Friends Without Borders fully supports the magnificent efforts of the community in Portsmouth and elsewhere to support those in need in Calais and beyond. We also think it is important to pay attention to asylum seekers and refugees who are destitute and being mistreated in Portsmouth and Britain, a situation that has been chronic for decades. On Thursday the House of Commons will be debating the Detention Inquiry Report. This is an issue very close to the heart of Friends Without Borders. We visited detainees in Haslar Immigration Removal Centre for 20 years and many of our service users in Portsmouth today have been detained or are under threat of detention – it is difficult to exaggerate how negative the effects that unlimited detention can be on individuals and their families. We have spoken to our local MP Flick Drummond about this and are hoping that she will make a positive contribution to the debate and support the report’s recommendations, one of which is that there should be a 28 day time limit to detention. You can read more about the report and its recommendations, as well as what you can do about it, here: http://detentionaction.org.uk/10th-sept-parliamentary-debate-on-the-detention-inquiry-2  

With conflicts on the rise, the New Statesmen described the summer of 2014 as “the summer of blood”. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the UN, himself a child refugee of the Korean War has said that “never before in UN history have we had so many refugees, displaced people and asylum seekers.”

In response to the question of whether or not the UK should have any involvement in rescue missions, the Rt Hon. Baroness Anelay of St John’s, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, made the rather dishonourable remark that this would only encourage more people to make the journey and so lead to more “tragic and unnecessary deaths.”

In an article in The Guardian, the Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, Maurice Wren disagreed with the Baroness, stating:

“The British government seems oblivious to the fact that the world is in the grip of the greatest refugee crisis since the second world war. People fleeing atrocities will not stop coming if we stop throwing them life-rings; ……boarding a rickety boat in Libya will remain a seemingly rational decision if you are running for your life and your country is full of flames. The only outcome of withdrawing help will be to witness more people needlessly and shamefully dying on Europe’s doorstep. The answer isn’t to build the walls of fortress Europe higher, it’s to provide more safe and legal channels for people to access protection.”

Anne Dickinson (extract from our 2014 annual report - click here to read more)

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.  It enshrined a principle of British justice that recent governments of both parties have treated with some contempt.  Article 20 stated “A free man shall not be amerced (=punished) for a trivial offence except in accordance with the degree of the offence….but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood….and none of the aforesaid [punishments] shall be imposed save by the oath of reputable men”.  Articles 38 to 40 are a firm commitment to due process, asserting the right to legal representation, to know the charges in advance, to be able to contest them before equals, and then only to be sanctioned if found guilty by independent equals.  

These rights have been whittled away by successive recent Governments.  The principle of proportionality has been lost, the number of acts that can be called criminal have been multiplied enormously and rights to legal aid are denied to many of those for whom it was designed.  An unaccountable rash of government agencies administers a vicious arbitrary regime that denies rights and benefits and the bare means of survival to the most vulnerable.

We are bombarded by mis-information about the Human Rights Act by politicians and others who should know better, but have their own agenda and want to restrict our rights even further.

If we are to have a new Great Charter, it must be one that re-asserts the rights and liberties of those who live increasingly insecure lives, re-states their right to protection from state-authorised arbitrary decisions and restores access for all to due legal process.  The Human Rights Act is not a charter for others.  It is essential to maintaining and restoring our rights and we must protect it at all costs.  


John Bingham

We will be holding a bit of a party on Tuesday 9th June 2015 @ 7.00pm at All Saints Church for visitors past and present. We would like the chance to thank you in person for all the help and support you have given. 

There will be food and refreshments, lots of chatter and reminiscing and a fun quiz. 

We hope to see you there

This is to let you know that as of yesterday, 14th April 2015 all our client's have left Haslar.  The Centre will close completely very shortly and so our role there is now at an end. 

We would like to mark the closure and celebrate the many years of hard work you have all done. Any suggestions for an appropriate way to do this, will be very welcome. 

In our newsletter we share information from the press about the Tavistock Review....sign up to receive more information about immigration issues and our work.


A highly critical official review into mental health issues in immigration removal centres has finally been published a year after it was delivered to the home secretary, Theresa May. The review by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations says the relationship between the Home Office and those advising detainees and campaigning on their behalf "has all but broken down in some instances". It says healthcare staff in immigration detention and removal centres report being overwhelmed and exhausted by the volume of cases and demands made on them.

The report, commissioned by the Home Office in January 2013, says "mutual antagonism and suspicion" characterises relationships between immigration officials, campaigning bodies, official watchdogs and voluntary organisations working in the field. Vulnerable detainees may deteriorate in a detention situation where caseworkers,  subcontractors, solicitors and other agencies are often in disagreement with one another and thus feeding the detainees' sense of powerlessness, helplessness and fear of the future." Alan Travis in The Guardian, 09/02/2015

The following week, Theresa May asked Stephen Shaw CBE, the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales, and a widely respected expert in this field, to lead an independent review into the Home Office policies and operating procedures that have an impact on immigration detainee welfare.

Patrick Wintour writes writes ‘…The system for detaining immigrants and asylum seekers awaiting decisions or deportation has been described as the harshest and most inhumane branch of the UK judicial administration.’ The Guardian, 08/02/2015

Link to Tavistock Report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/402204/tavistock_institute_report_final.pdf    

Excellent news for asylum seekers relying on Azure cards for their weekly payment. No longer will they have to forfeit an unspent balance.

Lord Bates: Practical arrangements to remove the restriction that prevents Azure card users from carrying over more than £5 credit on the card from one week to the next are imminent. Card users with children are already allowed to carry over unlimited credit. We expect to complete the work by the end of February. Card users will be notified of the change by letter and there will be appropriate changes to our website information about the card.     House of Lords, 26/01/15

British Values Test - Ridiculous or Reasonable?


Theresa May is to Introduce "British Values" Test For Overseas Visitors.  According to the Financial Times, the document that outlines these plans states: "We want to make clear to those seeking to visit, work or study in the UK, and those granted protection, that they need to abide by and respect British values throughout their stay in this country . . . We will make British values an integral part of applying for a visa."

But how exactly the Home Office plans to make overseas visitors display their respect for this abstract principle of "British values" is unclear. Will visitors form orderly queues at visa centres, while they wait in turn to recite God Save the Queen? Or will they be given a Q+A format card, styled on the United States' homeland security questions - replacing "are you a member of a terrorist organisation?" with "on a scale of one to ten (one being 'utterly detest' and ten being 'crazy in love'), how would you rate Queen Elizabeth II?" I can imagine terrorists quivering at such a prospect.

 Read more:  Ashley Cowburn, New Statesman, 20/02/2015