Esme Madill, at OpenDemocracy, 21 February 2013
If Theresa May wins her legal battle to have a Leeds transplant patient deported to Nigeria, Roseline Akhalu dies. If Roseline wins, where is the harm?
In Parliament last week Greg Mulholland, the Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North, challenged the Home Secretary over her relentless persecution of Roseline Akhalu, the kidney-transplant patient who, nobody disputes, will die horribly if she is returned to Nigeria.
The latest news is bleak indeed. On 6 February Roseline’s lawyers learned that the Home Office had won permission to appeal against the ruling of an immigration judge late last year allowing Roseline Akhalu leave to remain in the UK. Read more at OpenDemocracy
Roseline Akhalu, a 48 year kidney transplant patient and community volunteer from Headingley, Leeds has been told that the Home Secretary, Theresa May, intends to challenge an immigration tribunal’s decision that Ms Akhalu be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom.
Friends, campaigners and supporters of the former Leeds University postgraduate student reacted with shock and dismay to the Home Office’s announcement.
Esme Madill who has organised a petition of over 1,500 signatories in support of Ms Akhalu’s said:
“The immigration judge in Rose’s case accepted that if Rose were to be returned to Nigeria she would die within 4 weeks. He accepted that she has been a committed and much valued member of her local community which would suffer were she to be forcibly removed by the Home Office.”
“For the Home Office to challenge the decision of its own immigration tribunal, and to waste thousands of pounds of taxpayers money in order to threaten a sick and frightened woman with a death sentence is vindictive. No country that allows its government to behave in this way can call itself civilised.”
Tessa Gregory, of Public Interest Lawyers, who is representing Ms Akhalu added:
“We very much regret that the Home Office’s decision to appeal the immigration tribunal’s very clear judgment in favour of Rose. However, we are confident that our client’s grounds for leave to remain are strong, as is the huge support she enjoys amongst her community in Leeds, across the country and around the world”.
Roseline’s MP Greg Mulholland commented:
“Following the fantastic news at the end of last month that a judge had upheld Roseline’s appeal, it is extremely disappointing that the Home Office have decided to appeal this decision”.
“This has already been an extremely lengthy and costly process and it was clearly accepted in the hearing last month that if Roseline were to be sent back to Nigeria she would die as she would no longer have access to the essential drugs she requires. It is time the UK Border Agency stopped wasting tax payer’s money seeking deportation in a case that is so obviously wrong and is causing undue stress for an already ill woman”.
Tessa Gregory, Public Interest Lawyers, [email protected]
Esme Madill [email protected]
Once again please use or adapt this model letter as you fit and please share any replies with us. We continue to receive strong and determined support from Rose's MP, Greg Mulholland, and a growing number of people around the country and across the country. Please keep spreading the word and urging friends, family, colleagues etc to write.
Many thanks for your support.
The campaign team has drafted a model letter to the Home Secretary. Please copy all letters to [email protected]
Updated model letter (9 January 2013)
copy to all these email addresses:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
To post:
Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Office,
2 Marsham St London SW1P 4DF
Fax: 0207 035 4745
Please mention Roseline Akhalu’s Home Office Reference Number in all correspondence – A1344782
..................................
Dear Home Secretary
HO Ref No A1344782
I am writing [once again] to express my shock and bewilderment that despite an independent immigration judge ruling that the grounds for granting Roseline Akhalu leave to remain are sound, and that your Department’s objections to the determination have no basis in law, you are willing to squander hard pressed public funds on a further appeal to the Upper Tribunal in order to return Ms Akhalu to certain death.
I know that I speak for many thousands of concerned citizens in the United Kingdom and abroad when I say that this relentless pursuit of a woman who continues to suffer from a life threatening condition and who has made Britain her home—not through a deliberate design to remain here after her postgraduate studies, but because a previously undiagnosed kidney condition gave her no alternative—smacks of persecution.
Despite her precarious health condition which has been exacerbated by your Department’s refusal to accept two successive verdicts of the independent immigration courts, Roseline remains a devoted and active volunteer in her parish. I know that her strong faith and the support of her friends and community sustains Roseline’s belief in the justness of her cause and that she will overcome this further obstacle.
I urge you therefore to intervene personally in a case that is doing the humanitarian reputation of your government and this country considerable harm. Please insist that your officials withdraw their appeal application to the Upper Tribunal so that this brave and courageous woman can be allowed to live peacefully in a community to which she has given so much and that has shown her great love and support in return.
Yours sincerely
FANTASTIC NEWS!! I am delighted to announce that the judge in Roseline's immigration tribunal hearing has upheld her appeal and that she has won her case against the Home Office. This does not mean that Rose is completely out of the woods yet as the Home Office has 5 days in which to appeal, but the determination strongly supported Rose's Article 8 claim that she was a valued, valuable and much loved member of her local community and the Home Office cannot dispute the facts of this self evident finding.
This result is a massive tribute to all of Rose's friends and supporters in Leeds, to all those who wrote letters and signed the petition, to the journalists and editors who have reported her story, to her wonderful doctors - especially Dr Tattersall at Leeds General Infirmary, to her MP Greg Mulholland and Bishop John Packer, to Colin and Livia Firth, to her outstanding legal team Tessa Gregory and Ronan Toal and especially to her campaign coordinators Bernard and Esme who have spent many days and nights battling for Rose and whose efforts have been so wonderfully rewarded today.
Thank you everyone
Simon Parker
Roseline and her friends (who packed the court room - extra chairs had to be brought in) gave incredibly moving evidence as to how embedded she is in her local community and how much she means to those who live and volunteer alongside her.
