ALEX SALMOND has blasted the home secretary on the UK’s asylum policy, accusing the government of trampling on asylum seekers’ rights by raiding families at dawn and locking them up in Dungavel detention centre.
The Sunday Herald has obtained letters between Scottish ministers and Westminster over asylum issues under the Freedom of Information Act. MSP Fiona Hyslop, secretary for education and lifelong learning, had been in correspondence with MP Liam Byrne, minister of state, about the treatment of failed asylum seekers.
In one letter dated May 20, she asks Byrne to clarify his position on why some families had been refused leave to remain in this country.
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“Our understanding was that only those families involved in criminality or fraud would be refused leave, but it appears that some have been refused simply for having failed to report to the Home Office. To many this will not be recognisable as either criminality or fraud.”
On June 6, Byrne replied saying that families “in the main … do not fulfil the criteria that would allow the UK Border Agency to permit a grant. This will include families who have not abided by the laws of the UK by absconding and failing to report as required.”
Byrne said that if a family did not return to their home country voluntarily, “enforced removal will be considered as a last resort”.
The first minister wrote a strongly worded letter to Jacqui Smith on June 24 saying he was “deeply concerned” about families who have been refused leave to remain. He wrote: “A decision that they do not have a legitimate claim for asylum in the UK combined with their understandable reluctance to leave voluntarily should not allow us to trample on their rights as individuals.”
A furious Salmond said it is “with increasing anger” that he had learned of families being raided at dawn and forcibly removed from their homes and “locked up in Dungavel”.
The Sunday Herald reported in May that early-morning raids had returned to Scotland despite the Scottish government’s clear opposition to the practice. Zodwa Mbali, a South African single mother, said eight immigration officers dragged her and her six-year-old son from her home in Drumchapel, Glasgow, and took them to Yarl’s Wood detention centre near Bedford. Bridget O’Koro from Nigeria and her three-year-old daughter Osa were also taken by immigration officers to Yarl’s Wood.
Salmond said he had “a number of concerns about how recent enforced removals have taken place”.
Reports of between eight and 10 officers being used to detain single mothers struck him as “heavy handed”. He has asked for Smith to explain why home detentions are only carried out in the mornings. “Surely it is possible to pick up a single mother and pre-school child at other times,” he said.
An SNP insider told the Sunday Herald the party was becoming “increasingly concerned” by the recent actions of the Home Office in resuming dawn raids and detaining children in Dungavel.
“The Scottish government feels like they have made some progress in this area and we are very concerned about lapsing back into the old bad habits.”
Patrick Harvie, Green MSP, said Salmond’s critics will accuse him of “playing party politics” with the asylum issue. “They’ll say he’s kicking up a fuss and trying to pick a fight, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the First Minister to seek the UK government on these matters.
“There should be nothing like Dungavel in this country and I think the letter is encouraging as it shows this government is willing to pursue the Home Office on this issue.”
John Wilkes, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said it was “deeply concerned” by the detention and removal of children.
“It is hard to believe this exists in a 21st-century Scotland. We have condemned it, as have the Scottish government and Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People.
“The UK government has signed up to protect the rights of children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but shamefully except for children in the asylum and immigration system.”
Wilkes said the SRC is in discussions with the Scottish government and UK Border Agency over alternatives to detention, but as yet nothing has been drawn up or confirmed.
A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed it had received the letter and that a response would be written to the first minister in due course.
9 responses so far ↓
Michael Woods // July 19, 2008 at 4:43 am |
Mr Wilkes says -
“It is hard to believe this exists in a 21st-century Scotland. We have condemned it, as have the Scottish government and Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People.
“The UK government has signed up to protect the rights of children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but shamefully except for children in the asylum and immigration system.”
Yet there are some who will shamelessly broadcast their joy that such acts are perpetrated on these innocents. The web is overburdened with those who believe it right to act so here in Scotland.
Whereas I see no difference between the essence of this quasi-legalised persecution of the defenceless and the essence of that which began the acceptance of the Nazi state’s quasi-legalised right to commence the bullying which led directly to the pogroms in the 1930s.
