Please help Hussein Karimyon (Benjamin)
Home Office Ref K1307066/2
Hussein Karimyon, known as Benjamin to his friends, is a 37-year old Iranian human rights campaigner. Detained by the UK Border Agency, this is their second attempt to remove him from the UK.
Hussein is an Iranian who had to flee his country after 1 ½ years imprisonment and torture for opposing the oppressive regime. On escaping to Europe as a political refugee, Benjamin found no sanctuary in Greece, where he suffered further abuse: imprisonment in awful conditions, beatings, denied essential medication.
Hussein managed to escape from Greece, and despite his dangerous position without immigration status he has continued to fight for human rights. In Calais, Hussein instigated a hunger strike against his treatment by the authorities, to highlight the life-threatening situation he was in. The hunger strike was violently stopped by the French riot police and Hussein was put into a detention centre in Calais.
Since reaching the UK in October 2009 and applying for asylum, he has been active as a volunteer with the Unity Centre in Glasgow. He was detained on 2nd March when he went to report at the Home Office, and was taken to many different immigration removal centres. He was detained for several weeks. Successful legal challenge to the removal meant that he was not put on his flight, and was released a few days after this, and returned to his home in Glasgow. However on the 27th July he was put into detention again and his been given removal directions for the 4th of August. Despite the very strong evidence that asylum seekers there face such limited access to justice and to welfare support that the treatment amounts to an abuse of human rights, and the fact that “transfers” under Dublin II regulations are meant to have been suspended until the lead case looking at the legitimacy of transfers to Greece (the Saeedi case) has been heard in in November, the UKBA intends to forcibly remove him.
Hussein would be again in serious danger if returned to Iran, but even the return to Greece would be a serious risk to his wellbeing. The situation in Greece is appalling. Amnesty International, the UNHCR and the Greek Council for Refugees, have all either raised serious concerns about transfers to Greece or publicly condemed the practice as a direct violation of the right to asylum. Several “transfers” have recently been successfully stopped after intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. Hussein's case can also be challenged and this has legal implications for other cases.
Hussein suffers from many health problems due to his mistreatment and is reliant on medication (which was previously confiscated during his time in Greece). Since being in Glasgow he has been to hospital 4 times, for treatment of spinal problems, loss of eye sight,fainting and severe stomach problems. Hussein has stated that he would rather die than be sent back to Greece. His health recently began to improve, but since being in detention he has ben denied medical treatment which has had massive physical impacts on him, including withdrawl, and a high level of pain. Subsequent deportation to Iran would put him back into the hands of those who regularly imprison, torture and execute political opponents. He must be allowed to stay in the UK. (for more on the situation in Greece and Iran, see below)
To send Hussein back to Iran could be a death sentence. His life, and the life of his family will be in serious danger if he is returned.
Hussein has many friends in the UK and has begun a life in Glasgow, where he is attending English classes, and is an active member of the community. He has travelled for many years to reach the UK, being persecuted along the way, and we ask that he is given the opportunity to make his asylum claim in the UK. His solicitor has been unable to visit him as he has been moved from the detention centre in Glasgow to Manchester and Oxford. His representatives have had little time to prepare a case.
What you can do to help:
Please show your solidarity by contacting the Home Secretary and British Airways to ask that Hussein’s flight be stopped and that he be released from detention immediately.
1) Contact British Airways to stop the flight.
1Email/Phone Willie Walsh, Chief Executive Officer British Airways and urge him not to carry out deportation flights, including the forced removal of Hussein Karimyon.
Please quote flight number BA640 to Athens , Greece, on Wednesday 4th August 08:20.
A model letter is attached. You can copy, amend or write your own version and add your address at the top – if you do please include all the following details:
Please do not remove Hussein Karimyon Ref K1307066/2, due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Wednesday 4th August 2010 @ 08:20 on British Airways flight BA640
Email: willie.walsh@ba.com
Customer Relations phone: 0844 493 0 787 Monday-Friday 08:00-18:30 (hold line till operator answers)
2. Also contact Teresa May, Home Secretary
Ask him to exercise his discretionary powers to stop the flight, to release Hussein Karimyon from detention and to grant him protection in the UK.
