A good day to bury bad priorities

Today the government is expected to announce continuing benefit freezes and tax cuts. On Friday Comic Relief will be asking us to donate to projects which deal with poverty and financial hardship, homelessness, mental illness, and providing hope and a future for young people.

I wonder if these 2 things are, in any way, related?

If the government is officially outsourcing the welfare state to the charitable sector, I'd rather they came out and said it rather than did it by stealth.

Amazon: Time for the Welby Effect?

If you earn money from a community, you should pay your share of tax to that community. I was in business, and I know that, within limits, its right and proper for people to arrange their tax affairs, and for companies to do so. But when vast companies like Amazon, and other online traders, the new industries, can get away with paying almost nothing in tax, there is something wrong with the tax system. They don’t pay a real living wage, so the tax payer must support their workers with benefits. And having leached off the tax payer once they don’t pay for our defence, for security, for stability, for justice, for health, for equality, for education. Then they complain of an undertrained work force, from the education they have not paid for, and pay almost nothing for apprenticeships. Those are only a fraction of the costs of aggressive tax management.

Mary spoke of the God who gave us Jesus as the one who “has shown strength with his arm;

He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

And lifted up the lowly;

He has filled the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty”.  

From Justin Welbys speech at the TUC conference yesterday. (Btw, he very cleverly tackled the anti-Semitism debate within Labour too, see if you can spot it)  Welby's comment about doing Wonga out of business in 2013 was followed by a series of revelations and disasters at the company. Amidst an avalanche of complaints, Wonga went into administration a few days ago. 

Biblical prophecy operates on the basis that as the prophet speaks God's message and God's verdict on human institutions, the act of speaking it out helps to bring that verdict into being. It may be my fevered imagination, but it has been downhill for Wonga ever since Welby publicly took them on. 

Amazon has so far remained untouched by every criticism and every revelation about its appalling record in paying tax. Will we see the Welby Effect on Amazon? Lets hope so. 

Angry Men

Paul Mason, Channel 4 economics editor, finally lets rip
Well done that man. Why are there no prosecutions for this?

Here's another one, if you think that Russell Brand is genuinely upset rather than just stirring for effect.

Opinion polls show the vote declining for both major political parties, it's almost as though the electorate doesn't trust anyone to run the country. We need more angry men, and women.

The Foodbank

Latest cartoon in Dave Walkers current Advent series. Puts me in mind of a line from a church urban fund chap (can't remember his name), that's it's all very well pulling people out of the river, but we also need to ask why people are falling in in the first place.

Cause/Effect

“The Church's task is not just to pull people out of the river, but to go upstream and ask who or what is throwing them in in the first place” (Niall Cooper, Church Action on Poverty)

Mental Health and Work Capability

Dick Acworth, a former vicar and Archdeacon of Bath and Wells, has a son with bipolar disorder who was wrongly found fit for work by the DWP using the controversial Work Capability Assessment.

In May, as part of an ongoing Judicial Review of the Work Capability Assessment, three judges ruled that the process is unfair for people with a mental illness and puts them at a ‘substantial disadvantage’.

Despite this, the DWP is continuing to use the process to assess roughly 6,000 people a week with mental health problems.

With backing from the national charity, Rethink Mental Illness Dick’s petition calls on Iain Duncan Smith to temporarily stop reassessing people with a mental illness who are being moved from incapacity benefit to the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), until changes are made to the test, to ensure it’s fair.

The 76-year-old said: “If my son didn’t have parents to support him and push through a benefits appeal, I don’t know what he would have done. I really fear for other people who don’t have anyone to help them through such a difficult process. I try as much as I can to shield my son from the stress, but this has taken a real toll on me and his mother.

“It is intolerable that the government is putting people through so much stress and anxiety just to get the support they need. In many cases this unfair test is making people more ill. Everyone deserves the chance to be treated fairly.”

more here, the petition is here. 

