Please circulate this message to anyone you think may be willing and able to
help.
If you live near to or in Sheffield, please come to the campaign meeting:
(see Claude's message below about this). You can also help out with
petitioning at festivals and other events: (see the message from Sheffield
CDAC below for activities planned for this weekend). You can come to the
benefit gig organised to fundraise and show support for the Ndeh family: (26
July, 7:30 until late at Cafe Euro, 72 John Street Sheffield - for tickets
email Sue on
[log in to unmask]). If you can't do any of these things but still
want to
help, please see the below leaflet and petition for ways you can make a
difference. This list does not allow attachments so if you want a graphics
copy of the leaflet, petition or gig poster, which includes pictures, please
email [log in to unmask] asking for these and I will send them
straight back to you.
Claude's legal team has, this week, lodged an attempt to overturn the
decision not to allow his judicial review. This is good news but does not
reduce the likelihood of arrest for Claude and his family. High profile
public pressure is still the best route for ensuring that the Ndeh family
can stay in Sheffield, so as many letters and petitions to Meg Munn and the
Home Secretary Jackie Smith as possible would be great. Please try to coy
the campaign into anything you send off.
****************************************************
MESSAGE FROM CLAUDE
Dear all
Thanks for your work to support me and my family. You are all invited
to attend the Claude Ndeh family campaign meeting at the New Roots Cafe on
Burngreave Road Pitsmoor opposite burngreave housing. It is going to be on
Monday 14th July at 6pm.
pls can you inform those who are interested and ask them to come along
too!
cheers Claude ndeh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
MESSAGE FROM SHEFFIELD COMMITTEE TO DEFEND ASYLUM SEEKERS
Hello,
Just a reminder that there is an ASSIST stall at Sharrow Festival tomorrow,
Saturday from 12.00 at Mount Pleasant Park and it would obviously be useful
for the Ndeh family campaign group to take along petitions and flyers. If
you can, please come along and help with this.
There is also a stall at Abbeyfield festival on Sunday.
Best wishes, Sue
****************************************
To contact the campaign, especially for press coverage questions and
background info for articles, please email or call me using any of the
details in my signature below.
Best wishes,
Mike Higgins,
Email: [log in to unmask]
Address: 1 Portland Court, Sheffield, S6 3EW, UK.
Tel (voice and, by prior arrangement, fax): +44 (0) 114 2258676
Mobile: +44 (0) 7956 856060
*********************************************************
These children were arrested with their parents in a dawn raid by
immigration police, taken from their home in soiled nappies and kept in a
cell for seven days. Two of these children were denied essential twice-daily
medication for the permanent condition they have. If this family is deported
to Cameroon, two of these children have no more than a 50% chance of seeing
their fifth birthday, according to the World Health Organisation.
Twins Kirsty and Gael and their brother Jason Cyril were born in Jessops
Hospital Sheffield. They were arrested with their family on Sunday 11th May
and spent a week in detention in Yarls Wood Detention Centre awaiting
deportation to Cameroon.
The family were woken at 6am by 11 immigration police officers at their
family home in Gleadless. They were taken away in their pyjamas and soiled
nappies. The children were not allowed to be changed until late afternoon.
At the detention centre, the family were held in a room with only two single
beds. Jason and Kirsty, who have sickle cell, were not given their
prescribed medication until the Thursday afternoon - four days after their
arrest. The children have never been to Africa. Cameroon is a high risk
malarial area with under-fives especially vulnerable to malaria. Jason and
Kirsty therefore have at best a less than 50% chance of survival if they are
deported.
Seven days after their arrest, the family was released following an
application for a judicial review of their claim. The children's health
suffered in detention. After the family was released, it was discovered
that Kirsty had acquired pneumonia due to her maltreatment in Yarls Wood.
As a result of this, she required overnight treatment in a specialist unit
at Sheffield Children's Hospital. The children have taken weeks to recover
from the ordeal of their detention and lack of medical treatment.
The application for a judicial review of their case has been refused
and once more the family face imminent detention and deportation.
Britain has been strongly criticised for breaching human rights and has
opted out of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet one of the UK
Government's latest campaigns is Every Child Matters. Its aim is to keep
children safe from harm. In its summary it states: "We all share a duty to
do everything we can to ensure every child has the chance to fulfil their
potential [.] to prevent children slipping through the net."
The Refugee Council of Great Britain said of the campaign in 2004: "'Falling
through the gaps' is a phrase that could have been coined to describe the
experience of asylum seeking children in the UK. It is therefore imperative
that policies aimed at vulnerable children do not simply repeat previous
mistakes - as a society we must rise to the challenge of protecting those
hardest to protect."
In Tony Blair's introduction to Every Child Matters, he writes that "[Some]
children's lives are filled with risk, fear and danger."
Children of asylum seekers face risk, fear and danger from the very
Government that created this campaign.
JASON, GAEL AND KIRSTY NEED YOUR HELP.
1. Write to or e-mail the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP, at: Home
Office, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF or
[log in to unmask]
2. Print off a petition and, once filled in, please post to Jacqui
Smith MP, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF. Please send a copy of any
letters or petitions you send off, to us at the campaign.
3. Write to or e-mail the Children's Commissioner, Sir Al
Aynsley-Green, at:
11 MILLION, 1 London Bridge, London, SE1 9BG or
[log in to unmask]
4. Please e-mail your contact details to [log in to unmask]
and we will send you updates on the campaign.
5. E-mail Paul Scrivens, leader of Sheffield City Council (where the
slogan is: Where Everyone Matters) and ask him to intervene with the Home
Secretary on Claude's behalf [log in to unmask]
6. For further information about action to stop the deportation of
children, go to
http://www.unicef.org.uk/campaigns/take_action/email_fax_your_mp/index.asp?action=33.
7. Visit the National Coalition of Anti-deportation campaigns
www.ncadc.org.uk for more information on campaigning and up-dates.
8. Go to http://ndeh.wordpress.com for model letters and where to send
them.
All correspondence MUST include the following details: Claude Ndeh,
Majolie Ther, Yiah Cyril Jason, Kirsty Michel Tchos and Gael Lionel Atchom.
Home Office reference number N1056909
Article 22 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the British
government accepts, states:
Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is
seeking refugee status or who is considered a refugee in accordance with
applicable international or domestic law and procedures shall.receive
appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance in the enjoyment of
applicable rights set forth in the present Convention and in other
international human rights or humanitarian instruments to which the said
States are Parties.
******************************************************
Claude Ndeh and family must stay in Sheffield
A young family from Sheffield face deportation to Cameroon. The parents;
Claude and Majolie, face a repeat of the torture and imprisonment they have
already suffered at the hands of the regime in Cameroon. The children are
all under five and two of them have sickle cell anaemia. To return the
family to Cameroon would place their lives in immediate jeopardy. The
children would be at serious risk of malaria and they would not be able to
get the medical treatment that the children need for Sickle Cell. Even if
the children were able to access the treatment for their sickle cell this
would not prevent them from contracting malaria and dying as a consequence,
due to their lowered immunity levels. ".Half of those with sickle cell
anaemia (in Cameroon) have died by the age of five years usually from
infections including malaria and pneumococcal sepsis and from the anaemia
itself" (World Health Organisation, 24.04.2006)
We the undersigned support Claude Ndeh and his families' claim for leave to
remain in the UK on human rights grounds. We believe that deporting the
family to Cameroon would contravene articles 3 and 8 of the European Charter
of Human Rights.
We urge the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to save the lives of this family and
grant them leave to remain in the UK on humanitarian grounds.
NAME
ADDRESS
SIGNATURE
________________End of message________________
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