Press Archives

Wednesday 30 November 2005

New evidence of abuse, halt all DRC deportations: campaigners tell Home Office

Media Contact: Rhian Beynon 020 7553 7464

The Home Office should halt all deportations of failed asylum seekers to the Democratic Republic of Congo, following fresh evidence of their abuse by the authorities, say campaigners.

A BBC World Service investigation, to be broadcast on Thursday, confirms that asylum seekers who are returned to Kinshasa risk being detained without trial in the country’s death trap prisons. The NGOs BID, NCADC and JCWI have called an emergency meeting in the Commons on Thursday night to highlight this new evidence to Home Office officials, MPs, human rights lawyers and activists, and asylum seekers.

Mr Didier Matamba, a Congolese asylum seeker, said:

“A prison sentence in a D.R.C prison is tantamount to a death sentence. This is why this news will send a shiver down the spine of every Congolese asylum seeker. They do not doubt that they could pay with their lives for the Home Office’s drive to meet its deportation targets.

“From the bottom of our hearts, we call upon the Home Secretary to take note of the BBC evidence and halt the deportations to Kinshasa.”

In the course of her investigation, World Service reporter Jenny Cuffe attempted to track down failed asylum seekers deported by the UK authorities to Kinshasa. She interviewed both representatives of the security services, and dissidents forced “underground”.

Ms Cuffe said:

“There is a real climate of fear and repression in Kinshasa. A number of interviewees told me that the authorities view failed asylum seekers as opponents, and sometimes detain them without trial in prisons where they receive no food, or access to basic amenities, and are mistreated.

“Once detained, it seems that only those who are able to pay the authorities large bribes stand any chance of being released, and escaping ill-treatment, or death.”

Jeremy Corbyn MP, who will host the Commons meeting, said

“I am very concerned that with Zimbabwe, Iraq, and now the D.R.C., we are seeing a pattern of asylum seekers being deported even where there are question marks over their personal safety. In order to ensure the integrity of the U.K.’s commitment to the Geneva Convention, I would urge the Home Secretary to cease all deportations to the D.R.C. immediately.”

Notes to editors

1. Media contact for BID: Tim Baster: 020 7 247 3590; NCADC Emma Ginn - 0161 740 6504;

2. All reporters and members of the public are welcome to attend Thursday night’s meeting from 6.30pm-8.30pm in Committee Room 14, House of Commons, London SW1. The speakers include BBC World Service, Jenny Cuffe; Human Rights Watch, Anneke Van Woudenberg; Congolese Society, Didier Matamba; Bail for Immigration Detainees, Tim Baster; Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Tauhid Pasha.

3. Jenny Cuffe's report on the D.R.C goes out on 1 December at 9.05am on the World Service. For details on how to listen to it go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/assignment.shtml

4. BID (Bail for Immigration Detainees) is an independent charity which works with asylum seekers and migrants, in removal centre and prisons, to secure their release from detention. JCWI (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) has been challenging discrimination in immigration law through casework and campaigning since 1967. NCADC (National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns) is a voluntary organisation which supports people facing deportation to run anti-deportation campaigns.

5. This year a U.K. immigration and asylum tribunal, (DRC CG [2005] UKIAT 00118 (heard 25/02/05)) noted that "failed" asylum seekers returned to the DRC are at risk if they have a political, military or certain ethnic background. Also, the fact that returns are "closely scrutinised" goes to the likelihood of that background coming to light. But any returnee identified as a "failed" asylum seeker is risk of "harassment" by officials who are "motivated for financial reasons using returnees as a potential source of income". The returnee would be required to pay a "fine", else face further imprisonment. Yet the tribunal said it was not satisfied conditions of imprisonment in the DRC amounts to a breach of article 3 ECHR, Prohibition on Torture: “No one shall be subjected to torture, or to inhuman, or degrading, treatment or punishment.”

6. There is no UK or European monitoring mechanism for systematically tracking the welfare of failed asylum seekers who are deported.

7. The Home Office's own current Country Report on the D.R.C. describes conditions of imprisonment there as "harsh and life threatening". “Malnutrition was widespread" resulting in deaths, "prison guards frequently required bribes from family members to visit or provide food", "detainees were regularly abused, beaten and tortured", there were "usually no toilets, or mattresses, or medical care”, and "inmates often received insufficient amounts of light, air and water". (CIPU 2005)

8. Human Rights Watch’s Submission to the 38th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, November, 2005, notes: “Congolese human rights activists face serious intimidation and violence, abuses that are rarely punished. In July 2005, Pascal Kabungulu, a prominent activist, was assassinated in Bukavu. In June, the national security service arrested a well-known activist in Lubumbashi, saying he was linked to a May secession attempt in Katanga. When other activists protested his arrest, six were arrested and mistreated while in detention. In January 2005, activists and members of civil society in North Kivu received anonymous threats and visits by armed men after they denounced war crimes committed by local troops and the distribution of weapons to civilians by provincial authorities. Four felt so threatened that they fled the country.”