Restorative Justice

This is powerful:

A good example (of Restorative Justice) is the work that one London borough (Enfield) is doing with young people who are getting into trouble and are on the periphery of the gang culture. Sessions are held by the community (ex-gang members, parents or friends of people who’ve lost their lives, and older people living on estates). These sessions are held in the austere surrounding of a Crown Court, out of hours, where the community members talks about the impact that gangs have had on their lives. 

These tough youngsters are asked to explain why they behave like they do; you can hear a pin drop. Most of these young people are not bad or evil; they’ve walked down the wrong path, made poor choices, and are quietly grateful for being given a helping hand to recover their lives. And believe me when I say that there is nothing more impactive than a Grandmother explaining the horror of losing her grandson to a knife, and the daily pain she is living through, and then opening the door of her house to these kids and committing to be there for them, no matter what the time of day or night. These are the quiet leaders in our communities.

from an interview between Matt Bird of the Cinnamon Network, and Commander Tony Eastaugh of the Met.

A Town Called Mercy: Atonement 101

Catching up with the latest Doctor Who on Iplayer, and what a brilliant episode. Cowboys versus Aliens, but done well. And at the heart of it, a superb meditation on violence, revenge, redemption, atonement and justice.

Part of my staple childhood diet was Westerns, I would go round chewing spent matchsticks pretending to be Clint Eastwood (and fail just as badly as the Doctor does in Mercy). The plot was always the same: baddies do something bad, ride around scowling and looking swarthy. Good guy (usually Lone Good Guy) has showdown with bad guys and shoots them dead. Justice = revenge.

So Doctor Who plunged straight into this moral maze and asked a lot of questions of it. At the centre of the plot is Jex, an alien doctor, a war criminal, who has landed in a Western town, saved it from a cholera epidemic and introduced it to electricity. He saved the town. But now he is being hunted down by a cyborg gunslinger, who wants to bring him to justice for his past crimes, i.e. shoot him. The Doctor ends up embroiled in all of this, and is pulled in all directions:

First, he looks to hand doctor Jex over to the cyborg, one man dying to save the village: 'When did killing someone become an option?' asks Amy, not unreasonably. The Doctor replies with an outburst that might become one of this generation's 'do you remember?' moments in years to come: 'Every time I negotiate, I try to understand. Not today. No, today, I honour the victims. His, The Masters', The Daleks'. All the people who died because of my mercy.'

then later tries to save him, and eventually Jex takes his fate into his own hands. Along the way are several nods to faith: the village gathers to pray whilst the Doctor tries to save them from the cyborg, and Jex speaks of what he expects after he dies, that he will have to climb a mountain, carrying the souls of all the people that he's killed. In a nice contrast to the usual run of things, his faith and religious worldview is part of the plot, rather than seen as a mania.

There are longer and more thoughtful reviews at:
Shadowlocked
From the North
Exploring our Matrix

and A Town Called Mercy leaves lots of questions hanging:
 - is revenge justice?
 - is it possible to atone for past wrongs, and who gets to decide when you've managed it?
 - is justice done to us after death, and does this make a difference to the justice we mete out to the living?
 - are there different moral rules in war?
 - if mercy results in more people dying, because you were compassionate to someone who went on to do more evil, then is it better to be ruthless?
 - (at a wider level) how far has the Western/American view of justice been drip-fed into our culture via film and media, and how far does it inform US views of justice and foreign policy, and by extension our own? Do we base decisions on a robust morality of justice, or a more emotive desire to avenge?
 - Can you run a society purely on mercy?
 - (from the last couple of minutes of the episode) how do you decomission people? The Gunslinger, built to be a weapon of war, can't see a purpose to his life beyond killing. The Doctor recommissions him to be an 'angel' of peace, watching over the town and protecting it. I once had a conversation with a former soldier, who remarked that life post-army was a struggle, compared to the level of camaraderie and intensity of life in the battlefield. There didn't seem to be a peacetime purpose which made him feel alive in the same way.

