Showing posts with label detention centres. Show all posts
It is wonderful to speak out
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What can we do together to improve the lives of asylum seekers here in the UK? JRS UK staff and advocacy volunteers share what advocacy means to them.
Sr Margaret Baxter SSMN, Detention Outreach Co-ordinator, helped two detainees give evidence to the UK parliamentary inquiry on detention via a video link, co-wrote JRS UK’s submission to the inquiry and herself also spoke at the launch of the report.
"For me, being involved with advocacy means to create an opportunity for the detainees I work with to self-advocate, then to help them prepare. For example, for the detention inquiry, we all wanted to be clear on what we wanted to say, so that it was a balance of their experience. On the moment of the hearing, I sat with them and then took each one into the room and then left, to allow them to speak for themselves. When they came out of the interview, I saw a liberated delight in these young men who had been empowered and now able to speak for themselves. That their stories were taken with credibility was in contrast to their experience of coming into country and making their asylum application against disbelief. There is nothing like the sincerity of the person themselves advocating on their own behalf. And with the detainees, there is a sense of solidarity with one another, even in the midst of their vulnerability."
Souleyman Sow, refugee poet and anti-detention campaigner, used to attend JRS UK’s Day Centre and now often speaks at events to explain the negative impacts of detention on the lives of vulnerable detainees, most recently at a school sixth-form education day.
"To be honest, before getting involved in campaigning, I did not know where I was, I had nowhere to start. It lifts me up and puts me on my feet and without it I would be somebody else. My main message is detention. It has an impact, it keep people in limbo. So to decision makers, I say that we have to put detention on trail, it is a waste of tax payers’ money. And let’s have a time limit on detention and we will see some of the problems for detainees ended. It is wonderful to speak out, I have been a tour guide, I have spoken at the parliamentary inquiry. Advocacy is not about money, it is not about food - you have to get involved in the community, after your release what have you contributed to the community? When I see my colleagues, I tell them come and get involved. So just involve yourself!"
Vigil in Honour of Deaths in Detention
‘Alexandra’ from JRS-UK took part in
a vigil organised to honour the lives of asylum seekers who lost their lives
whilst in detention in the UK.
She describes why she was pleased to go along to support others.
I went to the
vigil to support everyone who has to seek asylum in the UK and everyone
in general who are in detention. For me, because I can’t go to the detention
centre to support them, I went to show that I am supporting them. I hope that
they close the detention because there is no right to hold people like this.
To show
everyone that we are together in this campaign, we did a circle, we had lights
and candles to remember those people who were in detention and lost their
lives. There were 5 people in the last 2 years who died.
I remember
the speech of the lady who told when she arrived in the UK there was
detention only of a few people, now there are many more. Someone that day also gave a testimony about
how he went through detention. If this person had not been in detention he
could have had a college degree by now. People explained their experience. One
shared how he was treated, the stress of being in detention, people telling him
to go back to his country and he did not know what would happen. And then there
was the MP who reminded us that we can make a difference through campaigning
and that, for example, ending children in detention. So yes, let’s end
indefinite detention!
From JRS we
were five taking part. In the audience I noticed around there was a good mix of
people: refugees, organisations, vicar from the church, Congo Support Group
came, local people from Hackney, volunteers from Citizens UK, people filming, the
Bishop from London Churches Refugee Group.
I felt very
good on the evening because there are some people who recognise that we are
first of all human beings, that there is no need for detention. It is stressful
to be an asylum seeker first of all, it is stressful to come to the UK, then
to find yourself again in detention… It is good that there are people who are
standing up to say that we should stop it. There are lots of people, many
voices, so we are a force for change. When I saw the flyer, I was excited to
hear that there is campaign to close detention, to put less people in stress.
But I also
feel angry. To keep someone in detention, when they are closed somewhere, they
suffer inside. When they are locked up, they are not doing the basic things they
are used to. They think a lot, they remember the trauma they went through back
home. It is not helping. They are isolated. At least at the Day Centre I can
come, I can chat to friends. In detention there is no change – it’s monotone.
The vigil was organised by Citizens UK, London
Churches Refugee Network, Detention Action and Detention Forum.
More information about the campaign
to end indefinite detention:
www.detentionaction.org.uk/timelimit
www.detentionaction.org.uk/timelimit
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Tag :
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Detention,
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A Visit of Heart to Heart
London, 04 July 2014 - In this testimony from the UK a JRS volunteer describes her unexpected encounter with an Afghan man held in an immigration removal centre. This chance meeting of two people, one free and the other detained, reveals a surprising role-reversal and highlights the inner human spirit that knows no borders.
One day I made an unscheduled visit to the detention centre. Neither the officials nor the detainees were expecting me, so I settled down in the multi-faith room and looked around at the books of different religious texts, the floor, the walls, and the carpet. There were no windows in this room making it impossible for anyone to connect with the outside world. Time passed slowly and alone I began to regret not informing the centre of my intended visit.
Then suddenly I saw Feizal.
When I first met Feizal he was very pale and was constantly being admitted to hospital. Often depleted of energy, he seemed withdrawn and sad. English is not Feizal's first language and he struggled to express himself the first time we met. However, today was different.
