Support the Adefowoju and the Falode families...

international | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Tuesday December 18, 2007 01:13 by mark chacha - Deportations Nahcha

Demo... 10am, Wed 19 at Stormont

Supporters of the Adefowoju and the Falode families are planning a demonstration on Wednesday at Stormont calling for the Northern Ireland Assembly to help stop the deportations.

Comfort Adefowoju and her four children, and Ronke Falode and her three sons, are in Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire and have been told they could be deported at any time. They were arrested at their homes in November.

Both families face an uncertain & dangeroud future if they are deported to Nigeria.

Until 30th November Comfort & her family lived in ease Belfast, when they were snatched from their beds at 6.30 am by immigration officials and a number of PSNI officers, taken to a holding centre in Glasgow, and then transported in caged vans on the 11 hour journey from Glasgow to Yarl's wood detention centre outside London, the most notorious detention centre in Britain, overcrowded and the scene of regular riots. The older children were separated from their mother on the journey, though they're now re-united behind bars. They've now been held in prison, effectively, for over two weeks and will be there indefinitely.

Comfort's 'mistake' was that she didn't apply for asylum as soon as she entered the Northern Ireland. Now the authorities have imprisoned a mother and 4 young children, and want to deport them to Nigeria where their lives are still under threat.

Comfort's asylum application has been considered by the Home Office under the following:

· Geneva Convention 1951 - Fear of persecution at home

· Grant of Humanitarian Protection under the Immigration Rules (Para 339C)

· Home Office Asylum Policy Instruction on Discretionary Leave

The Home Office does not consider that Comfort and her children qualify for leave to remain in the UK under any of the above and her only option now is to apply on the grounds of compassion, which is what her friends now wish to help her to do.

U.S.A: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Nigeria 2006
The government's human rights record remained poor, and government officials at all levels continued to commit serious abuses. The most significant human rights problems included; domestic violence and discrimination against women; female genital mutilation (FGM); child abuse and child sexual exploitation; societal violence; ethnic, regional, and religious discrimination; and trafficking in persons for the purposes of prostitution and forced labor.

What you can do to help:
1) Send urgent faxes immediately to Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith, Secretary of State for the Home Office asking that Comfort Adefowoju and Family are released from detention and granted protection in the UK. Please downloadmodel letter ComfortAdefowoJS.doc you can copy/amend/write your own version (if you do so, please remember to include the HO ref A1341252).

Fax: 020 7035 3262 (00 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK)

2) Download and print of the petition, ComfortAdefowojuPT.doc, get as many signatures as you can and return to the campaign office

Please notify the campaign of any faxes sent:
Friends of the Adefowoju Family
Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church
45A Castlereagh Street
Belfast
BT5 4NE
davidcraig11@hotmail.co.uk

see www.ncadc.org.uk/newszine89/Comfort.html for details...

The Home Office say that Ronke's fear of returning home is based on a local family dispute and that although she claims to have been pressurised by her husband's family since his death in 2003, at no point did this pressure result in violence or any specific act of persecution against her. The harrassment she claims to have suffered would not breach any threshold for regarding it as serious harm and the Home Office believes it reasonable that she simply relocates to another part of Nigeria to escape the family's attentions. They also say that Nigerian law would protect widows in Ronke's situation and that her claim does not invoke a need for international protection and does not demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution.

They say that Ronke has not established a well-founded fear of persecution and does not qualify for asylum; she has not shown substantial grounds for believing that she faces a real risk of suffering serious harm on return from the UK so she does not qualify for Humanitarian Protection. They have concluded that removing this family from the UK or requiring them to leave would not be contrary to the UK's obligations under the ECHR.

We feel strongly that Ronke has a greater attachment now to Belfast than she has to Nigeria and also think the Home Office have paid little attention to the fact that she was effectively being persecuted for her Christian beliefs in Nigeria and the same would undoubtedly happen again if she was forced to return.

What you can do to help!

Immediate:
1.) Please send urgent faxes immediately to Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith, Secretary of State for the Home Office asking that Ronke & children be granted protection in the UK. Please download the "model letter" RonkeJS.doc you can copy/amend/write your own version (if you do so, please remember to include the HO ref 1293538).

Fax: 020 7035 3262 (00 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK)

All day Wednesday and Thursday morning:

2.) Please fax/phone/email, Conrad Clifford, Chief Executive Officer, Virgin Nigeria Airways, asking that Virgin Nigeria should not facilitate Home Office enforcement policies, download the "model letter" (RonkeVN.doc) you can copy/amend/write your own version, if you do so, please remember to include the removal flight details: Virgin Nigerian Airways flight VK292, leaving Gatwick North Terminal @ 10.15 hours on Thursday 8th November.

Fax: 01293 448035 - from outside the UK + 44 1293 448035
Phone: General numbers at Virgin Nigeria @ Gatwick:
0870 403 1212 0844 412 1788
Email: customer.relations@virginnigeria.com

Please notify the campaign of any faxes sent:
Friends of the Falode Family
Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church
45A Castlereagh Street
Belfast
BT5 4NE
davidcraig11@hotmail.co.uk

see www.ncadc.org.uk/archives/filed%20newszines/Newszine88/Ronke.html

Speaking from Yarl's Wood last Fri, Ronke said...
"The guards came for me and the children at 2:00am this morning, the children were still asleep. They asked me to wake the children and said they would give me 30 minutes to pack my belongings. I didn't wake the children and when they came back I said I was not leaving, they threatened to handcuff me, I said I would not let them. They tried to persuade me to go to the airport and resist there if I wanted to, but I didn't I sat tight. So we are still here but don't know what happens next."