Great stuff.

The Yeovil Ninja. Yes, Really.

Update 31.8: he's been on Channel 4 too. Catch it via 4 on demand for the next couple of days.
Well, it's not quite Street Pastors, but the chap seems to have his heart in the right place. (Vid is on the BBC site, so I can't put it on here)

I shall be watching the undergrowth more closely from now on. And good to see he's patrolling Ninesprings: had my own run-in with a group of foul-mouthed teens there a few months ago, who were driving every family away from the park with their language and behaviour. Next time I'll call The Shadow.

UK Border Agency: Gene Hunt is Alive and Well and Working in Cardiff?

Yesterday the Guardian had a piece on allegations about the UK Border Agency office in Cardiff, which has resulted in an investigation by MPs.

Claims that asylum seekers are mistreated, tricked and humiliated by staff working for the UK Border Agency are to be investigated in parliament.

The home affairs select committee chairman, Keith Vaz, has called for an investigation following allegations that officials at one of the government's major centres for processing asylum seekers' claims express fiercely anti-immigration views and take pride in refusing applications.

Louise Perrett, who worked as a case owner at the Border Agency office in Cardiff for three and a half months last summer, claims staff kept a stuffed gorilla, a "grant monkey", which was placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any officer who approved an asylum application.

The whole thing sounds like Life on Mars. I sincerely hope it's not true, but that might just be mindless optimism. The realist in me puts this alongside the conditions at Yarlswood , the practice of child detention, and the other issues with UK Borders Agency, and wonders if it's fit for purpose. Yes this is just one office, and yes we do need border controls, and a functioning structure for sorting out genuine asylum seekers from people who just fancy our benefits system. I wonder if politicians are afraid to tackle this because they don't want to be seen as 'soft' on immigration?

Ht Split Horizons.

Other reports
BBC
Wales Online
No Borders South Wales campaigning group who've been picketing the Cardiff office for a while now.

UK Border Agency: Invasion of the Baby-Snatchers

The thundering knock came early in the morning. It was 6.30am. Without waiting for an answer the security chain across the door was smashed from its fittings. Feet thundered up the staircase. The five children, all under the age of 10, were alarmed to be woken from their sleep by the dozen burly strangers who burst into their bedrooms, switched on the lights and shouted at them to get up.

This is not a police state. It is Manchester in supposedly civilised Britain in the 21st century. There is a clue to what this is about in the names of the children: Nardin, who is 10; Karin who is seven; the three-year-old twins Bishoy and Anastasia, and their one-year-old baby sister Angela.

Their parents, Hany and Samah Mansour, are Coptic Christians who fled to the UK after a campaign of persecution by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt whose friends in the secret police tortured Hany. But even though six Coptic Christians were shot dead by Muslim extremists only last week in a town not far from their home, the British Government has decided that it does not believe them. And so Britain's deportation police have launched another of their terrifying dawn raids on sleeping children.

Paul Valleley on the fate of another family who fell foul of the UK immigration system, and the inhumane treatment of children and families within the detention centres. It's a long piece, but the detail is necessary - over 1300 children were held in immigration centres in 2008-9, centres which have been condemned by a number of independent reports into child welfare. The Royal College of Paediatrics and the Royal College of Psychiatry recently investigated the mental health of children held at detention centres:

It shows that every single one of the children seen in Yarl's Wood by a team of paediatricians and psychologists displayed some signs of distress and 73 per cent of children they examined had developed clinically significant emotional and behavioural problems since being detained. None had previously had such problems..... All the children seen by clinical psychologists presented as being disorientated, confused and frightened. More than half, who had previously been well behaved at home and in school, had developed conduct problems.

There is currently an early day motion in the Commons calling for an end to child detention, with over 100 signatories.

Valleley concludes his piece:
When a family is ripped so brutally from their home it is not just those who are carted away by the police to whom an injustice is done. Something is rent in the very fabric of the community. "The second time they were taken away was very disturbing for the rest of Karin's class," said Anna Ward. "The other children were all crying they were very shaken by it. It was as if they didn't know who to trust."

