints about these flights” - lets change that for a start!

Kenya Airways’ slogan is “The Pride of Africa” and like all large corporations they like to maintain a positive public image, it is sickly ironic, given their involvement in mass deportation, that one of the charities they support is Born Free.

Of course abuse is not limited to this particular flight, Stephanie Toumi was so badly assaulted by four Group 4 Securicor (G4S) guards on her deportation flight to Cameroon last month that she now has to use a wheelchair.

The escorts threw themselves on me. One scraped me and I fell on my stomach, the other trapped my arms, twisting them behind and the other two put on handcuffs. I felt a very severe pain in my body and I wanted to twist my right foot to get up, but one of them totally paralysed this foot by giving me a sharp blow with his knee.

Such stories are becoming all too common, the abuse of deportees by private companies in forced removals has been well documented in the June 2008 report Outsourcing Abuse.

Jean Pierre Gueutche’s Last Chance

This Monday 21st July please take just a few minutes to send faxes and make phone calls to raise your objection to this deportation. Bombarding the airline and Home Office seems to be Jean Pierre’s last hope, as all legal avenues have been exhausted. Pressure on the carrying airline has been shown to be effective, as with the last-minute Kemi Ayinde campaign where British Airways refused to fly her.

1) Send faxes all day Monday to Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith, Secretary of State for the Home Office using this model letter asking that Jean Pierre Gueutchue be granted protection in the UK.
Fax: 020 7035 3262 (+ 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK)
E-mail: Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

2) Send urgent faxes all day Monday to Sam Okwulehie, Group Area Manager Kenya Airways using this model letter, urging them not to participate in forcibly removing a victim of torture.
Fax: 020 8745 5027 (+44 20 8745 5027from outside the UK)
Tel: 020 8283 1800 (+ 44 2082 831 800 from outside the UK)
Email: contact@kenya-airways.com
Also try this ‘emergencies only’ telephone no: 020 8759 7366

Media coverage of the campaign: Media Wales, News Wales.

Jean Pierre Gueutchue is currently detained at Campsfield House IRC and is due to be forcibly removed on July 21st at 8pm on Kenyan Airways Flight 101.

Jean Pierre fled Cameroon and arrived in the UK in 2003 where he made a claim for asylum.

In Cameroon he was imprisoned and tortured for his political activity with the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), a secessionist movement that has been declared illegal in Cameroon. In prison he was subjected to torture including being kicked, whipped and a practice called ‘falaka’, which is a where a victim’s legs are tied together and soles of the feet are beaten with the flat surface of a machete.

Jean Pierre suffers flashbacks, intrusive memories, nightmares about being tortured and is being medicated for depression, post traumatic stress disorder and sleep disturbances.

Jean Pierre also suffers from Hepatitis C and Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales has stated that it is vital that Jean Pierre’s health is reviewed in relation to his Hepatitis C treatment in October this year.

In the light of the current situation facing members of the SCNC in Cameroon and Jean Pierre’s health status, he should be offered protection in the UK.

See Jean Pierre’s campaign page for more background information.

What you can do to help:

1) Send urgent faxes immediately to Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith using this model letter, Secretary of State for the Home Office asking that Jean Pierre Gueutchue be granted protection in the UK.

Fax: 020 7035 3262 (00 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK)
E-mail: Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

2) Send urgent faxes to Sam Okwulehie, Group Area Manager Kenya Airways using this model letter, urging them not to participate in forcibly removing a victim of torture.

Fax: 020 87455027(+44  020 87455027 from outside the UK)
Tel: 020 82831800 (+44 20 82831800 from outside the UK)