Let Isaac Stay With His Family!

Isaac Macharia Muraya is an asylum seeker from Kenya who is under threat of deportation. In fact he was almost deported twice in August 1999, but his new solicitor intervened successfully. He is now in detention for weeks and has been refused bail. We are now asking for your help!
He arrived in the UK in February 1997. He applied for political asylum in July after he was informed that his shop at home was raided and burnt down by government troops and his girlfriend at the time was raped. The reason for the governmentâs persecution of Isaac was the book he was writing about terror in Kenya. Although soldiers destroyed the majority of his writings Isaacâs girlfriend managed to save some of it and it was sent to the Home Office as evidence.
Isaac is Kikuyu and there is plenty of evidence, which justifies his fear of persecution on ethnic grounds as well founded. The situation in Kenya is described in reports by Human Rights Watch 1999 and Amnesty International 1999.
In January 1998 Isaac was, in spite of his well founded and documented fear of persecution, refused asylum in the UK and ordered deportation. His lawyer did not even show up at the appeal hearing nor did he communicate with the authorities properly. His present solicitor is doing his best to help him stay but we need your support.
Salome met Isaac in the UK, and for almost two years they have lived as a family with their two children Tyson Nyoike, 13 and Keith Macharia Muraya, 1. Isaac is working hard as a bus driver to provide for his family but the immigration authorities are making it impossible for them to stay together. It is very likely that Isaac will lose his job due to being in detention and his family will become destitute.
Extract from Human Rights Watch Report 1999:
" ÎEthnicâ violence also followed in two DP constituencies in Rift Valley Province. Armed groups of Kalenjin (the Kenyan presidentâs ethnic group) attacked ethnic Kikuyu residents in night raids, raping, hacking with machetes, or killing with firearms, before looting and burning their homes. Over one hundred people were reportedly killed and thousands displaced.
Since 1992, over 300,000 people had been displaced by this violence. The authorities consistently failed to provide adequate security to those under threat or to hold those responsible for the violence accountable.
Police brutality, bad prison conditions, lack of an independent judiciary, and repressive legislation remained major impediments to respect for human rights in Kenya. No progress was made during 1998 by the legal task forces formed by the attorney general in 1993 to amend or repeal repressive legislation that impinged upon the rights of freedom of speech, association, and assembly. ã
Please help Isaac to stay with his family and in safety. You can write to the Home Office Minister for Immigration, Ms Barbara Roche MP, at 50 Queen Anneâs Gate, London SW1H 9AT (quoting HO Ref. No: M731195) and ask her to reconsider Isaacâs case and let him stay in the UK with his partner and children. Thank you for your support and understanding.
For more information please contact the campaign:

c/o William Morris CC, Greenleaf Road, London E17
Phone 0181-520-9099, Fax: 0181-520-9979