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A BBC Scotland news website story has been shortlisted for a leading European journalism award, it was announced.

‘Seeking asylum from the streets’ revealed that asylum seekers were left homeless in Scotland after their claims were rejected by the Home Office.

The investigation by reporter Stephen Stewart found hundreds of asylum seekers on Glasgow streets.

The European Union Journalist Award is open to reporters from the EU’s 27 member states.

It is designed to honour journalists who contribute to a “better public understanding of the benefits of diversity and the fight against discrimination in employment on the grounds of age, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, disability, religion or belief”.

The overall winners will be honoured by Commissioner Vladimir Spidla at an awards ceremony in Lisbon.

Seeking asylum from the streets
Stephen Stewart
Glasgow and west of Scotland reporter, BBC Scotland news website
Reported: Thursday, 21 June 2007, 10:49 GMT 11:49 UK

The would-be citizens must steal sleep. They move from bus shelters, underpasses and even telephone boxes, trying desperately to get some rest before the streets fill with commuters.

Clutching plastic bags with all their worldly possessions, these people are part of a growing, yet invisible, army which lives in constant fear of violence.

The men and women have fled from some of the world’s most notorious trouble-spots only to find themselves languishing on Scotland’s streets.

A BBC investigation has revealed that growing numbers of asylum seekers have been left homeless after their claims were rejected by the Home Office.

Between April 2006 and February this year, about 1,000 destitute asylum seekers and refugees, including hundreds of children, have been given small crisis grants to provide food and other basics in Scotland.

The Home Office gives Section Four support, involving self-catering accommodation and vouchers for food and toiletries, to asylum seekers facing destitution.

A new report revealed that the number of people seeking this safety net across the UK also rose from 1,510 to almost 1,900 in the first quarter of this year alone.

The hidden and fluid nature of destitution and homelessness serves to obscure the problem, but one of the country’s leading refugee bodies described it as “widespread” and said it had “a devastating impact on already vulnerable individuals”.

In one month last year, the Scottish Refugee Council identified more than 150 asylum seekers and refugees who were living on the streets of Glasgow.

With a remarkable Iranian accent laced with the occasional Glaswegian turn of phrase, Parviz Fatahi describes the chaos of his life on the streets, which began after he arrived in Glasgow in 2001.

His sallow, thin face bears the literal scars of his time moving from his makeshift home in Victoria Park to benches and doorways across the city.

On one night, he was racially abused and set upon by a gang of men before being slashed across the side of his face and upper lip.

He said: “I am nothing here. Living on the streets was very difficult for me. I had to leave Iran because the authorities were looking for me.

“I had a large family there with my parents and three brothers and three sisters, but when I arrived in Scotland I had no friends, no relations and no money.

“I had a house and was trying to go to college but then I got a letter telling me I had to leave and that was it. I was locked out and had nowhere to go.

“I went to friends’ homes and even tried to get money to get to England to visit some people I knew.

“I ended up sleeping rough. It was a nightmare and I would just cry about the state I was left in.

“I was always moving from place to place: train stations, derelict buildings and parks. You could never really rest.”

Parviz was lured to a Glasgow skyline dotted with cranes, suggesting a brave new world of regeneration and a new life.

It was a place where the streets are packed with shoppers, alluding to an economic and social stability so lacking in his homeland.

He knew this was the place he wanted to settle despite the ubiquitous and seemingly incessant drizzle.

But he arrived in 2001, not long after the terror attacks of 9/11. The destruction of the twin towers and its aftermath made it even more difficult for a man of Middle Eastern appearance on the streets.

Sleeping rough

He said: “Scotland is a beautiful place with great people. But when I was on the streets I would think, why is it that dogs are treated better than me?

“There are not many Iranians here and that means you stand out, especially when you are sleeping rough.

“I have been attacked far more times than I can remember.”

Saleem, 30, is another asylum seeker who ended up homeless.

From a relatively middle class background in his native country, he was unprepared for the eventual rough and tumble lifestyle on Glasgow’s streets.

One night six years ago, Saddam Hussein’s military and plain clothes police careered through the door of his family home just outside Kirkuk.

He was classified as an enemy of the Iraqi regime and fled from house to house before embarking on a hair-raising journey into Europe.

At one point, he was blindfolded by people traffickers and had a gun held to his head as they meandered from Syria to Turkey.

Lowest point

He made it to Dover and stayed for a time with acquaintances in Birmingham before deciding he wanted Glasgow to be his new home.

“When I got here I knew it wouldn’t be easy but it was so hard to make ends meet,” he said.

