To organisations in Europe

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday June 21, 2002 12:24 by Legal Action for Women, Black Women's Rape Action Project crossroadswomenscentre at compuserve dot com Legal Action for Women Crossroads Women's Centre PO Box 287 London NW6 5QU 020 7482 2496

URGENT APPEAL FOR ENDORSEMENT FOR PUBLIC LETTER OPPOSING LATEST REPRESSIVE IMMIGRATION LAW IN EU

Dear Friends, We are inviting organisations across Europe to endorse the enclosed letter to the press. We are submitting the letter for publication to coincide with the British Parliament debate on the latest government Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, on 11 & 12 June, and with Refugee Week which is starting on Saturday 15 June. As the main parties all over Europe adopt the extreme immigration policies of the extreme right, our opposition must also be Europe wide. We hope you will add your organisation to this letter. Please get back to us as soon as possible so we can compile the list which will be circulated at various actions during Refugee Week. Please forward to other groups in your networks. Yours sincerely, Nina Lopez-Jones, co-ordinator

10 June 2002

To organisations in Europe

URGENT APPEAL FOR ENDORSEMENT FOR PUBLIC LETTER OPPOSING LATEST REPRESSIVE IMMIGRATION LAW IN ENGLAND AND EUROPE

Dear Friends,

We are inviting organisations across Europe to endorse the enclosed letter to the press. We are submitting the letter for publication to coincide with the British Parliament debate on the latest government Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, on 11 & 12 June, and with Refugee Week which is starting on Saturday 15 June.

As the main parties all over Europe adopt the extreme immigration policies of the extreme right, our opposition must also be Europe wide.

We hope you will add your organisation to this letter. Please get back to us as soon as possible so we can compile the list which will be circulated at various actions during Refugee Week.

Please forward to other groups in your networks.

Yours sincerely,

Nina Lopez-Jones, co-ordinator

Legal Action for Women Crossroads Women's Centre PO Box 287 London NW6 5QU Tel: 020 7482 2496 minicom/voice Fax: 020 7209 4761 E-mail: crossroadswomenscentre@compuserve.com <

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LETTER TO PRESS

While claiming to abhor Le Pen and other extreme right parties, European governments are increasingly adopting their extreme immigration policies.

The Immigration, Nationality & Asylum Bill now in Parliament introduces an unprecedented (in Britain) apartheid system for asylum seekers and immigrants. The proposed "Induction", "Accommodation" and "Removal" Centres impose imprisonment without trial on people who have committed no crime. Accused of "swamping schools", children seeking asylum would lose the protection of the Children Act and given a segregated "education" in detention. Forced dispersal would continue, denying vulnerable people access to independent legal advice, health care, churches, family and community support; as would the scandal of having to survive on 30% less than poverty-line benefits. And measures like ID cards first imposed on asylum seekers are now planned for everyone.

While it is widely recognized that victims of rape and other torture need time to be able to speak about their experiences and gather evidence, "fast-tracking" reduces appeal rights, making it harder for survivors to claim the protection they are entitled to. The hated One-Year Rule which traps immigrant women in violent marriages and which the government claimed to have abolished, is being expanded to two years.

The US and European arms trade profit from wars and dictatorships which cause the impoverishment and displacement of millions of people worldwide. Those who try to escape such devastation by emigrating or seeking asylum are then accused of "flooding Europe", detained and sent back.

Recent leaks indicate that the military is to be used to deport people en masse. "Aid" is to be withheld from countries unless they take back nationals who fled in fear of their lives. Germany even wants to sell asylum seekers to Third World governments, their own nationals as well as others - a new trafficking or slave trade.

Condemnation of these policies has been minimal among prominent human rights organizations. Many have accepted funding to implement previous repressive legislation. The government now plans to use them to carry out deportations - labelled "compulsory return" schemes. We urge everyone to reconsider such present and future collaboration, and reaffirm that there is such a thing as society.