If you are writing your own letter or email, please include Home Office Reference number: K1307066/2
Phone: +44 (0)20 7035 4848 or 0870 606 7766
Fax: + 44 (0)20 7219 5856 and (0)20 8760 3132
Rt Hon Theresa May MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Fax: 020 8760 3132
By Email:
mayt@parliament.uk
Or: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
See http://www.tmay.co.uk/ for more information.
The situation in Greece, and the “Dublin Regulations” for transfer of asylum seekers
The UK is trying to transfer Hussein to Greece under an EU agreement known as the “Dublin Regulations”.
In December 2009, UNHCR - the United Nations Refugee Agency - recommend a halt to transfers to Greece until reforms were made to procedures (1)
A report by Human Rights Watch also raised concerns about the asylum procedure, and the potential human rights abuses faced by people transferred under the Dublin Regulations, concluding that ‘Greece has taken the approach of using noxious detention conditions, procedural obstacles to lodging claims, and illegal summary removals and abusive police and Coast Guard conduct to deter asylum seekers from entering Greece or, if they do succeed in entering, to dissuade them from staying or from seeking asylum there’ (2.). The report also highlighted the risk of return to countries of origin through indirect refoulement.
In February 2009, a report by Human Rights Commissioner Hammarberg carried considerable weight with the Court, who made a judgement against Greece in for unlawful detention of a Turkish asylum applicant. It ruled that Greece had violated article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights through arbitrary detention and lack of legal remedy, and article 3 in that the conditions of detention amounted to degrading treatment (3). Just 2 weeks ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Greece had breached Articles 3 and 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights due to the conditions in which they had held A.A, an asylum seeker who was detained in Greece in ‘squalid’ conditions (4)
Removals to Greece from the UK are currently the subject of a test case, the case of Saeedi, which is pending in both the UK Court of Appeal, and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Around 300 cases which involve the Home Office trying to remove people to Greece are stayed, awaiting the outcome of the Saeedi case (5), (6).
.
Rule 39 of the Rules of the European Court state that the Court can grant an injunction against a forced removal where there is evidence that a person's human rights may be breached. Numerous concerns have been raised about the situation for asylum seekers in Greece, and many Rule 39 injunctions have been granted, in the light of appalling conditions for asylum seekers in Greece(7). Sending Hussein to Greece would mean a very real threat of human rights abuses, and of removal to Iran.
Recent video by the UNCHR on the huge struggle facing asylum seekers in Greece.
Tension is heightened by the economic crisis (8)
The situation in Iran
In a case heard in the House of Commons on 2nd March 2010 Mr Ivan Lewis stated that “Iranian authorities continue to suppress legitimate protest, restrict civil liberties and threaten violence, even execution, to silence dissent, but the Iranian people continue to demand their fundamental rights. We urge the authorities to respect the right of their citizens to be heard (9)…
Amnesty International says that it is “the worst human rights situation for 20 years"
References:
1. UNCHR ‘Observations on Greece as a country of asylum’ December 2009 http://bit.ly/aVYLqX
2. Stuck in a revolving Door. Human Rights Watch report on Greece http://bit.ly/9OVMzy
3. ECHR judgment on unlawful detention in Greece http://bit.ly/dzPRVa
4. Press release ‘Asylum-Seeker Held Illegally in Squalid Conditions in Greek Detention Centre’ issued by the Registrar Chamber judgment 22.07.2010 on the case of A. A. v. Greece (application no. 12186/08) http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/viewhbkm.asp?sessionId=57298389&skin=…
5. Government concedes in the Court of Appeal that UK has no opt-out from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Published on Tuesday, 13 July, 2010), Doughty Street Chambers http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/news/news_detail.cfm?iNewsID=405
6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/14/eu-law-asylum-seekers-austeri…
7. ECtHR Interim Measures (Rule 39) to stop Dublin transfers 19 Jun 2009 http://bit.ly/a0DQ1
8. http://bit.ly/aLnazr
9. UK Parliament debate on Iran, 2 March 2010 http://bit.ly/8Y8U5h