Like most detainees, Feizal has a sad story. Feizal's hometown is in Waziristan, a troubled border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Taliban killed his father and then tried to force Feizal to fight for them. A school teacher, and a pacifist, he could think of nothing worse than killing another human being: so he refused. Consequently, the Taliban issued an order that Feizal be killed. He had to go into hiding. Feizal's mother managed to give him enough money to travel to the UK.
As soon as Feizal reached the UK he claimed asylum. His claim was refused and he was placed in immigration detention.
On seeing me sitting alone, Feizal immediately came up and sat next to me. His health had greatly improved and his downtrodden demeanour was replaced with one of strength. His English had also greatly progressed.
Feizal told me stories of his childhood and how he loved playing cricket. I complimented him on his dramatic improvement in English: he said this was due to him attending English classes at the detention centre. In the future, he hoped to teach English.
One gesture that will always stay with me was when Feizal pointed upwards and said with a big smile, "Above everyone, above the Taliban, above the law, there is Allah."
Despite all of his difficulties, Feizal still retained complete trust and confidence in God.
I left the centre feeling extremely humbled. I had set out with the intention of helping detainees. Instead, I had received care from a detainee. Although Feizal had so many problems of his own, he cared about my well-being and spent nearly an hour trying to make me feel valued, so that I wouldn't feel I had wasted my time in coming to the centre.
I realised that Feizal's actions were ones of true love: the giving of the self to the other. Feizal did not have money, did not have power nor even his liberty but still he had his heart and he chose to use it to make me feel better. And for that I will be forever grateful.
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Bianca Venkata is a volunteer member of the JRS UK detention-outreach team and visits detainees at an immigration removal centre in the UK.
If you would like to join as a volunteer, come and visit JRS UK Volunteering.
If you would like to join as a volunteer, come and visit JRS UK Volunteering.
Last month my penfriend detainee disappeared
He was lost, perhaps deported. I was at a loss, someone I had come to know through the post had disappeared without my ever knowing the end or indeed the beginning of his story. As a pen befriender one is not permitted to ask about the detainee’s case or background and it would be irresponsible to ask after family, education or occupation when these lifelines have been severed. I had lost someone I would never know, yet whom I had come to cherish in my life.
My responses were those of bereavement - anger, sadness, bewilderment but also an urge to pray. My prayers were for my friend and for those who had befriended him, not least the art teacher of the detention centre who had encouraged him to create wonderful, exuberant cards, who had brought colour and life into his life. Prayers too for his future that he would be held in those arms of the Loving God we can none of us fall through.
What joy it was then to hear from the JRS intelligence network that he had been found, transferred to another unit in this country. Joy mixed with anger when I reflected on how someone could be disappeared by a people management system that needs to keep its statistics in good order.
And then a greater joy that dissolved all anger and created only compassion and thanks. A letter, or rather another exuberant card arrived from my friend addressed from his new detention centre, together with a printed message that someone, somewhere had helped him to write. His courage and love of life shine through, but can this story of one man contribute anything to the stories of unknown thousands displaced across the world?
I am reminded that there are many people out there involved in managing refugees, some, like the unknown art teacher are evidently good people helping detainees to be individuals not numbers, and it is not only the captives, but also all the captors who need our prayer.
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Who will weep for them?
The Globalisation of Indifference
A post based on Pope Francis’s homily from the mass he celebrated on the Italian island of Lampedusa on 8th July 2013.
Who will weep for them?
The UN reports that so far this year 40 people have lost
their lives off the cost of Lampedusa.
On Pope Francis’ first official visit outside Rome to the island,
reports were coming in that another 31 people have drowned in the waters of the
island in their quest for a better life.
Pope Francis described these deaths as a “thorn of suffering in his
heart”. But more than that, he spoke of
this disease, the globalization of indifference, which has hardens all our
hearts to the plight of these migrants, these our brothers and sisters.
“The migrants leave difficult situations in order to find a
little serenity and peace. They seek a
better place for themselves and for their families.”
To that end, for the chance of opportunities, which cannot
be found in their own countries, they embark upon perilous journeys, paying traffickers
vast sums of money and only counting on God to safely reach their
destination. They do not know if they
will make it. Many do not and those who
do, instead of finding the understanding, the welcome and the solidarity which
should characterise a global village in this age of globalization are instead met
with indifference. In our desire to
preserve our own well-being and our little soap bubbles, we turn our backs and
our hearts are not stirred within us as the dignity of our brothers and sisters
is trampled upon.
The globalization of indifference has taken away from us our
ability to weep even as God Himself weeps over these deaths and these migrants’
lives which are in limbo as they await a decision in the over-crowded detention
centres in Lampedusa.
In his homily, Pope Francis directed his listeners to the
two questions God asked of man after sin.
“Adam, where are you?” “Cain,
where is your brother?”
These two questions, rather than embedding us further into
our attitude of indifference, should instead provoke our consciences and cause
us to ask for forgiveness and weep: “weep over our indifference, weep over the cruelty in the world,
the cruelty in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic
decisions that open the way to the death of so many brothers and sisters and to
the robbing of the dignity of so many of them.”