His accommodation and benefit were stopped and he was refused access to hostels, homeless units and benefits.

He said: “I wanted to come here to work. My family had a shop at home and I wanted to do something like that here.

“But I was put out on the streets and left to fend for myself. My lowest point was when I was attacked for no reason.

“About eight men came at me and I was left for dead. I just couldn’t believe this had happened to me.”

But there is an increasing, albeit belated, awareness of Saleem, Parviz and the many others like them across the country.

A vociferous housing charity has organised a sleepout event to raise awareness of the issue. Members of the public, destitute asylum seekers, faith leaders, politicians and celebrities will take part.

Robina Qureshi of Positive Action in Housing said: “These people are denied all state support, thrown out of their housing and are not allowed to work.

“They have no money for food, shelter and the everyday things we take for granted. This misery is a direct consequence of government policy.

“Destitution is being used to drive people out of the country but many thousands simply cannot leave and are now homeless and hungry.”

Earlier this year, the Scottish Refugee Council also claimed the UK Government was using destitution as a means of forcing refused asylum seekers out of the country.

Sally Daghlian, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “Destitution is not a policy failure by the Home Office, it is a policy outcome.

‘Morally reprehensible’

“The deliberate use of destitution as a tool to enforce immigration control is both inhumane and ineffective.

“The denial of any means of support for refused asylum seekers as a matter of government policy is morally reprehensible. It’s time to end this scandal.”

A Border and Immigration Agency spokeswoman said claims that destitution was an instrument of policy were unfair.

She said: “There is no need for asylum seekers to be destitute. Asylum seekers are supported by the Home Office from the time they arrive in the UK until the outcome of their claim is determined.

“The only people not in receipt of support are those with no right to be in the UK and who choose not to leave.

“It is not right to ask the UK taxpayer to fund, potentially indefinitely, those who choose to remain when it is open to them to return to a home country that has been found safe for them to live in.”

The Border and Immigration Agency provides support under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to asylum seekers who would be destitute while their claims and appeals are being considered.

The support provided can be accommodation and financial support or subsistence-only support if the asylum seeker is living with friends or relatives.

Life has become more settled for Parviz and Saleem, they are looking forward to a new start and both of them now have a modest place to call home.

Saleem describes his new one-bedroom flat in a multi-storey flat in a tough estate in the south side of the city.

His tired, stubbled face breaks into a broad grin as he explains that it has no furniture, no decent heating and patches of dampness streaking the walls.

“But,” he says, “at least it is my home.”

By Emily Dugan
Published: 22 October 2007

Thousands of people are forced to spend years living in abject poverty on the streets of Britain’s cities after fleeing persecution in their own countries, an independent asylum inquiry has heard. The destitute have no access to help from the state as they have not been granted asylum, yet they prefer to stay in Britain rather than return home because they fear of being tortured or killed.

Senior lawyers, doctors and immigration officials even claim such destitution is, in effect, now being used by the Government as policy, in an attempt to force desperate people out of the country.

There are at least 280,000 people living in poverty in Britain after having their leave to remain refused. Some of them are appealing those decisions. Some just go completely underground, taking their chances on the streets of the UK with no money or shelter.

Living on the margins, these outcasts have been “failed” by the place where they thought they would be safe, the inquiry was told. Many sleep rough; few have access to the healthcare that UN legislation says they have a right to. Sir John Waite, a former High Court judge and chair of the Independent Asylum Commission that will report to the Government next year, said: “I think it’s a serious omission that we haven’t looked earlier at this very pressing problem. There is a significant element of the population subsisting while awaiting hearings or asylum claims, especially after rejection. And some of them are suffering serious hardship either because they don’t understand the system or because the system fails them.”

The Commission met last week in Manchester to hear evidence from immigration experts as well as direct testimonies from those who had experienced the struggle of surviving in the UK first-hand. They described the extremes of poverty they suffered while living in fear of returning to their countries of origin.

In an impassioned plea to the Commission, Iranian Afshin Azizian, whose asylum case is still undecided after 12 years, said: “Thousands and thousands of asylum seekers have been made destitute. I ask those in the Home Office to think, if you were to spend one day in my shoes how would you like to be treated? We never had much of a voice until recently. If you don’t have a piece of paper from the Home Office you’re not considered human. How can you call yourselves civilised?”

