LETTER from Jeremy Dear NUJ - March 2007

LETTER from Jeremy Dear NUJ - March 2007

It seems not a day goes by without the government and opposition parties proposing further immigration and asylum restrictions.

The strength of feeling about the cruelties that can be inflicted by such restrictions is shown by the fact that the General Secretaries of five major unions (UCU, NUJ, TGWU,RMT, PCS) have come together to protest the threatened deportation of Alphonsus Uche Akafor-Mefor.

Alphonsus is an asylum seeker from Nigeria, having been prominent in the struggle for Biafran independence. There are countless others presently in this country living under the shadow of forcible removal. Many face death, torture or persecution in their country of origin.

What gives added significance to Alphonsus’s case is that he is due at the end of this month to be a featured speaker at a conference for trade unionists on immigration control organised by the No One Is Illegal coalition – due to speak on such iniquities as the denial to asylum seekers of the right to work.

Yet, Alphonsus, a person who has kept to all his reporting restrictions, was arrested without warning and is now a captive in this country at Tinsley House detention centre.

Campaigners fear that as a leading figure in the group Asylum Voice which he helped form to protest against the introduction by the government of the New Asylum Model, designed for rapid removals, he is being scapegoated because of his legitimate activities in this country.

This is the daily reality of racist immigration controls and it is why as representatives of the labour movement we feel it incumbent to offer him all our support and solidarity. We would ask your readers to do the same and to make the Home Secretary aware of the opposition there is to Alphonsus’ deportation.