Immigration Detention: Signs of Spring, or False Dawn?
Campaigners have welcomed signs of movement around immigration detention Ð but celebration may be premature. In March 2015, the All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) on Refugees and Migration produced a strong report whose main recommendation, that immigration detention be severely curtailed and strictly time-limited, echoed the demands made for decades by detainee groups, campaigners and international human rights bodies.

The APPGsÕ joint inquiry broke new ground in taking evidence from former detainees and by phone from current detainees, bringing home to the panel what indefinite detention means to those subjected to it. Chaired by Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather and containing a former Chief Inspector of Prisons among its number, the panel was unanimous in its condemnation of the Home OfficeÕs Ôenforcement cultureÕ and its over-use of detention. It recommended that detention be used only exceptionally, only to effect removal and for a maximum of twenty-eight days. The hard-hitting report also argued that there were groups of vulnerable people who should never be detained. Recognising that a sea change in attitudes would be necessary, it concluded that the government must learn from international best practice and use alternatives to detention, and that judicial safeguards must be strengthened.
Read more: Frances Webber for IRR News, 09/04/15

Bruktait 'Bruk' T Has Been Released From Detention

Surround Harmondsworth/Colnbrook IRCs

Saturday 11th April Assemble 1:00pm

Colnbrook By Pass, Harmondsworth, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 0HB

End Detention End Fast Track Stop The Scapegoating Of Immigrants!
The Surround Harmondsworth demonstrations become a national focus for a growing movement, uniting detainees, ex-detainees, asylum seekers and youth at the biggest detention complex in Europe - raising our voices and letting our calls for freedom ring through the corridors. The 7th Surround Harmondsworth/Colnbrook is the focus for building the next stage of our struggle to end the brutal and dehumanising system of immigration detention. We must make it the biggest, loudest, most integrated and most dynamic yet.

MFJ congratulates every detainee and ex-detainee, every person who has lived under the shadow of detention but found their voice, and every person who has taken up the fight to bring the truth of the oppression of detention and the dehumanising immigration system to light. The truth about immigration detention has been exposed to the world with the Channel 4 undercover filming and the movement has won significant victories; the Home Office had to withdraw plans to expand Campsfield detention Centre, Haslar detention centre is closing down, the high court ruled fast track is unlawful and a parliamentary inquiry has called for an end to indefinite detention. We must now escalate our action and seize the moment to win.

JOIN the 7th Surround Harmondsworth demonstration; building organised resistance in every city & every detention centre, is how we will make this the beginning of the end of immigration detention, stop the scapegoating of immigrants, and inspire a mass independent integrated movement to defeat the rightwing attacks on our communities, healthcare, housing, education and social welfare.

Transport meeting points:
9:30am Birmingham, Hill St Coach Bay by Birmingham New St station
9:30am Croydon (Wellesley rd outside Whitgift centre, opposite Lunar House)
10am Stratford Station (main entrance by local bus station)
12 noon Heathrow T5 (By 350 bus stop)
There are also minibuses coming from Nottingham and Glasgow, email mfj@ueaa.net to be put in contact with the organisers

Movement for Justice...
We march today, we march tomorrow, and we keep marching to build a new Britain: diverse, integrated and equal. We aim to win. We tell the truth about racism, sexism and anti-gay bigotry and the growing inequalities within our society. We believe that every human being is entitled to a job, to education, to food, shelter and the other necessities of life, so that every one of us can live in dignity, proud to be who we are, encouraged and able to fulfill our hopes and aspirations.

From: Movement for Justice <mfj@ueaa.net>

Asylum Research Consultancy (ARC) COI Update Volume 99
This document provides an update of Country Guidance case law and UKBA publications and developments in refugee producing countries between 25th March and 6th April 2015 - Volume 99 <> here . . .

Another Deportation Death in Europe
Questions are mounting about the death of a 45-year-old man, who had worked for the US military in Iraq and lived in Sweden for eight years. The man, who is named in the press simply as ÔAdnanÕ, had lost consciousness during the attempted deportation which took place on 17 March. Even though he still had a pulse, he was taken from Stockholm Arlanda airport to Karolinska University Hospital in the back of a police van, and this despite the fact that an acute emergency care unit was available at the airport. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, thirty-eight kilometres from the airport. The Swedish prosecution service has opened an investigation into possible manslaughter.
Read more: Liz Fekete for IRR News, 09/04/15

Petition: To Council of Europe End Forced Adoption
The petitioners call on the Council of Europe to adopt the Draft Resolution of the Report of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health & Sustainable Development.
You can sign the petition <> here . . . .

When is it OK to Remove a Child from Her or His Birth Family?
"Children have the right to be protected from all types of violence, abuse and neglect. But children also have the right not to be separated from their parents against their will, except when the competent authorities determine that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child," Olga Borzova (Russia, NR) says in her report, adopted yesterday by PACE's Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development.

The report looks at the thorny issue of taking the right decision about when to remove a child from his or her family. "Sometimes, children are removed from their families for the wrong reasons, for example because their parents are too poor to feed or house properly," Ms Borzova said. "Sometimes, however, children are not removed from their families in time, or are returned too early, with tragic consequences."

According to the committee, the solution lies in putting the best interest of the child first when the initial decision is taken – usually by social services – to remove a child from his or her birth family. The report recommends the development of policy guidelines for member States on how to avoid practices deemed abusive in this context, such as severing family ties completely, removing children from parental care at birth, basing placement decisions on the passage of time, and having recourse to adoptions without parental consent.

"If we manage to ensure that these recommendations are put into practice, we will have made a big step towards putting into place social services, laws, regulations and practices which truly put the best interest of the child first in removal, placement and reunification decisions – to the benefit of all children," Ms Borzova concluded.

The report will be debated at the PACE Spring plenary session in April 2015 http://tinyurl.com/oqmf5vr

Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
http://tinyurl.com/nhmwjfe

UKBA CIG- Eritrea: National (incl. Military) Service

1.1 Basis of Claim

1.1.1 Fear of harm or mistreatment by the state because:

(a) of the treatment and/or conditions likely to be faced by person during compulsory military service duties; and/or

(b) the requirement to undertake national service duties amounts to a form of slave labour, particularly given the indefinite/open-ended nature of it; and/or

(c) of the penalties likely to be faced by the person's refusal to undertake, or their desertion from, national/military service duties.

1.1.2 Decision makers must note that a person may also raise issues related to punishment or penalties imposed for leaving Eritrea illegally. Therefore, this country information and guidance should be read alongside the one on Eritrea :<>Illegal Exit.

Published on Refworld 10/04/15
http://www.refworld.org/docid/552779c34.html