What would happen, I ask 10-year-old Nardin, if the family gets another sunrise knock on their front door. She cuts me off, mid-question. "Don't say knock," she corrects me, "because they don't knock. They just smash the chain off the lock and march in."

What kind of country allows that happen to innocent children as they sleep in their own beds?

Mine, I'm ashamed to say.

Robespierre "Terror is nothing other than justice: prompt, severe, inflexible."

Update: and things are going to get worse. The UKBA is restricting the number of cases where it's required to give 72 hours notice of removal, which gives people the opportunity to contact a lawyer.
The current 72-hour notice rule was imposed following strong condemnation by judges of the Home Office resorting to trickery and devious tactics in order to deprive people of the opportunity to challenge their removal - including inviting people to 'interviews' where they are detained, and swooping on homes after working hours to detain families for removal early the following morning.

Mary & Joseph, don't you flee to England.

Following the Santa/White Witch incident a few days ago, more pressure for an end to the policy of imprisoning innocent children just because they happen to be related to asylum seekers. A new report from medical professionals has called for an end to the detention of children as part of our immigration policy:

Many of the children are held at Serco-run Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire while their parents await deportation.

Children in such circumstances were already among the most vulnerable in the UK and the harmful effects of arrest and detention only added to their difficulties, the report said.

It said almost all children seeking asylum suffered injury to their mental or physical health due to being detained, some seriously. The current provision of mental and preventative healthcare was inadequate, the report said, and made recommendations for improvement.

Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said children in immigrant families were already disadvantaged and vulnerable.
"Detaining children for any length of time - often without proper explanation - is a terrifying experience that can have lifelong consequences," he said. "As well as the potential psychological impact, these children invariably experience poor physical health as they cannot access immunisation and preventative services."

Full report here, one family's story here. It's a sobering thought that if Jesus family had fled to the UK in 2009, rather than Egypt in AD3 (or thereabouts), Jesus would have been locked up for up to two months in a privately-run prison. Welcome to the UK, land of the free and home of civilisation. Yes of course we have to protect our citizens against people coming here to do us harm, but there must be a better way than this.

Facebook group Maries Law was set up earlier this year to highlight the same issue.

The White Witch is Alive and Well and somewhere in Yarlswood Detention Centre

Santa Claus was turned away from Yarlswood detention centre last week, after attempting to deliver £300 of gifts to the children imprisoned, sorry, detained there. Ekklesia has the full story. It appears that as well as inhumane treatment of children and residents, the detention centre is determined to detain people in a perpetual winter, and deny them Christmas.

For more on Yarlswood, see here, this is the sorry place where Elizabeth Rushamba's children have spent far more of their lives than you'd wish on anybody.

The children of asylum-seekers are the only children in this country who can be locked up without oversight of the courts and without ever having committed a crime. The government's decision to detain them is not subject to judicial scrutiny. They are the casualties of a system that demonises asylum-seekers.

Come on. You can do better than this.
Ht Paul Canning, who I assume is no relation to the Paul Canning who crops up as a minor character in the BBC political drama State of Play, which I happened to watch on DVD a couple of days ago. But you never know.

Do our Supermarkets Pay Suppliers a Living Wage?

The answer is probably 'no'. A new report just out highlights what high street brands are doing (or, to be more precise, not doing) to ensure that workers further back in the supply chain are paid properly.

Lets Clean Up Fashion 2009 has a summary of the state of the High Street, and a brand-by-brand breakdown of how the big names are responding to the challenge of doing justice by their workforce.

from the Introduction:
Since 2006, when our first Clean Up Fashion Report was produced, the world has changed.

Then, the consumer was king and the global economy was riding high. Now, the credit crunch has taken the sparkle from the high street – and led to some household names disappearing
from UK towns and cities (and from this report).

