Application for Judicial Review is refused.
The latest news is that the family have now been refused their application for judicial review. They are now liable to be deported at any moment.
Every Child Matters?
“We passionately believe that every child matters”, says Cllr Harry Harpham, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services. “We want to make sure that every child, wherever they live and whatever their background, is growing up to be healthy, safe and with the opportunity to achieve.”
Claude and Majolie N'Deh, and their children Kirsty, Gael and Jason Cyril.
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 incurable disease they carry. If this family is deported to Cameroon, two of these children have up to 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 YarlsWood 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 suffer from sickle cell disease, were not given their prescribed medication until the Thursday afternoon, four days after their arrest. The children have never been to Africa and Cameroon is a high risk malarial area with under-fives vulnerable to malaria. Jason and Kirsty have a 50% risk of death in Cameroon because of their sickle cell disease.
Seven days after their arrest, the family was released following an application for judicial review of their claim. The children’s health suffered in detention and after the family were released Kirsty was kept overnight at Sheffield’s Childrens Hospital. The children have taken weeks to recover from the ordeal.
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 fulfill their potential… to prevent children slipping through the net.” The Refugee Council of Great Britain said of the campaign in 2004: “‘Falling though 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.
Article 22 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 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.”
JASON, GAEL AND KIRSTY NEED YOUR HELP.
- Email the Home Secretary at jacqui.smith@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or write to Jacqui Smith MP Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF
- Use this model letter as a basis for your own messages and letters.
- Print off THIS PETITION (MS Word Doc, 729Kb) and once full, please post to Jacqui Smith, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF
- Write to/email the Children’s Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green at 11 MILLION, 1 London Bridge, London, SE1 9BG, info.request@11million.org.uk
- Email your contact details and copies of any letters you send to claude.campaign@activist.com and we will send you updates on the campaign
- 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
Visit the National Coalition of Anti-deportation www.ncadc.org.uk for more information on campaigning and up-dates - E-mail Paul Scrivens leader of Sheffield City Council, “Where Everyone Matters”, and ask him to intervene to the Home Secretary on Claude’s behalf – paul.scriven@sheffield.gov.uk
- Invite Claude or one of his campaign group to speak at your community group, union meeting or event.
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
Judicial Review granted
Another woefully short post just to say that Claude and his family were not deported and have been granted a judicial review. They are back in Sheffield and the children have been treated at the Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
Many thanks to all those who have given so much support.
News just in: family released
At 6pm I heard that Claude and his family are to be released and will not be deported tomorrow. I don’t have full details of this yet, but will post again as soon as I do.
Many thanks to all those who wrote letters, made phonecalls, sent emails and said prayers.
Talks to stop deportation – The Star
Read the full article: ‘Talks to stop deportation‘.
Claude N’deh & family – facing forced removal from UK
Claude is a French teacher who was tortured and imprisoned for eight months in Cameroon for protesting against the illegal executions of nine young boys and is facing deportation on Saturday 17 May 2008 with his young family back to the central African dictatorship.
Claude N’deh is married with three young children. Police raided his house at 6.30am on Sunday 11 May 2008 to take him, his wife Maiolie Ther, and their children. They were not allowed to change the 18-month-old twins’ nappies, nor dress, nor take any belongings with them. They were taken to Attercliffe police station in Sheffield and are now in Yarls’ Wood detention centre near Bedford. The family are currently being held in a room with only two single beds.
Two of the children, Kirsty and Cyril, suffer from sickle cell, a genetic blood disorder, and doctors at Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital have warned that they will have only a few years to live if they are forced to return to Cameroon. The children need medication twice a day but to date have not received any since they left Sheffield on Sunday 11 May.
Now Then magazine article
The article below about Claude N’deh appeared in the May 2008 issue of Now Then magazine.
I am a French teacher from Cameroon in central Africa. It’s a beautiful country of lakes and forests, many Westerners go there to holiday. My home was in Douala, the capital.
I would like to go back and to see my family but if I return I know I will be imprisoned or killed. I know this because they tried to kill me before. By they, I mean the police. It is not a good government there.
In January 2001 the Douala Operational Command arrested my cousin Kouatou Charles, who was twelve, his younger brother Kouatou Elysee, and seven of their friends, accusing them of stealing a gas canister in the Bepanda District. Families of the “Bepanda 9″ were permitted to visit them in prison, but after three weeks we were told we could not see them anymore. This case was being reported both nationally and internationally because the boys were so young, but we now suspected that the DOC had executed them. Douala authorities denied any executions but refused to produce evidence of the youths’ continued wellbeing. We, the victims’ families, formed another group, the Committee for the Defence of the Nine (or C9 as we were known).
My elder cousin, Bethuel Kouatou, and I organised the first meeting of C9. We held weekly demonstrations, to demand freedom for the boys. When it was discovered that the youths had been killed in custody the demonstrations got bigger, people were angry and came to support us. The eighth demonstration, which took place on 15^th April 2001, was also supported by the opposition party to the dictatorship. The security forces came out with water cannons and tear gas and arrested around 50 of us. These events had national press coverage. I was arrested and detained. I was beaten on every part of my body, even my feet. There were maybe ten or 15 men in my cell with a bucket in the corner which was not often emptied. The security forces would bring me to another room for interrogation. They cut my right ear and burned cigarettes on my back. The guards forced us to make love with the wall. They did this two or three times a week. I was imprisoned there for eight months.
They took some of us from the cell at night and told us to get into the truck. I was very afraid. I believed that they were taking us to kill us. We were all afraid. One of the other prisoners tried to get free. He jumped from the truck. The soldiers stopped and tried to shoot him in the dark. They killed him. But I tried to get free too, and I escaped. My hands were tied but I ran, I ran into the forest.
I was blessed, a man in a village agreed to hide me. He helped me because he had heard of C9 and of the Bepanda 9. He contacted my brother, David Engeng, who arranged to smuggle me out of the country. I didn’t know where I was going to, my family wanted me to leave the country to another where I will be safe. So the person who helped me decided to take me to Britain.
I was granted asylum here in the UK by the High Court three years ago, they told me I could live here, and not have to return to Cameroon. But the Home Office overturned the ruling. They said in my refusal letter that yes, they believe I was tortured, I was imprisoned, but that I must go back. I am afraid to sleep at home in case the immigration police come again, they have already raided my home twice.
My wife, Maiolie Ther, was also imprisoned, but for two and a half years. They took her because she is married to me. She was freed after a humanitarian pressure group demanded release of some women prisoners. My first wife died in jail, and that was also because she was my wife and they wanted to punish me. Maiolie and I now have three children, two of them have sickle cell disease and we are afraid for their lives if we are forced to return to our country.
Cameroon is a dictatorship, nothing has changed since I left. The president, Paul Biya, has been in power for three decades and has now changed the law again so he will rule, I think, until his death. The security forces will still know my name.
Claude N’deh was speaking to Now Then magazine
Refugee fears for kids – Sheffield Telegraph
Read the full article: ‘Refugee fears for kids‘.