The Human Rights Acts are a direct result of those pogroms and the subsequent atrocities and any state calling itself civilised must not contravene them for to do so is to act against the finest ideals so far put into legislation.
shuck // July 19, 2008 at 2:24 pm |
Detention of children is a last resort and is in fact legal.
If the parents of these children you refer to accepted that they have failed in their attempts to gain status in the UK and returned to their own countries then there would be no need to detain anyone.
The fact is that the UK Border Agency have no alternative but to detain those who blatantly refuse to accept the law of this country.
So Woodened, if you want to see an end to children being detained, why don’t you encourage the parents to accept that they should go home when instructed to do so?
shuck // July 19, 2008 at 2:26 pm |
Woodened,
As usual lots of big words but no substance!!!!
Michael Woods // July 20, 2008 at 5:10 pm |
On January 30, 1933, Alfred Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
Jews were deprived of German citizenship as was Albert Einstein, in March 1933.
On April 7th, 1933, the ‘Bill for the Reestablishment of the Civil Service’ was passed. By it all Jewish civil servants were dismissed.
The Reich Chamber of Culture Law of September 22nd eliminated Jews from cultural life. Furthermore, the Defense Law of 21st May, 1935, excluded Jewish people from military service.
In the Nazi Party Assembly of September 15th, 1935, the Antijewish Laws of Nuremberg were passed.
As from July 1938 all Jews had to present themselves before the authorities with their identity cards that established that they were Jews. At the same time, it was ruled that Jewish children were required to bear specific names.
On October 28th, 1938, some 170,000 Jews of Polish nationality were moved from Germany to Poland.
As from November 14th Jewish children could no longer attend German schools. On November 15th, 1938, Jews were inflicted with a one thousand million Mark fine if they violated any of the antijewish rules or laws.
Some of the Jews who had been imprisoned were set free after having signed an affidavit that obliged them to keep total silence regarding what they had experienced in the concentration camps. Furthermore, they had to leave the country in twenty four hours. Many Jews could have left Nazi Germany if there had been more countries willing to receive them as refugees.
This is the reason why, after the war, the German Federal Republic sanctioned an Asylum Law to afford protection to persecuted people of different parts of the world. This law, however, became an empty shell since many people who ask for asylum must sometimes endure up to eight months in subhuman conditions -without having committed any crime- just to avoid continuing being illegally in the country ( Germany ).
Sounds familiar to me.
All of that was legal, legal merely means accepted as right by the legislature. Even if it is subsequently seen to be absolutely abhorrent and utterly wrong.
Therefore the claim that – “Detention of children is a last resort and is in fact legal.” -is at best faux-naive and at worst just another tedious attempt to justify yet another state-perpetrated crime against the defenceless.
shuck // July 22, 2008 at 7:59 pm |
My God Woodened you live in another planet if you compare the UK Border Agency to Nazi Germany.
You really are deluded if you believe that it is wrong to remove Failed Asylum seekers/Bogus asylum seekers and their children from the UK.
As a UK Citizen I respect the laws of the land, and believe that those who support and urge Failed Asylum Seekers to break the law should be severely dealt with by the courts.
Brian Dempster // July 30, 2008 at 12:48 pm |
Comment Deleted – invalid email address
Michael Woods // July 30, 2008 at 9:18 pm |
Shuck my dear worshipper this is Me your ” God Woodened ” speaking. %^)
Give up the opposition, you are beat ! :-{
Respect ye not any law which contravenes a higher law ! ; -)
Your God Woodened – on the third rock from the sun. }:^O
shuck // July 31, 2008 at 2:50 pm |
You are not worth the effort Woodened. You are a complete weirdo.
No argument, no intellect, no common sense, just the usual rantings.
Is there anyone on this site who can put forward a sensible and logical debate as Old woodened is becoming extremely tiresome through his weird and irritating nonsense?
No more will you get a response from me woodened, I will let the viewers (If there are any) make up their own minds about you.
Michael Woods // August 4, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
Saint shuckle of the wobbly mind, do you desert me now in your hour of need ??
Thrice shall ye deny me, shuckly, before the crow cocks.
Oh woe, woe and thrice woe !!
Your God Woodened is sad now.
Answer me this and ye shall be redeemed – is a pigeon a long time for a porker ??
Oh and give up the asylum stuff, youre not all that good at it.
Your God Woodened has speaked !