Workers and consumers in the UK have been feeling the pinch and turning to the low cost retailers to help cut their monthly budgets. It’s not just in the UK that workers are suffering the effects of the credit crunch: in countries from Cambodia to Turkey, Bangladesh to Honduras factories are closing and workers are losing even the paltry salaries afforded them by the garment industry. Those that have managed to keep their jobs are facing an increasingly insecure future as a result of economic and environmental crises.

The scandalous truth is that the majority of workers in the global fashion industry rarely earn more than two dollars a day in an industry worth over £36 billion a year in the UK alone. Many have to work excessive hours just to get this meagre amount and have no possibility to earn wages needed to properly feed, clothe, house and educate their families.

...For ten years brands have been promising both workers and consumers that living wages will be paid, despite evidence to the contrary. Workers have been told to wait while brands work out what a living wage is and how to make sure they don’t have to pay the cost. Consumers have been told not to worry – brands care and are doing the best they can. The problem is their best isn’t good enough and workers can’t wait any longer.

Whilst I'm here, on other business:
- good to see Cranmer is back, I was getting worried
- waiting to see the small print. It may be a mixed blessing for Anglo-Catholics. Wonder if FCA saw that coming? Best commentary by far (as always) comes from the Beaker Folk.
- very good sermon on thankfulness by Alison at our church on Sunday, listen online here. Slightly fuzzy, but good stuff.

Here's Why Alan Johnson isn't Education Secretary

I recieved this back from the Home Office this morning, after emailing Alan Johnson to ask him to intervene in Elizabeths deportation case last week:


Dear Rev David Keen

Thank you for your e-mail on behalf of Ms Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba concerning their immigration matters.< /FONT>
Yours support has been noted and will use for any future consideration of the case.

Yours Sincerely,< /FONT>

Public Correspondence Team
UKBA

All that formatting stuff is in the original email. A free plane ticket to Uganda for the person who can spot the most grammatical/composition mistakes.

This is the Home Office for goodness sake, the same department which makes asylum seekers take tests in English when they want to apply for citizenship. It's clearly a standard reply email, and ignores the fact that there won't be any future consideration of the case because the unjust machinery of the immigration system deported the poor woman and her children last week.

There is not a single part of the British system so far that has done as well as a Poor rating in this whole sorry saga. Maybe the Home Office is using Uganda as a benchmark.

Deportation update: Childrens Commissioner now involved

Last week this blog highlighted the case of Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba, who had come to the UK seeking asylum, but was in the process of being deported by the UK authorities. Sadly, the deportation went ahead - latest news is that Elizabeth was arrested and interrogated on her arrival in Uganda, but released after 2 hours. If you're the praying sort, please keep her and her 2 small children in your prayers.

The Childrens Commissioner has complained to the UK border agency about the treatment of Elizabeth's children, Marie and John:

Sir Al wrote: “I would be grateful if you could tell me why it was deemed appropriate that a four-year-old and a one-year-old be separated from their mother.

“In view of the fact that the older child has been described as being hysterical at being separated from her mother, I would like to know what justification the decision maker had for deciding on, or authorising, the separation.

“Does UKBA accept that such action could cause emotional harm to a small child, and how was this foreseeable risk balanced in deciding on the course of action taken?”

Uganda is not a safe country to be if you are known to sympathise with the opposition, and stand up for human rights, though I wonder if anyone involved in adjudicating Elizabeths case got round to reading the Amnesty International report on Uganda.

Where's Woolas?

A number of us have been trying to contact Phil Woolas to ask for the deportation of Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba to Uganda (due tomorrow) to be halted. Background here, this weeks events here, here and here.

Given the timescale, sending letters is out of the question, but now emails are getting this automated response:

"Thank you for sending an email to Phil Woolas, Member of Parliament for Oldham East and Saddleworth.

Due to the volume of email we are receiving, we can no longer accept casework electronicially. Please write to Phil at: Lord Chambers 11 Church Lane Oldham OL1 3AN

If your query is urgent, please telephone our constituency office on 0161 624 4248.

