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URGENT APPEAL FOR ENDORSEMENT FOR PUBLIC LETT
Legal Action for Women, Black Women´s Rape Ac - 21.06.2002 14:39
URGENT APPEAL FOR ENDORSEMENT FOR PUBLIC LETTER OPPOSING LATEST REPRESSIVE IMMIGRATION LAW IN ENGLAND AND EUROPE
10 June 2002
To organisations in Europe
URGENT APPEAL FOR ENDORSEMENT FOR PUBLIC LETTER OPPOSING LATEST REPRESSIVE IMMIGRATION LAW IN ENGLAND AND EUROPE
Dear Friends,
We are inviting organisations across Europe to endorse the enclosed letter to the press. We are submitting the letter for publication to coincide with the British Parliament debate on the latest government Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, on 11 & 12 June, and with Refugee Week which is starting on Saturday 15 June.
As the main parties all over Europe adopt the extreme immigration policies of the extreme right, our opposition must also be Europe wide.
We hope you will add your organisation to this letter. Please get back to us as soon as possible so we can compile the list which will be circulated at various actions during Refugee Week.
Please forward to other groups in your networks.
Yours sincerely,
Nina Lopez-Jones, co-ordinator
Legal Action for Women Crossroads Women´s Centre PO Box 287 London NW6 5QU Tel: 020 7482 2496 minicom/voice Fax: 020 7209 4761 E-mail:  crossroadswomenscentre@compuserve.com <
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LETTER TO PRESS
While claiming to abhor Le Pen and other extreme right parties, European governments are increasingly adopting their extreme immigration policies.
The Immigration, Nationality & Asylum Bill now in Parliament introduces an unprecedented (in Britain) apartheid system for asylum seekers and immigrants. The proposed "Induction", "Accommodation" and "Removal" Centres impose imprisonment without trial on people who have committed no crime. Accused of "swamping schools", children seeking asylum would lose the protection of the Children Act and given a segregated "education" in detention. Forced dispersal would continue, denying vulnerable people access to independent legal advice, health care, churches, family and community support; as would the scandal of having to survive on 30% less than poverty-line benefits. And measures like ID cards first imposed on asylum seekers are now planned for everyone.
While it is widely recognized that victims of rape and other torture need time to be able to speak about their experiences and gather evidence, "fast-tracking" reduces appeal rights, making it harder for survivors to claim the protection they are entitled to. The hated One-Year Rule which traps immigrant women in violent marriages and which the government claimed to have abolished, is being expanded to two years.
The US and European arms trade profit from wars and dictatorships which cause the impoverishment and displacement of millions of people worldwide. Those who try to escape such devastation by emigrating or seeking asylum are then accused of "flooding Europe", detained and sent back.
Recent leaks indicate that the military is to be used to deport people en masse. "Aid" is to be withheld from countries unless they take back nationals who fled in fear of their lives. Germany even wants to sell asylum seekers to Third World governments, their own nationals as well as others - a new trafficking or slave trade.
Condemnation of these policies has been minimal among prominent human rights organizations. Many have accepted funding to implement previous repressive legislation. The government now plans to use them to carry out deportations - labelled "compulsory return" schemes. We urge everyone to reconsider such present and future collaboration, and reaffirm that there is such a thing as society.
SIGNED BY
ON BEHALF OF (ORGANISATION)
Signatories as of 18 June 2002
Legal Action for Women
Black Women´s Rape Action Project
For full list of signature, see  http://allwomencount.net
 E-Mail: crossroadswomenscentre@compuserve.com  Website: http://allwomencount.net
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