EUROPEAN RACE BULLETIN - Institute of Race Relations

Eurostar inquiry after migrants discovered atFolkestoneEurostar has launched an inquiry after police found 13 men– all believed to be from Bangladesh – near the tracks at theFolkestone entrance to the Channel Tunnel. The men hadsmuggled themselves on to a Belgian freight train bound forthe UK and then jumped off as it emerged from the tunnel.One of the men received emergency hospital treatment havingsuffered severe head injuries. Two other men sufferedbroken legs. (Guardian 2.9.00)More work permits to be issued to key workersThe government will respond to acute shortages in key sectorsby increasing work permits in 2001 by 40 per cent andintroducing a fast-track work permit system to speed uprecruitment of foreign workers by companies with severeskills shortages. More than 30,000 extra work permits will beissued to overseas workers to fill shortages in informationtechnology, the health services and the hotel and cateringindustries. According to the education and employment secretary,David Blunkett, ‘We are delivering nothing less thanone of the world’s most flexible, modern work permit systemsfit for the 21st century’.(Times 17.10.00, Financial Times3.5.00)Iranian hunger striker too ill to be deportedThe Home Office suspended the deportation of an Iranianasylum seeker who had been on hunger strike at Rochesterprison for nearly 40 days. He was due to be sent to Germanybut the deportation was stopped when the German authoritiesrequested more information about his medical condition.(Guardian 13.5.00)Newspapers join rural England campaign againstasylum- dispersalThe right-wing press are defending the right of conservativerural communities not to accommodate asylum seekers.While the Daily Telegraph championed the residents of asmall village in Somerset, the Daily Mail (15.7.00) warnedthat thousands of asylum seekers are set to be ‘dumped’ invillages already plagued by the menace of rural crime. If so,they will ‘join the rising number of criminals and drugaddicts living in country communities on various rehabilitationprogrammes’. The West Country could receive 5,000refugees, the Daily Mail warned, adding that a former RAFbase in Taunton, Somerset and another base in Weston-Super-Mare, Avon are set to become refugee camps, as is aformer old people’s home in Frenchay, Bristol. (Daily Mail15.7.00)Asylum and refugeesAI criticises government’s asylum rights recordIn its audit of human rights 2000, AI has criticised the government’sasylum policies as falling below internationalhuman rights standards in its introduction of pre-entry controls,its new reception arrangements, and the lack of properjudicial oversight for detained asylum seekers. Access tolegal advice to asylum seekers is increasingly being hampered,states AI.AI’s concernsPre-entry controls: Pre-entry controls, such as the routineimposition of visa requirements and carrier sanctions, hasclearly fuelled the trade in ‘people smuggling’ comments AIin response to the tragedy at Dover.Access to legal advice: AI criticises the lack of legal adviceavailable to 2,500 asylum seekers dispersed to Scotland.Most have been sent to Glasgow where there is a lack of adequateinterpretation and translation facilities and legaladvice.Detention of minors: In raising general concerns about thedetention of 48 asylum seekers at the Gateside remand centreattached to Greenock prison, AI points out that as of 4August two were children. Algerian brothers Hisham andMohammed Stetto were detained in May 2000 when the localauthority argued that their extreme behaviour was such thatthey could no longer care for them. The brothers were laterfreed following a court challenge. (UK foreign and asylumpolicy: human rights audit, AI, September 2000)Rejected asylum seeker commits suicideIn Liverpool, a South African mother of three committed suicideafter her asylum claim was rejected. Glynnis Cowley wasarrested at Heathrow airport in June 1999 after being foundto be in possession of a large quantity of cannabis. But sheclaimed that she had been forced to act as a drugs courierand her solicitor confirms that she was a deeply distressedand traumatised young woman. (Voice 29.5.00)63Go-ahead for Somerset asylum centre despite oppositionThose opposing the creation of an asylum seekers’ receptioncentre in a small hamlet of Somerset were furious when aplanning committee overturned the decision of the districtcouncil and gave the charity Kaleidoscope the go-ahead tohouse 74 asylum seekers in a former boarding school.Opponents, backed by the Conservative MP Tom King,described the scheme as a ‘disaster’, but Kaleidcope’s director,the Rev Phil Denison, blamed the right-wing press forwhipping up acrimony, adding that ‘some people haveinvested quite a lot of time and money in opposing thescheme’ and perhaps ‘they don’t like losing.’Inquiry dismisses ill-founded prejudicesWhen Kaleidscope, a Baptist church charity, proposed tohouse 74 asylum seekers in a former boarding school andcreate a largely self-contained community where residentscould work through trauma in a tranquil environment, somelocals were incensed. Sedgemoor district council swiftlyrejected planning permission for the proposal. EnvironmentSecretary John Prescott responded by setting up a planninginquiry which ruled that opponents’ fears, that the schemewould lead to rocketing crime, begging, racial tensions andfalling house prices, were not ‘well founded’. On the eve ofthe planning inquiry, Mike Lampson, chair of the parishcouncil warned that as the asylum seekers would have nomoney, only vouchers, their presence could leave to thieving.And ‘they would want to go to the pub; would they bechatting up the local girls’ he asked the Daily Telegraph.The hamlets of Over Stowey and Nether Stowey, on thefoot of the Quantock Hills in Bridgewater, Somerset, have atotal population of 314 – one hundred per cent of whom arewhite – leading the Daily Telegraph to warn that this ‘ruralcommunity’ would be increased by almost a quarter if theKaleidoscope scheme were adopted. (Daily Telegraph12.6.00, Guardian 9.8.00)Welsh asylum dispersal faltersWhy, when Wales was meant to take in 2,000 asylum-seekersunder the new reception arrangements, had only two arrivedIRR EUROPEAN RACE BULLETIN • NO 35 • DECEMBER 2000/ JANUARY 2001