If your correspondence relates to the Home Office, please forward your correspondence to:
Home Office Direct Communications Unit 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF

With all best wishes and many thanks for your understanding in this matter.
Office of Phil Woolas MP Oldham East and Saddleworth"

You'll notice that the Home Office contact is a surface mail address. There is an email ( mailto:public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) on the Home Office contacts page next to this address, but it also informs you that We aim to answer your enquiry - whether by email or letter - within 20 working days. That's not very helpful, as we're only working in a timescale of 24-48 hours here. Elizabeth was taken by border control officials on Monday.

Ok, we'll phone on that constituency number. Except that
"House of Commons rules mean that Phil can only deal with enquiries from people who live in Oldham East and Saddleworth." (says his website). So if you ring the number to plead Elizabeth's case but don't live in the area, it's against the rules for Phil Woolas to do anything about it.

I can understand that government ministers don't want to be deluged with email just because it's easy to fire one off, and some bods on the internet have put a campaign together. But the net effect of all this is that there's no way for the general public to get in touch with Phil Woolas within the necessary time-frame. In 20 days time Elizabeth could be in a Ugandan jail and her infant children taken from her and put in an orphanage. A sympathetic letter from the Home Office will be worse than useless by then.

Update: Just got this:

Hi folks, Just a plea for everyone to write first class to Phil Woolas today - as you may have already read, they are not accepting emails.

Rt Hon Phil Woolas Home Office Direct Communications Unit 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF

So, don't forget to include Elizabeth's HO Ref: 1147269/5

please remind Phil Woolas that Elizabeth was only following his suggestion of the 6th August to gather medical reports and more information but weren't given the time to do it.

you could mention the manner in which Elizabeth and the children were taken and the bullying tactics of the Immigration Officials. They said, in front of the children, 'if you don't come quietly Elizabeth, we'll handcuff you and carry you down the stairs'. They also put E and the children in separate vehicles.

Don't forget to send a copy to Alan Milburn (you can do that by email) Elizabeth's flight is booked for 8pm tomorrow night. In the meantime, we are hopeful that we have found a solicitor.

Only Phil Woolas and Alan Johnson can stop this girl crying

The Northern Echo has more today on the story of Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba, which I've been highlighting over the past couple of days.

This picture is her 4 year old daughter in tears, just before the British immigration authorities put her and her baby brother into a separate car from their mother, and drove them 250 miles from Darlington to Yarlswood detention centre.

From the Echo:

The Reverend Sheilagh Williamson, who the family have been staying with, said the experience had been a nightmare.

She said: “It was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. It was a nightmare.“The children were taken in a separate vehicle and Marie was crying and screaming that she wanted to stay with me. It was heartbreaking.”

She said violence that had erupted in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, was an extra worry, and added: “It is certainly no place to be sending a vulnerable woman with two young children.”

The family are due to be deported on Thursday, and it's highly likely that Elizabeth will be arrested, and her children put into an orphanage, due to her connections with opposition parties and stand on human rights abuses.

MP Alan Milburn also contacted Mr Woolas yesterday on Elizabeth’s behalf.
He said: “If there is anything Elizabeth’s supporters want us to do on her behalf, we will be happy to help.”

Contact details: this is urgent, after Thursday it will be too late.

Alan Milburn - alanmilburnmp@googlemail.com or call 01325 380366

Alan Johnson - public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk and/or johnsona@parliament.uk and/or windlet@parliament.uk or 020 7035 484

Phil Woolas public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

more details on Viv Neville's blog, and a supportive Facebook group. For a taster of life in Yarlswood for a detained family - what can only be described as institutionalised child abuse - go here.

Please contact Alan Johnson

Update: story in the Northern Echo today, worth a read.

Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba, whose case I mentioned yesterday, is now in Yarlswood detention centre, and scheduled for deportation back to Uganda tomorrow. I recieved the following update last night:

"We have heard that Elizabeth is in the Yarl's Wood Detention Centre and they are looking at deporting her on Thursday. If you haven't e-mailed the govt please do so - this really is our last chance. There have been riots in Uganda recently where members of the opposing parties have been rounded up and imprisoned. Elizabeth is likely to be arrested immediatley on her return, especially as a failed ayslum seeker. Please write, telephone and do something."

Elizabeth is connected with the opposition parties in Uganda, where she has spoken out about human rights abuses, and there is medical evidence that she was badly maltreated whilst in Uganda before. She has two small children (3 years and 6 months), who were separated from her when the British border officials took her from her home yesterday morning. This has happened before, and her treatment by the authorities in the UK has been inhumane. Her local MP, MEP, and CofE bishops have all called for her to be allowed to stay here. The authorities have ignored all of these pleas.

Here is one official report on human rights in Uganda
U.S.A: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Uganda 2006
The government's human rights record remained poor: violence and discrimination against women; female genital mutilation (FGM); violence and abuse of children, particularly sexual abuse; trafficking in persons; unlawful killings by security forces; disappearances; security forces use of torture and abuse of suspects; vigilante justice; harsh prison conditions; official impunity; arbitrary arrest; incommunicado and lengthy pretrial detention; restrictions on the right to a fair trial and on freedoms of speech, the press, and association; limited freedom of religion; abuse of internally displaced persons (IDPs); restrictions on opposition parties; electoral violence and irregularities; government corruption; violence and discrimination against persons with disabilities; forced labor, including by children; and child labor.

to repeat the contact details from yesterdays post:

Please contact Alan Johnson (Home Secretary) and Alan Milburn (local MP for Darlington) to complain about this treatment of a peaceful woman and her family and ask they release her immediately - and review her case favourably - this really is last chance saloon, because if she is returned to Uganda she is likely to be imprisoned and the children placed in an orphanage.

So I ask you again to take a few minutes out of your day to make a stand on her behalf
Alan Milburn - alanmilburnmp@googlemail.com or call 01325 380366
Alan Johnson - public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk and/or johnsona@parliament.uk and/or windlet@parliament.uk or 020 7035 484

Please.

Britain, Hang your Head

Posted here a few months ago about the case of Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba, a Ugandan refugee in the UK with 2 small children, who was fighting to be allowed to stay in the UK. Her final appeal against deportation was rejected, despite support from the MEP, local MP Alan Milburn, and a coalition of churches and local people.

Got this on Facebook this morning;

8 border control women have taken Elizabeth and her children and have separated her from her children...I thought this was a free country? How can they do this to such a peaceful godly woman?

If you pray, please pray for Elizabeth and her family, and for compassion for the UK authorities. I'm at a loss really: if MP's, MEP's bishops and campaigns can't win compassion for one vulnerable, frightened family, then what kind of country is this? The sheer lack of humanity in taking small children away from their mother is beyond my comprehension. Come on Phil Woolas, there must be a heart in there somewhere.

Update:
The following from 'Shame on You Alan Johnson', a Facebook group:
This morning Elizabeth Kiwunga Rushamba and her two young children were taken from their home by eight border control officals. Elizabeth, despite assurances from the police that she would be placed in the same car as her children was separated from ...them causing much trauma to the children. Also no-one got to say goodbye to Elizabeth.

Please contact Alan Johnson (Home Secretary) and Alan Milburn (local MP for Darlington) to complain about this treatment of a peaceful woman and her family and ask they release her immediately - and review her case favourably - this really is last chance saloon, because if she is returned to Uganda she is likely to be imprisoned and the children placed in an orphanage.

So I ask you again to take a few minutes out of your day to make a stand on her behalf
Alan Milburn - alanmilburnmp@googlemail.com or call 01325 380366
Alan Johnson - public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk and/or johnsona@parliament.uk and/or windlet@parliament.uk or 020 7035 484