The 36-year old, who was beaten by Revolutionary Guards in Iran, fled after his activist friends were brutally tortured by the regime. Until recently he was sleeping rough, before finding sanctuary in a monastery. Sleeping everywhere from laundrettes to parks, he said that his living conditions had been better in Iran. “I was not poor in Iran – I did not come here for your money but I was seeking refuge. I would never have believed that one day I would be starving for food, and I would never have imagined that people would get this kind of treatment in this country. We’re human beings. You signed the [European] Convention on Human Rights: do you not respect your own signature?”

Financial support is cut off after 21 days for those without children whose asylum case has been rejected. Immigration experts have called this a “deliberate tool” to rush people out of the country, often before enough evidence has been collated to ensure the safety of their return.

Sandy Buchan, chief executive of Refugee Action, condemned the country’s treatment of failed asylum seekers: “It seems the Government is using destitution as an instrument of policy. It’s no accident. It’s very much a deliberate tool of government. It’s morally unacceptable to force people into utter destitution, and the most desperate and degrading circumstances when people are frightened of what awaits them when they return home.

“Destitution is an unworkable policy that has completely failed to deliver on its objectives,” he added. “It means the Government loses contact with asylum seekers. Each day they are destitute, the chances of return become more remote.”

Ruth Heatley, an immigration solicitor, said that part of the problem was in the phasing out of Exceptional Leave to Remain, a policy that used to grant temporary residency to those whose safety in their home country was still in question. In 2002, one in four initial asylum cases was granted this temporary permission; by 2005 this had been reduced to just one in ten.

“This is wrong and inhumane, and the policy doesn’t work: people would rather face destitution than persecution,” she said.

Dr Angela Burnett, who was at the hearing representing Medact, which campaigns to improve health worldwide, said healthcare provision for many asylum seekers was so poor that it broke UN conventions.

“Torture survivors are being denied access to healthcare due to an inability to pay. This contravenes the UN Convention Against Torture, ratified by the UK, which obliges states to provide as full a rehabilitation as possible to torture survivors,” she said, adding that thedifficulty of understanding a labyrinthine set of regulations meant that even those eligible for healthcare missed out.

“The complexity of the current and proposed rules means that some people who do have full entitlement to free healthcare, such as people who have active asylum claims, have erroneously been excluded or charged.”

The Independent Asylum Commission is conducting a nationwide review of the UK asylum system and will present a report to the Government in 2008. Last week’s hearing in Manchester, was the sixth of seven nationwide hearings and was specifically aimed at tackling the issue of poverty amongst asylum seekers and refugees.

Mary Namkussa: ‘It was like being an animal’

Mary Namkussa fled Uganda after she was raped and beaten by soldiers hunting for rebels. Her brother-in-law had been a rebel, but she had not known.

After months of being held captive and repeatedly raped by soldiers, the 40-year-old mother of two was released and pushed out of a car on to the road. She tried to resume life as normal in the pharmacy she owned with her husband, but her home was raided and her husband disappeared.

When she escaped to England in 2003, her Home Office interview was delayed as she was being operated on for internal injuries caused by being raped. Her solicitor asked the GP for a medical report, but he never sent it, and the Home Office refused her entry. At an appeal hearing in 2005 she had a medical report, but again she was denied asylum. She was left homeless and penniless, and for two and a half years she has survived on Red Cross food parcels.

“It is difficult for me to put into words how I feel about being destitute,” she said. “I think living the life of a destitute person is like living like an animal, not a human being.”

“If I was returned I’m sure I would be targeted. Who will help me? I’m not a public figure or significant, so no one from the West would help me if I was imprisoned. I would like to be able to work so that I can do something instead of just roaming or sitting still. I used to work, I am not disabled, I am an educated and hard-working woman. I can use my brain.

“I think about my children, my family and my position every day, and every day I cry.”

Ibrahim Zukrya: ‘I was harassed and abused’

Ibrahim Zukrya was captured and tortured in prison after photographing a bomb site in Darfur. The 47-year-old teacher, who had already been in trouble for encouraging his students to be politically active, was tied upside-down and beaten as he was questioned. He escaped during a prison transfer, when his van had an accident in the jungle. After a trek by camel through the deserts of Chad and Libya, he found someone who transferred him by ship and lorry to the UK in 2003. His application for asylum was refused, and after an appeal was turned down he was told to return to the Sudan. Mr Zukrya preferred destitution to being returned “to be killed by my enemies”. He slept rough. “Drunk people would come up to me and harass me with racist comments. The only organisation I could get aid from was the Red Cross, who used to give me a parcel of food and £5.” Finally, after being imprisoned at a detention centre for two days, he found a new solicitor to represent him, and was granted asylum in September last year.