Comment: Exposing Europe’s continuing brutal immigration policy

Osamuyia Aikpitanhi was a 23-year-old Nigerian man who was being deported to Nigeria from Spain for failing to possess a resident permit which would have authorised him to live and work in the country. Upon his arrest by the Spanish police on 9 June 2007, he was allegedly battered, gagged with tape and bound by his hands and legs with either handcuffs or rope. He was then loaded onto an Iberia plane destined for Nigeria. His upper body was obscured by a sack that the Spanish law enforcement officers covered him with to prevent other passengers travelling on the plane from bearing witness to the inhumane manner in which Osamuyia was restrained. Not long after the plane took off, Osamuyia mysteriously died. It is alleged that he was found to have choked on his own vomit and soiled by his own faeces. A Spanish autopsy report confirmed that he had died as a result of suffocation.

The case of Spanish brutality sparked international outrage and protest with both Nigerian and Spanish authorities initiating their own respective investigations. European countries are known for their indiscriminate brutal treatment of African migrants, including children and young people, who are either seeking asylum or awaiting deportation. This wide scale trend of brutalising individuals continues unabated. Following the killing of Osamuyia, the Spanish interior ministry have been drawing up new regulations which will see illegal migrants forced to wear restrictive devices such as straitjackets.

Far from being an isolated case, the death of Osamuyia merely highlights the unethical policies initiated by the state and further abused by institutional bodies. The attack against those seeking asylum is multifaceted ranging from the inadequate conditions of the ominously named detention centres and the abuse of those who reside in these units to the often insufficient assistance given to those going through the legal process and the rejection of asylum application that have led to those desperate not to return to life threatening situations to taking their lives. What follows are a mere handful of cases that occurred over the past few years in europe.

Victims of europes racist immigration policies

Semira Adamu was 20 years old when she was killed whilst being deported from Belgium on 22 September 1998. When she attempted to resist her deportation, two officers pressed a cushion over her face rendering her unconscious. She died later that evening from a brain haemorrhage resulting from a contusion. One of the officers involved in her murder is notorious for his brutal treatment of asylum seekers. Her death sparked a mass protest of over 5,000 people in Brussels. Ironically, several days before she died, Semira had appeared in a television documentary to discuss the degrading substandard conditions inside Steenokkerzell prison in Brussels where many deportees are held.

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, England has been repeatedly criticised over the years for the sexual intimidation and racist abuse of those it detains as well as the inhumane conditions that people, and particularly children are kept in. Lack of privacy has been cited as just one of the many problems with male guards accused of entering the rooms of women when they are undressed and searching through their underwear. Children have also been left hungry and concerns about their health are often ignored. The abuse of children and pregnant women is exemplified in the case of Halima Aboubacar and her son, Bailey Jr. Halima had fled Cameroon where she had been severely beaten for refusing to marry a 68-year-old Chief, a friend of her father who is also a Chief. Her sister had similarly refused to participate in an arranged marriage and had boiling oil poured over her face leaving her scarred for life. Halima and her husband came to the UK seeking refuge. The application was denied and at 7 ½ months pregnant she was evicted from her home with a view to being deported. She managed to evade deportation but was eventually arrested and sentenced to 6 months in Holloway prison. Whlist in labour, Halima was strip-searched and her son was ultimately born in detention where they remained for 79 days before being transferred to Yarl’s Wood detention centre. It was during their time at Holloway that Bailey Jr contracted an awful skin disease for which Halima was advised to use nappy rash powder to treat.

The quantity and quality of legal advice and support, supposedly characteristic of the so-called British democratic system, also evades the women with some of them having no legal representation whatsoever. Former Yarl’s Wood detainee Codson Chapfika said: "I've been friends with most people in there and not one of them that I came in contact with committed any crime. Imagine that these people are being detained for an indefinite period of time without committing any crime."

In 2003, an undercover journalist discovered a pattern of racist abuse and mistreatment from the Centre staff to the women who were being detained at the Centre. Four years later in 2007, the Black Women’s Rape Action Project again highlighted the on-going instances of violence and abuse against the women residing at Yarl’s Wood. Amongst the many instances of human rights violation, they noted that pregnant women were being beaten, subjected to racist abuse at the hands of immigration officers and exploited by legal aid solicitors who demand money from the women who have no money. A letter written to Yarl’s Wood and signed by 22 arrested women asylum seekers highlighted the “double torture” they were suffering. They wrote “A torture we have experienced from our backgrounds and when we struggle to run away from it, we are mentally, physically tortured under the merciless hands of cruel of home office in the UK."

