International

Guest post: a tradition of deterrence

Published by on July 10, 2012 | 1 Response

The NCADC blog is pleased to welcome three guest posts from Molly Haglund, who has just completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights Practice at the Universities of Roehampton, Gothenburg and Tromsø. They are edited excerpts from her thesis entitled Punished for Persecution: An Analysis of the Criminalization of the Asylum Seeker in the United Kingdom which you can download here. The three posts examine the issues of (1) The Criminalization of asylum seekers, (2) A Tradition of Deterrence and (3) Why Criminalize the Asylum Seeker? You can read Molly’s first post on the criminalisation of asylum seekers here. Today’s post considers the Read the full article…

Treatment of returned asylum seekers in Iran

Published by on January 31, 2012 | Leave a response

The Ireland Refugee Documentation Centre, part of the Legal Aid Board, is an independent library and research service. The Centre provides a research and query service for all organisations involved in the asylum process, and builds and maintains a collection of objective and up to date country of origin , asylum, immigration and human rights information. It also provides training on country of origin information research and aims to cooperate with similar agencies elsewhere to enhance knowledge of the country of origin research area. The centre has just published a very useful compilation of recent reports on the risks to Read the full article…

Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter: essential reading

Published by on January 18, 2012 | Leave a response

The Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter is a monthly forum for news and reflection on the provision of refugee legal aid. Focusing on the global south, it provides a unique range of news stories, organisation profiles, and legal explanations to assist those providing free legal advice on asylum, refugee and human rights cases across the world. Joe Bryce, an immigration solicitor based in Scotland, described the newsletter as “Extraordinarily valuable and interesting, a real Aladdin’s Cave”. The newsletter follows recent developments in the interpretation of refugee law; case law precedents from different constituencies; reports and helpful resources for refugee legal Read the full article…

Iran: UN condemns human rights record

Published by on October 20, 2011 | Leave a response

In his presentation to the UN General Assembly yesterday, Ahmed Shaheed – the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran – expressed concern over alleged violations in Iran’s judicial system including torture, cruel or degrading treatment of detainees, and the imposition of the death penalty without proper safeguards. His report, based on first-hand testimonies from individuals and groups, documents the use of physical and psychological mistreatment and torture for the purposes of inducing self-incrimination; exorbitant bail requirements; lack of independence among judges (with some sentences being decided prior to a defendant’s appearance in court); and the widespread harassment, detention, and Read the full article…

UK plans mass deportation of Iraqis; Hunger strike in detention centre

Published by on June 9, 2011 | 2 Responses

At least 70 Iraqi refugees have been rounded up in the UK over the last few weeks, as the UK government plans a controversial mass deportation charter flight to Baghdad. NCADC has been contacted by several detainees and their friends over the last few days. One such caller was Joanne, from County Durham. She has been living with her partner Adam Aziz Ali for almost 4 years, but he was snatched while at his regular reporting at the Home Office and is now in detention facing imminent removal. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR) has confirmed that around 24 Read the full article…

Researching country of origin information

Published by on April 20, 2011 | Leave a response

Country of Origin Information (COI) is central to refugee status determination. However, the Research Unit at (sadly now defunct) Immigration Advisory Service highlighted serious concerns about the quality of initial decision making in asylum claims in the UK, and in particular the use/misuse of COI. You can download the IAS research into COI here (pdf) You might find your asylum application refused because UKBA used dodgy info, or because you didn’t have quality legal representation. Or perhaps you are trying to put together a fresh claim, but can’t find a solicitor. Or you want to gather evidence to gain public Read the full article…

The Libyan Refugee Crisis

Published by on March 27, 2011 | 4 Responses

Blogging around the campaigns – NCADC volunteers explore some of the latest issue affecting migrant rights 27 March 2011 David Shortland, NCADC Campaigns Volunteer As the conflict in Libya rages on, the number of refugees produced has steadily increased. The UNHCR has called on the international community to step up to the mark by supporting the massive evacuation effort and providing asylum to the displaced, now numbering over 300,000 (UNHCR). On 1st March 2011, Libya was suspended from the Human Rights Council – the first time this mechanism has been employed. The Security Council has imposed an arms embargo and Read the full article…

Human Rights Watch World Report 2011

Published by on January 24, 2011 | Leave a response

The 649-page report, Human Rights Watch’s 21st annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It is an essential resource for anyone campaigning against removal from the UK. You can browse chapters by country or download the full report in pdf (4MB) Each country entry identifies significant human rights issues, examines the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key international actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, Japan, the United States, and various regional and international Read the full article…

Driven to desperate measures - the realities of Fortress Europe

Published by on October 18, 2010 | 1 Response

The racism that kills The recent death of Jimmy Mubenga adds to the grim statistic of those who have died as a result of the UK’s brutal immigration laws. Harmit Athwal of Institute for Race Relations writes at the Guardian website on the launch of the new IRR report, Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006-2010, which documents 77 deaths of asylum seekers and migrants in the UK. These deaths rarely make the news, a strange parallel world of refused asylum seekers who are petrified of being sent back to face the dangers from which they fled. Harmit argues that racism in the Read the full article…

Deportation deaths

Published by on October 15, 2010 | 2 Responses

Jimmy Mubenga died this week aboard the British Airways BA77 flight to Uganda while being restrained by G4S security guards using ‘excessive force’ according to one witness. Jimmy, a devoted husband and father of five children, is the not the first, and will not be the last migrant to die at the hands the European border enforcement agencies and their private security firms. Anna Morvern writes in the Guardian that we need to look at ourselves and ask how we became a society that will now effect deportations by almost any means possible.