Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/536/4803
From The Socialist newspaper, 4 June 2008
Don't deport AmDani Juna
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Protesting at the threat to deport AmDani in Nottingham, photo Gary Freeman |
THE CAMPAIGN to stop the deportation of AmDani Juna has won at least a temporary success. AmDani was facing deportation to strife-torn Burundi on 4 June, despite the Foreign Office listing Burundi as an 'unsafe' country. Now his deportation has been delayed.
Gary Freeman
Campaigners in Nottingham had got over 850 hard copy signatures and hundreds of on-line petition signatures since 31 May against this brutal act. Over 100 people joined a protest on 31 May and 200 protested on 2 June.
Of mixed Tutsi and Hutu parentage, AmDani was evacuated to Kenya by UN troops during the Rwandan genocide. On his return to Burundi, he was detained, beaten and placed under surveillance. He fled again in 2003 after government militia killed his friends and political allies. Most of his close relatives are dead or missing.
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Protesting at the threat to deport AmDani in Nottingham, photo Gary Freeman |
AmDani's asylum claim to Britain was refused but he was granted three years' Humanitarian Protection - until 2006. His application for indefinite leave to remain was refused after 15 months' delay. AmDani told ITV News recently: "Because I have been tortured before, I cannot risk returning".
During five years in Britain, AmDani had an amazing record of service to the community - especially, but not only to refugees and asylum seekers - in Nottingham and nationally. AmDani set up the first support group for women with HIV/Aids in the city.
His tireless work at the Refugee Forum and the Terence Higgins Trust, earned the admiration of colleagues, volunteers, and refugees from many ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Tremendous pressure has got this morale-boosting reprieve from deportation but the threat to AmDani still remains. If he is deported to Burundi, where he fears his life would be in danger, the public and private life that he has built so successfully, would be destroyed and our community would be the poorer.
Send letters, calling for AmDani to be granted leave to stay, to Liam Byrne, Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.
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In The Socialist 4 June 2008:
New Labour's failures: Don't just get angry, get Active
Environment and socialism
Editorial: Target 'ecological' taxes at the biggest polluters
Heathrow protest: Demonstrating against a third airport runway
Cosmetic measures against fuel poverty
Socialist Party workplace news
Belfast Airport workers: The long battle for justice
Come to the national shop stewards network conference
National Shop Stewards Network second conference advert
Union members reject pay insult
Socialist Party campaigns
Nottingham: Student protests at arrests
Socialist Party review
Socialist Party youth and students
London Youth Against Racism activity
National demo against racist BNP
Berlin: 8,000 school students strike
Housing crisis
Markets cannot end house building crisis
Nationalise Bradford & Bingley
Environment: Nuclear power
Nuclear power: An expensive and dangerous failure
Football
The beautiful game, with beautiful profits for some
International socialist news and analysis
Lebanon - civil war or rule by sectarian landlords
Israel: Olmert will go, but the political crisis will stick
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