On 15 September 2005, 35-year-old Manuel Bravo from Angola hanged himself hours before he and his 13-year-old son, Antonio were due to be deported. Manuel and his son had been arrested the previous day in a dawn raid at their home by immigration officers and subsequently taken to Yarl’s Wood. In a note found in his room, Manuel said; "I kill myself because I don't have a life to live any more. I want my son Antonio to stay in the UK to continue his studies. It is not the fault of anyone it is just my decision. This situation is very distressful for me. I can't work. I can't do anything with my life. It is not easy for me to live in this manner. I feel sick I want to die or kill myself. I can't return to my country because it is not safe for me or my son Antonio. If I return I will be tortured. If I die here I would like my son to stay with the government or the NSPCC or youth protection.” Rev Alistair Kaye highlighted that this tragic incident could have been avoided if the immigration authorities had bothered to listen to Manuel’s story. Unfortunately, Manuel’s suicide is not an isolated incident.

The day before Manuel took his life, 26-year-old Zimbabwean asylum seeker, Edmore Ngwenya, jumped into a canal in Manchester and drowned himself. On the 7 November 2004, Nigerian asylum seeker, Kenny Peter died in Charing Cross hospital from the injuries he sustained after jumping from a landing. He had previously attempted to self-harm himself. On 15 October 2004, Kenyan John Kanau Manana, 24, was discovered hanging dead in his cell in a Leicester prison. Ethiopian asylum seeker, Seife Yimene, also aged 24, hung himself from a tree on 26 September 2004. He had been suffering from depression in the weeks leading up to his death and was residing in emergency accommodation awaiting the result of his asylum application.

Jamaican national, Beverley Fowler aged 32, was due to be deported back to Jamaica after completing her sentence in Durham prison for drug smuggling. She had previously told an Inquest that she feared returning to Jamaica because the man who had forced her into smuggling drugs had killed her partner. She hung herself on 2 October 2002. Just over a month later, 79-year-old Elder Forsina Makoni from Zimbabwe set herself alight in Gillingham after her asylum claim was rejected. Souleyman Diallo, aged 28, jumped off Redheugh Bridge in Tyneside to his death following the news he received a few weeks earlier that he would be deported back to Guinea. He believed that the interpreter present during the hearing of his appeal case had not translated him correctly. Following his death, Souleyman’s solicitor went on to make a complaint to the Immigration Commissioners.

In France, 48 African migrants died in three separate fires in Paris between April and August in 2005. The first fire occurred on the 15 April 2005 where 24 people were killed in a Paris hotel. According to emergency services the fire spread quickly throughout the building via its wooden staircase. There was also no emergency fire exits leaving only a single entrance for people to escape. Many were simply trapped in their rooms and had to resort to jumping out of windows. Some of the migrant residents had been living in this hazardous building for 14 years waiting re-housing. The second occurred on 26 August where 17 West Africans died in a Paris apartment used to house African migrants igniting protests in Paris about the country’s housing policy. Several days later on 30 August, a fire killed 7 people including 4 children also in a building used to house African migrants.

A year later on 17 August 2006, French police raided the largest squat in France and subsequently evicted up to 1,000 Africans including 200 children from the unused hall of residence at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in the Paris suburb, Cachan. The cynical move occurred at 9am just after many of the men had left for work leaving the women and children. The residents, most of whom were in employment, comprised of asylum seekers, illegal migrants and Africans with French nationality who could not find housing due to racism and discrimination. Later that evening, the Right to Housing Group held a protest near the squat and demanded accommodation for the evicted tenants.

The raid was largely considered to be a publicity stunt concocted by Nicholas Sarkozy, the leader the UMP conservative party, to garner support on the ‘anti-immigration ticket’ ahead of the forthcoming presidential election.

Section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 has stirred huge and extensive opposition across for what many cite as a contradiction with the human rights of children. Nevertheless, the government introduced the law which states that in the event that a family has reached the end of their asylum process and been unsuccessful in their appeals, they can have their financial and housing support removed if they “fail to take reasonable steps” to leave the UK. If families are resultantly made destitute and homeless, section 9 dictates that the children can be forcibly removed their family and taken into care. The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) said; ““the possibility of children’s social services removing children from their families as a result of Section 9 is incompatible with UK childcare legislation which upholds the fundamental right of all children to live with and be cared for by their parents.”