Student anti-racist update

The ongoing tough treatment of asylum seeker is directly impacting on students including the detentions and deportation of student asylum seekers. Two important cases are below and need immediate action:

• Azim Ansari is an Afghan refugee studying at St Johns College Oxford. He fled the Taliban in 2001. During his time in the UK, he gained two As and a B in physics, maths and computing at the City of Bristol College.

The Home Office is trying to deport him and his brother Wali back to Afghanistan, claiming it is now safe for them to return. Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International dispute this.

Azim was going to be deported last Sunday. The ‘Keep Azim in Oxford’ campaign is urgently calling for anti-racists to sign the online petition www.obscurity.org.uk/azim/petition/firma and send letters to the Home Office calling for Azim to be allowed to stay. Model letters are available from www.keepaziminoxford.org.uk

• Courage Idiagbonya a Biochemistry student in the Medical School at Newcastle University is facing imminent deportation to Nigeria. He is currently being held at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre after last month, being arrested and detained under the asylum and immigration act as he was travelling to an exam.

Students at Newcastle are calling for the Home Office to review Courage's case favourably and allow him to be free to continue his studies here in Britain. He has fresh evidence to support his asylum claim but cannot access it as he is in detention.

Below is a petition; please email it around widely. Add you support and send it back to contactsaar@hotmail.com

I am against the deportation of Courage Idiagbonya.
I oppose that he has been forcefully removed from his community and is now being held at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre.
I call on Des Brown (Minister of Immigration) to allow Courage to be allowed to stay and continue his studies here in Britain.

Name
Students union
Email

CAMPAIGNING TO DEFEND ASYLUM RIGHTS

As the general election approaches and the political parties compete to be the toughest on asylum, playing into the hands of the BNP, it is vital that all anti-racists challenge the lies and hysteria that are being spread. Ideas include holding meetings with asylum seeker speakers in your students’ union, distributing SAAR’s ‘myths and facts’ about Asylum seekers briefing or through articles in the student press.

OPPOSING THE BNP AT THE GENERAL ELECTION

The BNP is standing at least 100 candidates in the 2005 general election. Its aim is not to get MPs elected - that is not possible this time. It is trying to get the maximum publicity for its race hate and build its profile in next year’s local elections when it will look to add to its record number of council seats. It wants to exploit election regulations -to spread its message of race hate - to get free mail shots, and television and radio broadcasts.

The BNP is a fascist organisation, not a legitimate political party, with explicitly racist policies. By standing this number of candidates the fascist BNP hopes to obtain the same level of television and radio party political coverage as the main parties - and broadcast their message of race hate and social division into every household in the country.

PULL THE PLUGS ON THE NAZI THUGS

Unite Against Fascism has launched a campaign to ‘Pull the Plugs on the BNP’. The campaign statement calls for TV companies not to give air time to the BNP during the general election; for the government to propose an amendment to the Representation of the People Act so that explicitly racist parties cannot have their election literature circulated free; and for a strengthening of the Public Order Act so that prosecutions for incitement to racial hatred are easier to successfully bring about.

Broadcasting trade union BECTU’s Peter Cox and Tim Lezzard Vice President of the National Union of Journalists have given support for the campaign, and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said it will back postal workers who refuse to deliver BNP materials.

New UAF national leaflet for the general election
A high vote for the BNP will be a vote for racism, violence, hatred and division. Where the BNP does well it is likely to focus on these areas over the next year. The BNP is relying on a low turnout in order to get a high proportion of the vote in the constituencies it stands candidates in. A high turnout and a low vote for the BNP is the best way to keep the BNP out of your area.

Unite Against Fascism has launched a leaflet for the general election. To order copies email unite@natfhe.org.uk

BNP member contests students’ union election
In an important reminder of the need to campaign against the BNP on campus, BNP member Joe Finnon recently stood in the election for newspaper editor at the University of Manchester receiving around 100 votes. This is the second time in two years that the BNP have stood in a students’ union election. The BNP claims to have members in dozens of schools, colleges and universities. At Sheffield Hallam hate mail from the ‘Student Friends of the BNP’ has been sent to students. These highlight the need to build the broadest possible alliances on campus against the BNP as well as the importance of ‘No Platform’ for fascist’s policies. If the BNP are attempting to get active on your campus or you would like more information on launching a campaign email contactsaar@hotmail.com

UNITE AGAINST FASCISM CONFERENCE CALLS FOR ACTION NOW TO STOP THE BNP

Around five hundred people from across the country representing Black and Jewish groups, lesbian and gay and disabled people’s organisations, students’ and trade unions, and many others gathered at Congress House for the Unite Against Fascism (UAF) conference on 26 February.

National Assembly Against Racism chair, Lee Jasper opened the conference, saying that the strategy had to be ‘the maximum unity to defeat the BNP’ and ‘challenging racism head on’.

In a moving reminder of the dangers of allowing fascists to gain a foothold, holocaust survivor Henry Gutterman said the presence of 12 fascists in the Saxony parliament in Germany should ‘shake people out of their complacency’. He urged unity between all faiths, warning: ‘once you allow fascists to take over, it is too late, they crush opposition’. Muslim Council of Britain deputy general secretary Dr Muhammed Abdul Bari echoed these sentiments and pledged support for UAF.

Delegates were reminded just how close the BNP had come to achieving a national breakthrough in the European and London Assembly elections last June - and how they had been stopped, including mass leafleting to get the vote out from all the communities threatened by fascism and opposed to racism. Harry Cohen MP said that attacks on asylum seekers had to be challenged head on, and called for stronger legislation to deal with racism.

Mohammad Azam spoke about the lessons of opposing the BNP in Oldham, where the BNP has gone from having its highest vote in the last general election, to being ‘driven out without gaining a single council seat’.

Jackie Lewis, co-chair of lesbian and gay rights group, ILGA Europe, said the recent homophobic murder of David Morley and the 6th anniversary of the Soho, Brick Lane and Brixton nail bombings were clear reminders that ‘prejudice doesn’t discriminate’. She said alliances were ‘absolutely essential’. This was echoed by disabled rights group REGARD representative Kirsten Hearne, who said the fascist concept of disabled people was one of ‘economically unviable’ people and urged unity and inclusivity of all those under threat from fascism.

Claude Moraes MEP gave a stark reminder of the implications of the rise of the far right elsewhere in Europe. He pointed to Denmark where legislation now ‘effectively prohibits Danes from marrying anyone from outside the EU who is not white’. He visited a Muslim school in Holland that had been ‘literally razed to the ground’ in a racist firebomb attack and added ‘in Europe there is now no sense of shock or alarm when extreme right leaders are included in electoral alliances’. Singer Estelle addressed the conference.

In a fitting conclusion to the conference, holocaust survivor Leon Greenman, who spent three years in Auschwitz, urged people to ‘tell of the dangers of Nazism’, saying ‘what happened to me and to others who are not able to speak, should never be allowed to happen to anyone else’

US ANNUAL CONFERENCE

NUS annual conference will take place from the 5-7 April and will be an important opportunity to ensure that the national union takes a clear stand against racism in the coming year. SAAR has worked with student unions to ensure there will motions on defending Azim Ansari and other student asylum seekers and opposing the BNP. Please encourage delegates from your college to support these motions.

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