This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:
Asylum seeker's friends hoping for late reprieve
by Tom Mack
Supporters of a failed asylum seeker from Afghanistan are hoping for a last minute victory as he prepares to be deported.
Yesterday, Abdul Ghafar Rajabali, 23, was moved to a detention centre near Gatwick Airport ready to be flown out of the UK.
The news came as a shock to his friends in Leicester.
At the same time on Sunday afternoon, about 60 of his supporters gathered in Victoria Park, Leicester, where they had planned to sing to Abdul down the telephone to show their support.
Colleen Molloy, who helped organised Sunday’s event, said: “It was quite traumatic.
“We had all come together to make one final plea for him and we rang him up hoping to sing to him.
“We thought he was still at the detention centre in Lincolnshire.
“We couldn’t get through when we tried his phone and a while later we got a call to say he was being transported to a detention centre at Gatwick Airport, which was why his phone was off.
“He never got to hear the crowds singing for him.”
Orphan Abdul fled to Leicester when he was 16, in August 2006, to escape being forced to fight for the Taliban rebels in his home country.
He fears that he will be killed if he is sent back because he has converted to Christianity.
He went through the usual channels to apply for asylum but after missing an important appointment he went on the run from the authorities and lived rough, eventually ending up in Leicester.
He was detained on May 10 by the Borders Agency.
Speaking to the Leicester Mercury from the Lincolnshire detention centre last week, Abdul said: “I am scared. I cannot go back to Afghanistan, I will be killed because I am now a Christian.
“I love England and I love Leicester.”
Colleen said lawyers were still hoping to stop Abdul being put on a plane home.
She said: “He has a legal team and they’re still working on his case and they’re hoping to get a reprieve at the last minute.
“Abdul’s only ambition is to be at peace.
“He arrived here alone and terrified and he is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person you could know and he is feeling not just stressed about what he expects to be his impending death if he’s returned to Afghanistan, but all about all the people he misses so much in Leicester.”
Supporter Dave Jones, 23, of Leicester city centre, who used to play football with Abdul in Victoria Park every weekend, said: “Abdul is really integrated here and he’s one of us.
“He’s been let down by the authorities time and time again and now they want to send him to Afghanistan - it just makes no sense.”
A Home Office spokesperson said the Government and the courts were satisfied there was no reason to allow Abdul to stay in the UK.
This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:
If I'm sent back to Kabul I will be killed
by Tim Healy
Campaigners are calling for a 23-year-old failed Afghani asylum-seeker to be allowed to remain in Leicester, saying he will be killed if he is deported.
Abdul Ghafar Rajabali's parents and family were murdered when he was a baby, and he entered Britain illegally as a traumatised 16-year-old in August 2006 after fleeing.
He applied for asylum but was turned down and started living rough.
He was later found destitute by the Red Cross.
Because he has extreme post-traumatic stress syndrome and a medical condition which, say campaigners, could not be treated in Afghanistan, Mr Rajabali was allowed to stay in the UK while his medical case was reviewed.
However, that permission ended last week and when he attended a routine reporting session with the immigration authorities in Loughborough on Friday, he was detained by UK Border Agency staff.
Mr Rajabali, who has converted to Christianity, was taken to Morton Hall Detention Centre, in Lincolnshire, and faces being put on a flight to Kabul at midnight on Tuesday.
The Leicester City of Sanctuary group, which has been working with Mr Rajabali, has launched an e-petition calling on Home Secretary Teresa May to stop his deportation.
It has so far been backed by more than 1,100 people.
The group said he was wrongly treated as an adult when he arrived in the UK, and was put at a disadvantage because the translator used by the UK Border Agency did not understand the dialect he spoke.
He also inadvertently missed an asylum hearing and, fearing he would be deported as a result, went under the radar of the authorities which resulted in him living on the streets.
The group said Mr Rajabali was preparing a claim for asylum "based on new evidence" when he was detained, and wants him released so the application can be heard.
Speaking from the detention centre, Mr Rajabali said: "I am scared. I cannot go back to Afghanistan, I will be killed because I am now a Christian.
"Not only will the Taliban kill me, but other religious groups too. I love England and I love Leicester. The police are very good here. They do not hit you if you ask a question."
Pam Inder, chairman of Leicester City of Sanctuary, said Mr Rajabali had "touched the hearts of everyone who knows him" in Leicester.
She said: "Abdul is an illegal immigrant, but he is a very special person. He is intelligent and kind and would be a very good addition to our society."
She said Mr Rajabali would be killed if he went back to Afghanistan, a country where he has no family does not know anyone who could help him.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "Every asylum application is carefully considered on a case by case basis.
"The UK only returns individuals if both the Home Office and the courts are satisfied they do not need our protection and have no legal basis to remain in the country.
"Mr Rajabali's case has been considered and rejected by the courts and he failed to attend an appeal hearing before an independent judge."
This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:
Support for Cameron in Leicester over forced marriage
Campaigners have welcomed David Cameron's pledge to give greater protection to women forced to marry against their will.
The Prime Minister said yesterday that forced marriage – as opposed to consensual, arranged marriage – was "little more than slavery".
He announced measures to encourage victims to come forward and said the Government was considering strengthening the law to punish those who coerced children into wedlock.
Meena Kumari, of Safe, a police-backed support group for Leicester's victims of domestic violence, welcomed the publicity for the often hidden issue.
Safe works with police, social services, schools and colleges to identify victims and help them flee abusive homes and rebuild their lives.
Ms Kumari said: "The fact the Prime Minister is talking openly about forced marriage is great. People have shied away from this issue.
"We are seeing an increase in the number of cases we're dealing with, but I don't think that is because it's a growing problem."The greater awareness is helping and people are no longer prepared to tolerate being treated this way."
But she urged caution about making arranging a forced marriage a criminal offence.
"Some of the people we have supported might not have come forward if they thought their parents or other close relatives could end up in prison," she said.
Leicestershire police started recording forced marriage cases in 2004 and over the next four-and-a-half years was alerted to 34.
In the following 18 months, to April last year, it received 101 reports.
The figures have continued to climb since, said Det Sgt Kev Wright, of the specialist domestic violence team.
He said: "As with domestic violence, the increased number of reports is seen as a positive."
Aneeta Prem, founder and president of Freedom, a charity which supports victims, said: "It may come as a surprise to many that forcing someone into marriage is not already a criminal offence. We are delighted the Prime Minister is taking a lead on this issue."
Mr Cameron also announced that those who breached court orders designed to protect victims once they had moved away from their families could face a harsher penalty than the current maximum two-year prison sentence.
The Prime Minister announced a series of measures to reduce immigration, including requiring people who wish to settle in the UK to have good command of English and evidence that they have the finance to support themselves.
In response to these measures, Leicester East MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "At a time when abuses in the immigration system, including bogus colleges, remain prevalent, it would be a better use of resources to focus on improving administration in the UK Border Agency."
Contact Safe on 0800 022 3353.
www.safedvs.co.uk
