Raul Ally back in UKBA detention and on Hunger Strike

On Wednesday April 10th, Raul Ally was taken by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and interned in Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) for the second time. Despite having a pending judicial review of his case, he is due to be deported to Tanzania next Wednesday 17th April at 8pm. He has declared a hunger strike to halt this and draw attention to his plight and that of other refugees. Raul is an active member of Tyneside Community Action against Racism  (TCAR) and Somali refugee who has lived in the north east of England, since he was 12.

Raul went to sign at North Shields reporting centre at 11:45 as he has done every week since his release from Morton Hall IRC in November. This time however, he was detained and taken to a cell in North Shields Police Station. He was locked up until 1am, when he was transported back to Morton Hall, arriving at 4am. He has since been transferred to Colnbrook IRC in Middlesex.

Due to the instability of Somalia, caused in no small part by the actions of the British state and the hunger for resources and profits of its rapacious corporations, Raul is due to be sent to Tanzania, a country in which he has no links or family. First they destroy his country forcing refugees to flee, and then they deny his identity, rip him from his roots and send him to a country he does not even know.  The British state has adopted this 'policy' precisely as a means to keep refugees from making a claim to a state and to ensure that they are stripped of the rights enshrined in the Convention for Human Rights and the 1967 Protocol. 

TCAR has been in contact with Raul and he explained: ' I am very angry and not happy being held the second time, being sent back to a country I have never lived in. I am on hunger strike until I am listened to. We need to continue fighting.'

It is essential that we show the British state and its racist institutions that they cannot snatch refugees away from their communities without resistance. We must organise and put pressure on all those involved in this barbaric process and expose this far and wide.

Below, we have reposted the speech Raul gave at TCAR's public meeting in January. He movingly talks of the conditions inside Morton Hall, and the psychological torture these places, and the wider immigration system inflict upon refugees in Britain. It is a call to action, to resist the racist immigration system and to close down immigration prisons. Freedom for Raul Ally!

Take Action!

Contact Theresa May to urge her to use her powers as Home Secretary to stop the deportation and give Raul indefinite leave to remain.

Constituency phone number: 0118 934 5433

Ring the Home Office (immigration) to report a hunger strike protest.

Telephone: 020 7035 4848

Twitter: @ukhomeoffice

Email: mayt@parliament.uk
UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi. gov.uk
CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@ homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
pscorrespondence@cabinet- office.gsi.gov.uk

Fax: 0207 0354745
Write letters of support to Raul Ally and contact Colnbrook to enquire about Raul's health and demand his release:

(Raul Ally, Home Office ref: A1359895)
Colnbrook immigration removal centre
Colnbrook Bypass
Harmondsworth
West Drayton
Middlesex
UB7 0FX

Tel: 020 8607 5200
Fax: 020 8759 7996
 
Full statement from Raul Ally following his release from Morton Hall in November:

'I’m glad I’m out but the two months I had inside were the worst experience I’ve had in Britain, I want to say the worst in my life, but the situation in Somalia is so bad too. Now I am out but I am still unsure about my situation. I am still under threat of being deported; I have to sign on at the Immigration Reporting Centre in North Shields every week. I am scared of what they will say, if they will try and take me again.

I had very, very threatening and stressful experiences. There are people who are locked up who end up in a bad mental state because of all of the stress and not knowing what is going to happen to them. I feel a lot of sympathy for the people still inside and what the government is doing to them. Everyone is worried about getting deported. There are a lot of people still locked up, people being held for 5 years, blind people, people with diseases, missing limbs and illnesses. The nurses lie and say people are in good health. There is one man who cannot walk, he has to get his meals brought to him and the nurses say he is fine and fit to travel. When they come for you if you refuse to move the guards cuff your hands behind your back, they put their hands around your throat and pull your head up and two more pull you forward, people are treated like animals.

My situation is still uncertain, I could still get deported, there are many more people still locked up and they have mistreated me and others and continue to do so even though we have done nothing wrong. I am asking you to come to our meetings and protests. We need to continue fighting; we can’t let them get away with this.'