SIGNED BY

ON BEHALF OF (ORGANISATION)

Signatories as of 18 June 2002

Legal Action for Women
Black Women's Rape Action Project

And the following organisations and prominent individuals:
African Liberation Support Campaign
Asian Women Unit
Association Of Refugees And Asylum Seekers In Ireland – ARASI
Associazione di volontariato Un mondo di mondi
Asylum from Rape Initiative - Women Against Rape
Bangla 2000
Barbed Wire Britain
Black Racial Attacks Independent Network
Black Community Forum Ltd, Sheffield
Black Women for Wages for Housework
Brighton & Hove TUC Unemployed Workers Centre
Brighton & Hove District Trades Union Council
Brighton & Hove UNISON - Local Government
British Somali Community Cultural Council
Cambridgeshire Against Refugee Detention
Campaign To Stop Arbitrary Detention At Yarl's Wood
Catholic Association for Racial Justice
Centro de Defensa y Estudio de Derechos Humanos - CEDEHU (Madrid, Spain),
Hugo Charlton, Home Affairs Speaker for the Green Party
Louise Christian, human rights lawyer
CGIL Regione Toscana Sezione Immigrati (Italy)
Churches' Commission for Racial Justice
Close Campsfield Campaign
Close Down Harmondsworth
Steve Cohen, Barrister
Collectif Anti-Expulsions d'Ile de France (France)
Colombia Solidarity Campaign
Columban Faith and Justice Team
Comitato sardo di solidarietà con il popolo del Kurdistan (Sardenia, Italy),
Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers
Coordination Nationale des Sans-Papiers (France),
Day-Mer Turkish and Kurdish Solidarity Community Centre
Freedom and Equal Rights Voice (Germany)
Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
Jeremy Hardy, writer and broadcaster
Haringey Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers
High Cross United Reformed Church, Tottenham
Horn of Africa Women's Association
Colin Hutchinson, barrister
Incapacity Action
International Federation of Iranian Refugees – IFIR
International Wages for Housework Campaign
International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination & Racism (Japan)
Jewish Anti Racist Anti Fascist Group of the Jewish Socialists' Group
Kurdish Women Action against Honour Killing
Kurdistan Solidarity Ireland
Kurdistan Solidarity Committee and Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Jennifer Langer, Director, Exiled Writers Ink!
Revd Dr Kennneth Leech, theologian
Ian Macdonald, QC
Merseyside Against Detention
Miscarriages of Justice UK
Sonali Naik, Barrister
NASC The Irish Immigrant Support Centre, Cork
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
National Union of Domestic Employees (Trinidad & Tobago)
National Union of Students Women's Campaign
Notre Dame Refugee Centre
Olho Vivo - Associacao para a Defesa do Patrimonio Ambiente Direitos Humanos (Portugal)
One World Refugee Action Group
Papeles para Todas/os - Papers for All (Barcelona, Spain)
Payday
Peace and Human Rights Trust
People Not Profit
John Pilger, journalist and broadcaster
Pilton Community Health Project, Edinburgh
Positive Action in Housing
Refugee Development Project, Diocese of Brentwood
Refugee Women's Association
Religious of the Assumption, England/Scotland
Renaissance Project, Liverpool
Romanian Human Rights Project
Jeremy Seabrook, writer and journalist
Sheffield Positive Training Action Consortium
Sikh Refugee Support Group
SOS Racismo (Portugal)
South East Asia Solidarity
SPI CGIL Area Lavorosocietà (Italy)
Universal Embassy (Belgium)
The Voice Africa Forum (Jena, Germany)
Wages for Housework Campaign (Galway, Ireland)
Wages for Housework Campaign (Barcelona, Spain)
Francis Webber, barrister
West Midlands Anti-Deportation Campaign
Women's Action Group (Galway, Ireland)
Women's Committee of Left Unity in Iran
Women's Welfare Centre (Pune, India)
Women In Media & Entertainment (Galway, Ireland)
Youth Coalition Gogledd Cymru