Dr Tattersall's evidence (which was given to the judge and not the public) was I understand both hugely supportive and very chilling - as he described how Rose would die if returned.
Nick Palmer from the National Kidney Federation was extremely helpful in his evidence - identifying what a waste of the precious gift of life it would be to return Rose. Rose's lawyers were completely compelling in making their case and referred to the petition and letters contained in the bundle as evidence of the public interest in this case and the public's concern should such a cruel and irrational decision be taken and Rose returned.
We will hear the judge's findings in approx 2 weeks.
Thank you to everyone whose support was used in evidence and who has helped the campaign get this far.
Keep up to date with news at the Facebook page here
Roseline’s appeal is to be heard this Weds 21 November at Bradford.
If she is returned to Nigeria she will die.
This message from Roseilne's campaign team:
Your help so far has been invaluable – the letters you have written and the petition that you have signed has been submitted as part of the court bundle which will be read by the immigration judge on Weds to convey to the judge the strength of public opinion and the depth of the support Rose has.
It would be fantastic if over the next 3 days before the hearing, you could share the details of the petition with your friends and colleagues, urging them to sign the petition and send a model letter of their own – see below - to bring further pressure to bear and to help make a real difference.
Sign the petition here, and ask your friends to sign too.
Find the campaign on Facebook here
Rose's campaign team sent this message:
The UKBA made a decision on Rose's application to stay in the UK on compassionate grounds on 21 September.
They have decided that there are insufficient factors to justify allowing Rose to remain in the UK and her application for leave to remain has been refused. As they considered all the submissions Rose made as a fresh claim there is now no basis for a judicial review as the grounds for the review were to challenge the Secretary of State’s decision not to consider a fresh claim.
Representations were made by her MP, Greg Mulholland; The Right Reverend John Packer, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds; the National Kidney Federation; the Joint Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group and Rose’s consultants from Saint James Hospital in Leeds. Well over a thousand petitioners have also signed a petition calling on the Home Secretary to allow Rose to remain in the UK.
If Rose is returned to Nigeria, neither she nor her family will have the means to provide the necessary drugs to keep her kidney functioning. Rose's consultant submitting evidence detailing what will happen to Rose if she is denied access to the drugs she requires. Rose's legal team are currently preparing an appeal.
We are in the process of putting together a campaign website. In the meantime there is a Facebook Group. We are still encouraging people to sign the online petition.
we heard the brilliant news from her campaign team that solicitors have won an injunction to stop the removal.
We know this is just the first battle. We were told we would never get this far and we have.
This campaign has been an amazing joint effort: lawyers, journalists, MPs, faith leaders, activists, celebrities, friends, fellow parishoners, refugees, asylum seekers and others coming together to demand that life is respected and that those who treat one group of people as if they matter less than another should be called to account.
Thank you to everyone who has got us this far - we will continue to need your support in the weeks and months ahead but for tonight this post just ends with a huge thank you.
Today Oscar-award winning actor Colin Firth took a break from filming in Thailand to issue the following statement:
Dr James Tattershall, Rose’s Renal Specialist, said:
‘She'll be on anti rejection medication for the rest of her life. Now that her visa has run out the government wants Roseline to return to Nigeria - but the drugs she needs aren't available to her there. Deportation will be a death sentence. In Nigeria most people with Kidney disease such as Rose has, wouldn't receive any treatment and they would die.’
Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) have challenged Rose’s removal and are bringing a civil claim for damages for the ill treatment she has suffered at the hands of UKBA and their contractors Reliance.
Tessa Gregory of Public Interest Lawyers, the solicitor acting for Rose, stated:
‘The Government’s treatment of Rose and the determination to deport her truly beggars belief. This is an exceptional case where the Home Secretary should clearly allow Rose to remain in the UK to receive the treatment she so desperately needs. To do otherwise is inhumane, unspeakably cruel and a profound insult to the person who donated their kidney in the hope of giving another life.’
Members of the Ecumenical Council of West Yorkshire have expressed their support for Rose:
‘I hope and pray that common sense will prevail and allow Rose to stay and receive the life saving treatment she needs.’
The Rt Revd Tony Robinson, Bishop of Pontefract
Public Interest Lawyers, Press Release – 28 May 2012
When Rose was first detained in March 2012 she was prevented from using a toilet and forced to urinate in a plastic bag in the back of a van before being left to sit in her urine sodden clothes for the rest of the journey to Yarl’s Wood. As a result of this unlawful treatment Rose suffered a serious urinary tract infection. Since being re-detained on 16 May 2012 Rose has become extremely unwell because she has been denied access to adequate medical care.
Home Secretary, please call off the attack on kidney patient Roseline Akhalu
Home Office to appeal life-saving Tribunal decision
Viva Rose! Community campaigning For The Win! NCADC newsletter, 30 Nov 2012
A nation’s decency put to the test.
19 Sept 2012
Roseline’s journey: a kidney transplant patient meets Border Agency contractors
21 May 2012
Rose’s lawyers presented witness statements and letters of support to an appeal hearing on 21 November, along with examples of press coverage from The Guardian, The Independent, Private Eye, The Friend, The Independent Catholic News, Yorkshire Evening Post, Big Issue in the North, Morning Star, ITN Calendar News and OurKingdom, which reported on Rose’s case in May and June and September.
NCADC is a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee. registration number: 04026564
Registered address: NCADC at Praxis Community Projects, Pott Street, London E2 0EF
