Life as a refugee support volunteer with it's occasional victories and frequent defeats.

Occasional Victories is a place for links, news, rants and raves about Refugee related issues.

If you would like to contribute just drop me an email at carigeen(a)yahoo.com

 
Praise the Lord.....
and pass the ammunition!

The first fight of the New Year has started.
L and her four children come from Belarus and applied for refugee status on the grounds of religious persecution. They are evangelical protestants and claim harassment by the state which is moving from having an atheistic state religion to having an orthodox state religion.

Human rights in Belarus stink in a big way at the moment.

Human Rights Watch (2000) says Respect for human rights deteriorated as Belarusian president Lukashenka maintained his grip on power and the government staged deeply flawed parliamentary elections. Another well-known opposition figure "disappeared" in July, while the year witnessed a spate of political show trials.

L was not prepared and did not make a good case. She did not put in specific details of incidents affecting either herself, family or her church members.

Her solicitor JMG did his usual trick of not putting her in for an oral hearing and the appeal was rejected by the RAT. Her application for humanitarian leave to remain was answered by a deportation order last week. She is very afraid that she will be imprisoned as soon as she returns to Belarus.

Her church group here seems intent on making a fight of it so I've had three meetings with them during the past week. The last one ended at 11:00 last night. I gave them the British NCADC campaigning guide and lists of politicians names and contact numbers.

Go for judicial review? This review is purely on the mechanics of the case and rarely succeeds. All that it will mean is a six-month delay before deportation. Lawyers are looking for fees of anything between 1500 and 6000 euro to take a case. Is it worthwhile?

Anyway I'm to act as consultant to the church on the issue. If nothing else it will open a few more eyes to the reality of this system.





posted by Carigeen at Monday, January 26, 2004