NCADC now have two full time and two part time workers

My name is Zrinka Bralo, and I recently started working as a full-time London Co-ordinator for NCADC. At the moment I am working from William Morris Community Centre in North-East London.

I used to be a journalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the peace time. I worked for the national radio station, and when the war started I decide to stay and continued working for European Broadcasting Union. I managed 18 months under the siege: starvation, sniping and shelling and at the end of 1993 with a help of my friends foreign journalists I escaped to the UK where I applied for political asylum.
My asylum application was refused and that is when I started my own campaign. My friends who supported me and helped to escape were shocked - they genuinely believed that asylum seekers from Former Yugoslavia couldn’t be refused because it is against common sense and in the face of such overwhelming evidence. It was a long struggle I had to organise my own campaign. Three years later my case was resolved but I continued working as a campaigner for refugee rights. I also worked with Bosnian refugees, torture victims, who arrived as a part of special Government programme of temporary protection. All this was a crash course in the state of Asylum and Immigration legislation in this country. I strongly believe that institution of political asylum is fundamental human right, to be protected from the war and persecution I did not spend my entire life in Bosnia waiting for the war to start so I can come here and claim political asylum in order to get thirty something quid of Income Support every week! To leave my home was the most difficult decision I had to make in my entire life, I had no choice but just because I was forced to flee does not mean that all the other choices in my life and about my life have to be taken away from me.

My campaign was semi-successful and I can stay for a while so uncertainties are not over yet. I hope I will be able to use my experience and knowledge to help others to struggle through difficulties caused by immigration injustice.

My name is Tony Openshaw, and I am very pleased to be appointed as the North West Co-ordinator for NCADC. My job is part time, and I will continue towork for three days a week at George House Trust - a charity which supports people who are HIV positive.

I first became involved in Campaigns in 1987 when I met Viraj Mendis at a bus stop in Manchester city centre. Shortly after that I learnt that he had gone into sanctuary in the Church of Ascension in Hulme. He had lived in this country for 13 years, but was under threat of deportation to Sri Lanka. It seemed so unjust that I had to get involved. I started by sitting in on the sanctuary rota and attending the fundraising socials. I became the treasurer of the Campaign for nearly two years, which involved almost daily visits to meet Viraj. I learnt a lot about the racism of the immigration laws and how to campaign against them. After more than two years, the police broke into the sanctuary by force. Viraj was deported but managed to get to Germany. He has never stopped campaigning for others and is currently on hunger strike in Cologne.

I have visited successful sanctuaries in Leicester, Bradford, Birmingham and London, and was involved in the sanctuary Campaigns to support Salema Begum in Chorlton, Manchester and to support Victoria Apetor in Moss Side, Manchester.

Since then I have also been centrally involved in more than 20 anti-deportation Campaigns in the Greater Manchester area. I have helped to organise pickets, lobbies, marches, vigils and attended more Campaign meetings than I care to remember!

My belief is that Campaigns do work. Things can get very tough, but there is strength in numbers. I will endeavour to do my best to support all those threatened by the immigration laws.

John Stewart is the new, part-time, NCADC co-ordinator for London. He will be working 18 hours per week from South London (when we find an office to move in to). John has been an active supporter of the NCADC for three years, as Treasurer since June 1996 and acting London Co-ordinator since November 1998.

  John lives in Hackney, East London. He first became involved in anti-deportation campaigns in 1994 as a supporter of the Ogunwobi Family anti-deportation campaign. This campaign was a Sanctuary at Downs Baptist Church, which lasted three and a quarter years, and became the longest running Sanctuary in modern British history. It was eventually successful in 1997 when the Home Office gave the Ogunwobi Family leave to remain in the UK.
Writes regularly on anti-deportation campaigns for Labour Left Briefing magazine and is a founder member of the National Civil Rights Movement, set up in March this year.

John O, will continue as National Co-ordinator, working from Birmingham.
Has been involved in 35 successful Campaigns in the West Midlands ADC. which was founded in 1985.

First became involved in the Anti-Deportation movement in the late seventies, when Anwar Dittar from Bradford began her fight to bring her children to the UK. Since then has travelled over much of the UK to support Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

For me no campaign is to small or to big, it is resistance that is important. Immigration laws are racist and discriminatory and the UK has had over 400 years of immigration rules.

New Labour’s Asylum and Immigration bill is the latest and the worst and won’t succeed.

It will not stop people seeking Asylum, it will only create hardship and deprivation for those who do.
NCADC are now better resourced to help and advise any family or individual resisting deportation.