Campaign from Faiths in Action Women, Nottingham.
Please help bring Martha home to her community and protect her human rights!
Martha is central to Nottingham interfaith projects, in peace work and women’s empowerment and in her church.
In early August Martha was taken with only the clothes she was wearing and detained under threat of deportation. For the first few days she was not able to call anyone, including legal help and was not given medicine for her high blood pressure. This is happening in the UK, now. As a woman alone criminalised in a failing system that is neither fast nor fair, Martha needs and deserves our help.
Martha is now under immediate threat of deportation this Sunday (8 September 2013), after fourteen years in the UK.
Martha came as a nurse from Malawi to the UK, selling all she had to be here. She stayed to retrain when her qualifications were not recognised in the UK. She has been waiting to receive her ‘right to remain’ so that she could complete training, doing vital volunteer work while waiting. Her application has been continually postponed in a process neither fast nor fair. At one point she was told her passport had been lost. Martha has become a victim of a failing procedure that took too long to reach decision and has criminalised her in the process. She has become an important member of the community in the time it has taken, yet as a woman alone she was an easy target.
Read more and sign the petition here.
Updates from Faiths in Action:
16 October
Good news! Back in Nottingham and on Bail!
Big thanks to you all! Martha is in Baseford, Nottingham, and on Bail. She will now have access to medicine during an appeal. Faiths in Action will shortly be organising fundraising event for her appeal. You have helped her get this far.
11 October
Airplane ticket cancelled.
The ticket bought to deport Martha on the 13th is now cancelled. She remains in detention but immediate threat of deportation is lessened. Thank-you for your emails, signatures, prayers and well-wishes - they mean the world to Martha and do help change.
The above article says: “For the first few days she was not … given medicine for her high blood pressure.”
This comment says: “She will now have access to medicine during an appeal.”
The UK authorities detained our friend for a period of time, depriving her of her liberty, and therefore rendering her unable to take all necessary steps to take care of herself. Consequently, the authorities took upon themselves the responsible for all the measures necessary to keep her in good health, such as adequate accommodation, feeding, and medical treatment. From this article, it seems that they wilfully denied her medical treatment. May we know the explanation for that and if the authorities have broken any of their own laws or regulations?
good luck! what are her flight directions? which airline? please post up here so everyone can put pressure on them asp https://www.facebook.com/noborders.leeds