Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers - Ahmadi Family Campaign

The Ahmadi family's appeal to be returned to the UK resumed on Wednesday 11th December 2002. The family are rotting in an asylum "reception centre" in Bavaria, Southern Germany, to where they were illegally deported by private aeroplane from a military airbase in August.

The deportation followed "misleading" information about the Ahmadi's situation being given to the high court on the day before the family were flown out. The high court was told that the family had residency in Germany and full access to German society, including welfare benefits and integrated housing in fact they are isolated and live on 120 euros a month. Hadia attends a segregated class at school. Farid and Feriba are banned from any training. This is no way for human beings to live, but the family face either return to Afghanistan or the prospect of living this way year after year.

The appeal, the first to be held after deportation, is now set to be the longest human rights appeal in an asylum case in UK legal history. The eight strong home office legal team, (another record!) subjected Farid to three whole days of video questioning, refusing to pause even as Feriba collapsed and was taken to hospital the prospect of reliving the trauma yet again proved just too much.

Hours have been spent discussing the smallest inconsistencies in Farid's answers. The family have never disputed that when they were detained in Germany, they gave false names and a false story as instructed by the agent who had arranged their passage to the UK. Yet the home office are determined that this undermines our case which is that the UK is the best place for these refugees to be.

While they make every effort to drag the names of a desperate family, forced into the hands of people smugglers by the visa restrictions on travelling legally to the UK, let's just remember that it was the home office who were proven to have "misled" the high court!

So desperate is the home office to stop anyone remembering the real facts of this case, they have tried to have our legal aid cut off˜effectively ending any court hearing.

The family came to Britain in June 2001 having fled Afghanistan. They did not hide from the authorities but declared their arrival as soon as they could. They had come in the back of a lorry-a terrifying experience for all of them. They took such a desperate step because they were stopped on the streets in Germany on their way to the UK where close relatives lived who would be able to help them to settle in a new country.

Instead of being granted asylum there, they spent 10 months in filthy isolated asylum camps in Bavaria. Feriba had two nervous breakdowns. They suffered racist abuse. In Afghanistan Farid had been tortured twice. Until today, they have been given no long-term status in Germany and face return to Afghanistan.

They had settled in Lye, near Birmingham where their children were attending the local school. Feriba was doing well and had started organising to train to be a nurse.

The deportation has all but destroyed the family just as all the psychiatrists had warned. Feriba has spent some weeks in a psychiatric ward and we are not sure how long before another admission or a suicide attempt takes place. Her ability to care for and relate to her children has been seriously disrupted. When I visit I see two terrified and unhappy children˜traumatised by their loss of friends and home

The Ahmadis have been victims of war and victims of fortress Europe that saw them detained and forced them into the hands of the people traffickers. They have been victims of racism and victims of illegal deportation˜but they have shown a determination not to accept the status of second class human beings and we will not rest until we bring them home.

Bring them home for Xmas postcards available to send to Blunkett from the campaign.

Order yours and send donations and messages of support to Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers:

CDAS
BCM Box 4289
London
WC1N 3XX
phone 07941 566 183

Make cheques payable to CDAS but mark Ahmadi family campaign.

Email: info@defend-asylum.org

Source:

Elane Heffernan, for Ahmadi Family Campaign and Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers