Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

92 Open Borders
bizarre reasons given by the Home Office for refusing asylum claims’. It has
also produced two further documents, ‘No Reason At All’: Home Office
Decisions on Asylum Claims, published in 1995, and Still No Reason At All:
Home Office Decisions on Asylum Claims, published in 1999. They contain a
mass of evidence on the failings of Home Office decision-making. ‘No Reason
At All’ gives this example, among many others:
B.Z. ... escaped from prison and took a canoe across the River Zaire to Brazzaville, in
Congo. The Home Office replied:
‘The Secretary of State ... considered your account of crossing the River Zaire at night
to be totally implausible. The Secretary of State is aware of the size, strength and considerable
dangers posed by the river such as shifting sandbanks and crocodiles.’
Challenged to provide evidence of the extent of the crocodile population in this part
of the River Zaire, the Home Office was unable to do so. It withdrew the statement,
but instead produced a completely different set of reasons for refusing B.Z.’s asylum
claim. In reality, canoes are a frequent means of transport across the River Zaire, as
the Home Office could easily have established.
Zaireans refused refugee status, at a time when Amnesty International was
reporting the ‘worst human rights crisis’, were over 90 per cent of applicants.
Adding Insult to Injury quotes the following statements in refusal letters, the
third and fourth of which contradict the first two:
We do not automatically assume that members of legal opposition parties are free
from persecution in Zaire.
There is no general assumption that simply because political parties have been
legalised human rights abuses and persecution cannot occur.
The UDPS has been a legitimate political party since 1990. ... The Secretary of State
is of the view that UDPS members now have no reason to fear return to Zaire.
The Secretary of State is aware that a new government was formed in Zaire in July
1994 and that the main opposition parties hold various Vice Presidencies, Ministries
and Vice-Ministries. He was of the view therefore that there was no reason why you
should fear harassment or persecution because of your membership of [an opposition
party] were you now to return.
‘No Reason At All’ gives examples of misapplication of the UN Convention
and the UNHCR Handbook. A Kenyan was told that, although he had been
arrested and beaten up for his membership of the Islamic Party of Kenya,
that did not entitle him to refugee status because the party was illegal:
The Secretary of State is therefore of the opinion that anyone taking part in such
activities would automatically put themselves at risk of arrest or prosecution by the
police.
But the convention was intended to provide protection for people persecuted
for their political beliefs. An Indian who said he had been tortured by Indian
security forces was told: