The day of the inquest started with legal issues and the choosing of the jury. This took some time as potential jurors were read a long list of names (witnesses and those involved) and they were asked about any connections to G4S, Tascor, the Home Office, the UK Border Agency, Prison Service, the National Tactical Response Unit, the London Ambulance Service, British Airways, or any of the legal firms involved in the inquest. They were also asked whether they had worked in a detention centre or prison and whether they ever had to use restraint on anyone. One of the most surprising questions put to potential jurors was whether s/he was a member of Liberty, INQUEST, Medical Justice, the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns or Stop G4S.

The jury were then told about what was expected of them and basic details about Jimmy and what happened to him on 12 October 2010. The coroner explained ‘it appears that whilst on the plane, but before it had taken off, an incident occurred involving Mr Mubenga and three detainee custody officers employed by G4S … Those officers were Mr Stuart Tribelnig, Mr Hughes and Mr Kaler. The incident that I’ve just referred to resulted in the restraint of Mr Mubenga by those three detainee custody officers.’ He went on to say: ‘Mr Mubenga was allowed to use the toilet and make a mobile phone call whilst the other passengers were boarding. The toilet door was left ajar for that purpose. When he left the toilet, something happened … it appears, from what we know so far, that a struggle ensued between Mr Mubenga and the three DCOs. Mr Mubenga was then restrained, handcuffed and placed in a seat …. We do know that the restraint continued for a time. We don’t know yet how long, but it continued for a time. It appears that Mr Mubenga was heard to shout things … At some point it appears that he fell silent and unresponsive and it became clear that something was wrong. By this time, the plane had left the stand and was taxiing towards the runway but hadn’t yet taken off. The three guards alerted the cabin crew to the fact that something was wrong and arrangements were made to get the plane back to the stand.’

Legal counsel were asked to introduce themselves. And there were at least fifteen lawyers (solicitors, barristers and QCs), spread over two rows, representing six interested parties: Jimmy Mubenga’s family; the three G4S guards who were involved in the restraint (Stuart Tribelnig, Stuart Hughes and Colin Kaler); the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice; G4S; London Ambulance Service and British Airways

Adrienne Makenda Kambana, Jimmy’s grieving widow, was then asked to enter the witness box and her prepared statement about Jimmy was read to the court by Henry Blaxland, QC, her barrister. (Read the statement here.) A picture of Jimmy was then passed to the coroner and jury. Adrienne then added a few comments, which brought jury members to tears. A statement Adrienne had given to police two months after his death in December 2010 was read. It detailed what had happened on the day he died: Adrienne was ‘constantly on the phone’ with Jimmy and they were both upset and at one point she recalled Jimmy saying whilst he was in the van going to the airport, ‘Why are they trying to finish my life?.’

The first witness was Detective Sergeant Stephen Baldwin (Specialist Crime and Operations Unit) who told the court how the police handled the investigation and the procedures followed in gathering evidence. He said the 146 passengers from the plane had been put up in a hotel and the following day had been asked to return for their flight an hour early so that police could speak to them. The procedures the police had used to obtain witness statements were outlined to the court. It was obviously difficult, as many of those who saw what happened did not live in the UK. The police devised a process of questionnaires followed up by emails and phone calls to take statements.

The police officer discussed the rigid bar handcuffs which had been used, at which point the handcuffs (wrapped in a plastic evidence bag) were produced. The Mubenga family’s QC wanted these shown to the jury, which caused the barrister for G4S to say that ‘G4S don’t do this sort of escorting any more so it wouldn’t be us but it might be TASCOR’. Suddenly a TASCOR employee, who was sat in a separate area of the court, produced a pair of handcuffs. (TASCOR is the current holder of the contract to remove people from the UK and not implicated in the inquest, so the company’s presence was surprising.)

The police officer went on: ‘Basically what happens is that with the rigid bar you get more compliance from the prisoner so basically providing the prisoner or the detainee is compliant, then they will sit comfortably on your wrists. As soon as the detainee or the person in custody becomes difficult, there is a much more control factor over these by using the rigid bar to press against various nerve endings in your wrist. It makes the detainee a lot easier to control.’

After lunch, the court was shown CCTV of Jimmy Mubenga in Brook House (near Gatwick). He had been picked up by the three guards and taken to Heathrow. According to the police officer the CCTV showed that the journey was ‘very cordial’.

Questioning by Henry Blaxland, QC, revealed that following Jimmy’s death the three guards were taken to Heathrow police station where the officers ‘were in a room together’ with two other G4S employees, Stephen Copper and Jan Beattie (the on-call contracts manager). They were released in the early hours of the morning without being interviewed. Though they returned six days later on 18 October and were interviewed under caution when they refused to answer questions. Instead they provided G4S Use of Force Forms, which had been completed under the supervision of G4S. They returned on 3 March, five months later, and were again interviewed, this time answering questions. And then they were back six days later, on that occasion refusing to answer questions.

The G4S guards’ barrister  who followed, was particularly concerned how evidence had been collected and possible ‘contamination’ of witnesses, particularly following the extensive Guardian coverage.

The final witness was Christopher Bundle, a security manager at Brook House, (which is also run by G4S) who brought with him documentation which detailed Jimmy’s detention at Brook House. Documentation showed that a Raised Awareness Support Plan had been opened on the day Jimmy died describing him as ‘tearful’.

Finally a statement was read from Duncan Watts a detention custody officer at Brook House who on checking on Jimmy had found that ‘He was not in good spirits due to his circumstances.’ Later that afternoon he found Jimmy ‘sat on his bed and he was crying. He had his head in his hands’.

The inquest, which is open to the public, is taking place in Isleworth Crown Court and is expected to last for another eight weeks.

Related links

Read Adrienne Makenda Kambana’s statement about Jimmy here

Read an IRR News story: ‘Two years on and no justice for Jimmy Mubenga‘

Read an IRR News story: ‘Jimmy Mubenga’s family devastated’

Stop G4S

Corporate Watch

Download the Corporate Watch G4S company profile here

INQUEST

Download the INQUEST briefing on Jimmy Mubenga here (pdf file, 324kb)

Medical Justice

National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns

‘My name is Adrienne Kambana. I am the widow of Jimmy Mubenga and the mother of our five children. [Rolan (19), Kevin (15), Akram (13), Jordan (11) and Blessing (3)].

Jimmy Mubenga was a good father. He was doing everything a good father should do. He would take the children to school and he would play football with them. He did many activities with them and he provided a lot of joy in their lives. He was a good husband and he treated me well. He had never been in trouble with the police before. He had never done anything wrong.

When he was arrested he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. An argument started and Jimmy got caught up in it. Jimmy was convicted of an offence of causing actual bodily harm and he was sent to prison in March 2006. Although I was not a witness to what happened, I was present at the trial where he was found guilty. He told me, “I was innocent” and I believed him. This was the first time he had ever been away from the children.

By April 2007 he had served his sentence but he was detained under immigration powers. He remained detained until June 2008 when he was granted bail. It was during this time that Blessing was conceived. Jimmy instructed a solicitor and tried to challenge the deportation because he wanted to stay with his family.

Our children deeply miss him. They miss all the fun they used to have with their father, especially Blessing, his daughter. It’s a punishment for her not to have him around. She misses all the fun and games and time spent with her father and her brothers. She never had the chance to get to know him and call him Dad. All she has is pictures of him. I don’t know how she will react to what has happened when she grows up. I will have to tell her that, “On 12 October 2010 I was on the phone to him and he spoke to your brothers but you were too young to speak to him. I know he loves you”.

I was asked by the police to tell them about the phone calls I had with Jimmy on 12 October 2010. I would like to add that he spoke to Rolan, his elder son and he said, “Go to the MP. Go to Mr Timms and tell him I’m innocent”. He said, “I’ll call you back” and he did not call me back. That was the end of the story.

Now me and my children cannot face G4S guards or someone wearing this logo. This can happen on a daily basis and it hurts us to see it. It’s not easy to lose someone who was not sick. He didn’t deserve this kind of death. His death is painful and sad. We feel sad for him because we’ve been told he was asking for help and he didn’t get it. I know he died with sadness. I believe he died with regret. He died asking for help and thinking, “What have I done to deserve this?” I wish I could have helped him. My children ask me why he couldn’t get help. He should have got help. He asked for it. Jimmy has gone forever. We need justice. Justice will help Jimmy rest in peace. This will prevent the situation from happening again. Justice will give the other passengers on the plane peace of mind about what happened. Justice will protect people in the future because I don’t want anyone to be in my shoes. Justice will help my children not to feel angry about what happened to their father. Justice will help me to live a long and healthy life so that I can take care of our children. I need justice, especially for my daughter who did not get the chance to know her father. We will never forget Jimmy.’

Education is in the spotlight. It’s future, in the hands of Education Secretary Gove, is under review. Though the press has widely reported Gove’s assault on the national curriculum, less space has been given to the effects of austerity measures in terms of exclusion policies. Excluded pupils now receive scant support to re-enter education. Spending cuts have decimated agencies that help excluded pupils and their families in finding a new school place. Meanwhile, a spending review has deemed exclusion appeals panels – the last recourse a child has in challenging exclusion – unnecessary.

It is left to independent organisations pick up the pieces for discarded pupils – the majority of whom are from poor, marginalised and/or BME communities.

Race, class and exclusion

A common perception in the community is that things are still as bad as they were fifty years ago. Frequently, when a black child has been excluded parents feel as if it’s a case of history repeating itself with very little having changed with the exception of the language of exclusion becoming more polite. Data from the Department for Education (DfE) indicates that Travellers (Irish and Roma) are the most disproportionately excluded group. Young men of African heritage (Black Caribbean and Black African) follow closely behind, then British Pakistani, Bangladeshi and white working class boys.

The latest national figures (DfE, 2010) indicate that Black Caribbean pupils are three times more likely to be permanently excluded than the school population as a whole. If the pupil is a boy then the permanent exclusion rate is 3.5 times higher than that for girls and they are most likely to receive a permanent exclusion in years 9 and 10 at the age of 13 and 14. Children who are eligible for free school meals are around three times more likely to receive either a permanent or fixed period exclusion than children who are not eligible for free school meals. If the pupil has Special Educational Needs (either with or without a statement) they increase their chances of being permanently excluded by over eight times compared to those pupils with no Special Educational Needs (DfE, 2010).

Although there is no quantative data available on young men of Somali and British Somali heritage (grouped collectively as Black African) this group is considered extremely vulnerable to exclusion and other forms of educational disaffection.

Obstacles to education

There are a number of challenges excluded pupils face with reintegration:

• Often pupils find it difficult settling back into a culture that has rejected them;
• Sometimes the experience of exclusion can be so demoralising and harmful for a pupil that they can lose the motivation and appetite for education and also lose sight of aims and ambitions;
• Some pupils have negative experiences in Pupil Referral Units that can lead to further feelings of worthlessness and a ‘what’s the point?’ attitude;
• It is not uncommon for some pupils to feel that they have been labelled by schools and that some members of staff are on their back;
• Some pupils feel strongly that the system is against them and that, regardless of how hard they work, they will not be allowed to succeed.

Lobbying and evidence

On 14 October 2011 we met the Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, and her team as part of an evidence gathering exercise for the School Exclusions Inquiry, which was the first ever inquiry launched by a Children’s Commissioner for England under the power of the Children Act 2004, and was also a response to the summer riots, which involved so many young people. We gathered over thirty parents to present their experiences to the Commissioner. Overwhelmingly, parents said that they felt overpowered by their children’s schools and had no voice, often felt their children were unfairly treated and victimised and that they had no one to turn to for independent support and advice.

At each of Dianne Abbott’s ‘London Schools and the Black Child’ conferences (the UK’s largest gathering of black parents concerned with their children’s education), where we ran parent advocacy workshops each year, the overwhelming concern by parents was the level of exclusion and victimisation that their children were experiencing in school and the lack of independent parent-oriented support available.

CEN gave evidence for a report, No Excuses – a review of educational exclusion (September 2011), of the Centre for Social Justice:

we have found that there is a need to recognise and address the challenges presented both to and by some parents. A significant minority are either unable or unwilling to engage with their child’s education due for example to low self-esteem, linguistic barriers, a negative educational experiences themselves, problems at home, poor mental or physical health, or working full-time (particularly in respect of single parents and those living in poverty). The impact of a negative educational experience on the part of some parents cannot be underestimated, particularly when this coincides with them only receiving negative feedback from their child’s school.

The far-reaching School Exclusions Inquiry was published in March 2012 and recommended that pupils should no longer be expelled or suspended for ‘minor infringements’ because it damaged their education and pushed them into a life of crime; children should only be sent home for safety reasons or to prevent disruption to other pupils. The Children’s Commissioner called for a ‘very strong presumption against’ permanently barring primary school pupils and demanded an all-out ban on expulsions for those aged 7 or under – even for serious offences.

The CEN tries to listen, hear, then act upon parents’ concerns.

The challenge of austerity

The cuts have affected vulnerable families and children at every juncture with the capacity of agencies across sectors seriously reduced. And, in some cases, significantly reduced.

Since the Coalition government’s comprehensive spending review, many frontline local authority exclusion services have been axed and more and more schools are moving further away from any accountability within the local education authority. As a result, parents are less aware of their rights and the educational entitlement of their children. This, as Maggie Atkinson pointed out, can allow schools to unwittingly behave in ways that are not in line with the DfE’s guidance on exclusions.

This is compounded by the fact that the independent appeal panel, the body which previously heard challenges to school exclusions, has just been axed. Provisions in the Education Act 2011 now see the appeal panel replaced with a ‘review panel’, affecting the majority of schools in England. The move simultaneously strips the panel of its power to reinstate pupils whom it finds to have been wrongly excluded from school, and is a further blow to a process, which already shows worrying patterns of inequality.

Cast into crime

There is strong statistical evidence linking school exclusion with entering the criminal justice system. Up to two-thirds of excluded pupils become known to the police and a third end up in court because of involvement in petty crime, vandalism and abuse of alcohol or other drugs.

Many parents face complex and challenging problems with their children’s education, particularly when their child is facing difficulties at school from unmet special education needs, bullying, disengagement and behavioural issues as well as permanent/fixed-term exclusions.  Parents, particularly those on low income and/or single parents, whether working or unemployed, have a myriad of complex needs such as poor health, inadequate housing, difficult relationships, isolation, unemployment, financial difficulties and lack of family support. There may also be parallel negative experiences of school which are transmitted to their children. All these often result in a breakdown of effective communication between parent and child, and parent and school, which contributes, ultimately, to the failure of the child in school either through disengagement, academic underachievement or exclusion which has so often been shown to lead to delinquency, crime and imprisonment and future unemployability.

Related links

Communities Empowerment Network

For more information about CEN, download an information leaflet here

• Wednesday 29 May 2013, 6.30pm
• PCS (Room 4.4), 160 Falcon Road, London SW11 2LN

Related links

StopWatch

To download the latest StopWatch report, Viewed with suspicion: the human cost of stop and search, click here.

In the early hours of 17 January 2013, 36-year-old Aleksandr Dolmatov, a Russian engineer, was found dead at a Rotterdam deportation centre. Dolmatov, an activist linked to the opposition Other Russia movement, fled Russia in June 2012 following his arrest after a protest in Moscow on 6 May 2012, the ‘March of Millions’, to mark the re-inauguration of President Vladimir Putin, turned violent and led to hundreds of arrests.

Dutch accused of complicity in death

Once in the Netherlands, Mr Dolmatov applied for asylum, citing harassment by the Russian security services and fear for his life. He was given a place at the asylum seeker centre at Gravendeel in the southern Netherlands.

In mid-December 2012, he learned that his asylum application had been rejected as the Dutch government accepted the Russian government’s assurances that he faced no risk if returned to Russia and only a fine of 500 roubles (around £10). This is in spite of concerns raised by human rights organisations about the opposition crackdown. In the months prior to his death, Dolmatov is reported to have cut himself off from contacts both in the Netherlands and Russia. He last met his lawyer in mid-November, and according to other residents at the asylum seeker centre he became increasingly isolated. Friends, family and his lawyer claim he was subject to threats and coercion by the Russian security service, who may have visited him.

A week before his death, his lawyer lodged an appeal. Around that time, although he could not be deported due to the pending appeal, he was moved to a deportation centre in Dordrecht and two days later, on the evening of 16 January 2013, was taken to the Rotterdam Airport detention centre, usually the last stop before deportation. He was subsequently found dead in his cell. His lawyer, who was informed later that day, had not been told about a series of other events leading up to his death. His family learned of his death through the media.

Dolmatov left a suicide note; while it is accepted that he wrote it, his family and friends dispute whether he wrote it voluntarily or was coerced into doing so. As well as raising questions about the extent to which the Russian authorities will go in order to crack down on dissidents, Dolmatov’s death raised issues about the Dutch-Russian relationship and possible Dutch complicity in his death, as well as asylum policy in the country, which left a vulnerable man to die.

Russia blamed Dutch asylum policy for the death. The official report into Aleksandr Dolmatov’s death, published shortly after a visit by Putin to the Netherlands in early April 2013, identified a series of failings in the Dutch asylum process and inadequate medical care given to Mr Dolmatov.

Clampdown on dissidents

Dolmatov is not alone in allegedly being harassed by the Russian state beyond its borders. In October 2012, Leonid Razvozzhaev, a government opponent seeking asylum in neighbouring Ukraine, ‘disappeared’ briefly, only to resurface in Russia days later. The authorities claim he turned himself in and confessed to plotting against the state and accepting funds from a Georgian businessman. But Razvozzhaev claims he was kidnapped, smuggled back into the country and tortured into making his ten-page confession. The UNHCR has expressed concerns about his case and the failure to comply with Refugee Convention obligations by both Russia and Ukraine.

The Russian Federation is one of the main sources of refugees and asylum seekers in the European Union, pipped into third place last year by the recent refugee crisis in Syria, with a 6 per cent share of applications. Over the past year or so, civil liberties have suffered a particularly severe clampdown in Russia. A new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report documents some of the new laws and measures that have been introduced to restrict civil liberties and crack down on civil society. These include the recent ‘Foreign Agent’ law which requires all Russian NGOs to register as foreign agents if they receive funding from abroad. The European Union has expressed concerns about this law and the fines imposed on non-compliant organisations. One of these, having failed to register and facing other charges, is Memorial, a leading Russian anti-discrimination and minority rights NGO, which contributed to last year’s UN Committee Against Torture country report on Russia. HRW has described this package of measures as the worst human right climate in the post-Soviet era and ‘unprecedented in the country’s post-Soviet history’.

Unanswered questions about Glasgow suicides

These concerns and fears, however, are not new. In March 2010, the Serykh family, father and mother Sergei and Tatiana and Tatiana’s 20-year old son Stefan, all plunged to their death from their fifteenth floor flat on the Red Road estate in Glasgow, shortly after their asylum application in the UK was rejected and they were asked to move. They had been sent there weeks earlier from London under the government’s dispersal programme for asylum seekers. The family had moved to the UK in 2007, having previously lived in Canada from 2000 to 2007, where they had been granted asylum but were refused citizenship. Sergei Serykh is alleged to have worked for Russian intelligence before fleeing the country. In view of claims he made concerning both Russia and Canada, the Home Office tried to blame psychological problems for his death. However, asylum seeker supporters and campaigners pinned the blame on government asylum policy.

In spite of the suspicious circumstance of the triple suicides – the Serykhs were not facing deportation – and public pressure, in 2012 it was decided that it was not in the public interest to hold an inquiry. The lack of clear investigation into all of these suspicious deaths instead allow conspiracy theories to flourish as well as stereotypes of Russians involved in espionage and crime, without mention of better known British cases.

Torture in the northern Caucasus

Human rights violations in Russia are reported to be widespread. In its November 2012 periodic report on the state of human rights and the use of torture, the UN Committee Against Torture criticised the Russian Federation for ‘persistent reports of the widespread practice in the State party of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including as a means to extract confessions’, and noted ’the discrepancy between the large number of complaints of torture and ill-treatment and the relatively small number of criminal cases brought in response leading to prosecution’. The report mentions two prisoners who died as a result of torture in Russian jails in 2012.

One particular area of concern also mentioned is the harassment and attacks on human rights defenders in the northern Caucasus, ‘including the Chechen Republic, including torture and ill-treatment, abductions, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. It is further concerned at the State party’s failure to investigate and punish the perpetrators of such abuses, despite the establishment of Agency No. 2 of the Chechen Republic investigation department for particularly important cases.’ This is an area of human rights concern also raised in the latest Foreign Office Human Rights Report.

One of the lawyers, Sapiyat Magomedova, whose uninvestigated 2009 beating by police in Dagestan is cited, also features on the front cover of a recent Amnesty International (AI) report on the intimidation and harassment faced by both lawyers and their clients in the North Caucasus. The climate of fear, violence and harassment is perhaps exemplified in the current ‘Nalchik trial’, Russia’s longest running trial in modern history, of almost eight years, involving an unprecedented fifty-nine defendants who were beaten and tortured into confessing involvement in an attack on military installations in 2005 in the southern Kabardino-Balkaria Republic.

As with others from Russia, these concerns can follow them abroad. The treatment of Chechen refugees elsewhere in Europe has been the subject of particular concern. Since the mid-2000s and particularly following the end of ‘counter-terrorism’ operations by the Russian army in 2009, many European countries have changed their policy towards Chechen asylum seekers. According to AI, the situation has not improved significantly and has actually worsened in other parts of the Caucasus. In addition, ‘counter-terrorism’ operations continue which involve torture and extrajudicial killings: ‘The nature of these activities is highly secretive, and the law enforcement agencies are not publicly accountable for the way in which these activities are conducted.’

EU extradition and ‘voluntary returns’ policies

Many Chechen asylum seekers enter the European Union through Poland via Ukraine; however, they do not wish to remain there for numerous reasons, including the threat of forced return to the Russian Federation and being found there by agents of the Russian and Chechen governments. As a result, when they seek asylum elsewhere, they are subject to the rules of the Dublin Regulation and are often sent back to Poland for their asylum claim to be processed in the country in which they first entered the European Union.

According to a 2011 report by the European Committee on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), ‘In several of the main European countries where Chechens seek asylum (Austria, Norway, Poland), there are now significantly fewer Russian nationals being granted refugee status or subsidiary protection.’ This is further complicated by a 2007 agreement on readmission between the EU and the Russian Federation which favours voluntary return, for which adequate advice and information is not always given. Some have been persecuted following their return.

Extradition requests made by Russia for asylum seekers from the Caucasus are often acquiesced in as well by EU states. On 31 December 2008, Murad Gasaev, an ethnic Chechen who fled Ingushetia in 2005 fearing for his life, was extradited from Spain, where he had sought asylum. His asylum claim was rejected on the basis of secret evidence withheld from him and his lawyer and he was extradited in reliance on diplomatic assurances given by Russia, a state well known for its use of torture. Arriving in Moscow, he was detained. He was released in August 2009, but threats and harassment against him and his family continued. He was able to leave Russia at the end of 2011 and this time received asylum in the EU.

AI has also raised concerns about the ‘internal flight alternative’ (IFA), relied on by some EU states to refuse asylum to Chechens and others from the North Caucasus on the basis that they could move to other parts of the Federation to avoid persecution. However, AI believes that this option ‘is not available to Chechen refugees and others with ethnic roots in the North Caucasus … A person facing risk related to actions or intentions of agents of the state, or persons acting with acquiescence of the state, would not be able to benefit from truly effective and durable protection anywhere in the Russian Federation, both within and outside of their region of origin. The relevant risk would apply to them throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, and in certain cases beyond.’

There have also been reported deaths of Chechen asylum seekers in immigration detention in the EU. In September 2012, 35-year-old Zelimkhan Isakov, who had spent several years in prison in Russia where he was beaten and tortured, died suddenly in an Austrian detention centre two days before he was due to be deported to Russia. His friends and family report that he was healthy but died as a result of stress and depression caused by previous persecution in Russia as well as his fear of being returned there. Before his arrest (for failing to produce his ID card) he had been awaiting the outcome of an asylum appeal. Austrian officials provided no stated cause of death and the Austrian media did not report it.

Earlier, in August 2010, another asylum seeker in Austria, Arslan Duzhiev, hanged himself at a detention centre after his asylum application was turned down twice and he and his family faced return to Poland. Having heard that families were being forcibly returned from there to Russia, where he had been imprisoned in the early 2000s and tortured, requiring long-term medical care thereafter, he had expressed many times his fear of return and his preference to die rather than return to Russia.

In October 2012, served with notice to return to Poland, through which he and his family had entered Germany in 2011 and claimed asylum, a 38-year-old asylum seeker slashed his arms in front of his pregnant wife and four children in an attempted suicide. The man stated that if returned to Poland, he and his family would be forcibly returned to Russia where he would suffer persecution and possibly death.

In some recent good news from the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of I.K. v Austria (2013), in which judgment (which can still be appealed by Austria) was handed down at the end of March, the court ruled against I.K.’s removal to Russia, holding that it would violate Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It also acknowledged that ‘there were recent reports documenting the practice of collective punishment of relatives and suspected supporters of alleged insurgents’. His mother had previously been granted asylum. However, with a worsening human rights situation and continuing backhanded relations between the Russian Federation and European Union states, the overall situation is unlikely to improve for asylum seekers any time soon.

Related links

Memorial

Human Rights Watch

ECRE

• Wednesday 22 May 2013
• Demonstration at Old Palace Yard, London SW1P 3JY at 10.30am
• Rally at Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ at 1.30pm

Speakers include:

• Clive Stafford Smith – Reprieve
• Gerry Conlan – Guildford 4
• Dave Rowntree - Birmingham 6
• The family of Jean Charles De Menezes

• Monday 20 May 2013, 4.45-7pm
• Building R19, Edgbaston Campus, School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT.

Related links

Kick It Out

• Saturday 1 June 2013, 7pm
• Theatro Technis, 26 Crowndale Road, London NW1 1TT

Related links

Searchlight

• Monday 20 May 2013, 6.30-9.30pm
• Grays Inn, 8 South Square, London WC1R 5ET

Speakers:

• Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC – ‘Why the Governmen’ts attack on the Human Rights Act must be defeated’
• Saghir Hussain -  ‘Secret Courts and the Erosion of Due Process’
• Toby Cadman – ‘Extraditon, Rendition and Transfer: remedies on the national and international level’
• David Gottlieb – ‘Sand in the Machine: problems in defending people accused of terrorist offences in the UK’

Related links

Cageprisoners

• Wednesday 22 May 2012, 17.30-7pm
• Committee Room 4A, House of Lords, London  SW1A 0PW

Speakers:

• Lord Avebury – Chair
• Anthony Good – Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh
• Yolanda Foster  - South Asia desk and Sri Lanka expert, Amnesty International
• Dr Frank Arnold – Independent doctor and Medact Trustee

RELATED LINKS

Medact