 LINDA MUST STAY! Stop deporting LGBT asylum seekers to persecution & torture! Last year Ugandan lesbian and Movement for Justice member Linda N spent four months in Yarl's Wood detention centre on so-called Fast Track, a system designed to keep you isolated from your friends and community and unable to gather the evidence you would need to support your asylum claim. We fought a massive campaign of action to free Linda: we demonstrated repeatedly at the Home Office, petitioned, publicised Linda's case through the Internet, Linda gave interviews to the LGBT media, we won the support of other organisations, stopped removal flights and the fight went international. A few weeks into the campaign three brave LGBT people in Uganda who were teenage friends of Linda and knew what happened to her sent witness statements. As the campaign grew and her evidence piled up the UKBA was forced to release Linda from detention. NOW THE HOME OFFICE HAS TAKEN LINDA BACK INTO DETENTION!
For months Linda has been fighting actively to build the movement and win justice for more people. In February she submitted a fresh claim with additional evidence. After more months in limbo she was told on 16th May, on a routine visit to the reporting centre in Croydon, that the Home Office did not accept that all the evidence she had gathered amounted to a fresh claim. She was detained on the spot and sent back to Yarl's Wood - and once again she is facing deportation to the certainty of persecution.
She has been given 'removal directions' via Qatar Airways Flight QR076 at 4.00pm on Wednesday 5th June.
Last year one of the witnesses in Uganda wrote: "... Her [Linda's] name is already on the list of lesbians and now people have got to know she is coming back, I have heard this from a number of people.... Angry Ugandans see us as a threat to the community and are ready to harm us at any cost..." Linda was expelled from school in Uganda because of her sexuality and was physically attacked, beaten, sexually harassed and tortured by people who think homosexuality is a sin. We can & must stop Linda's deportation, in our experience, this is now the 3rd deportation of a Ugandan lesbian in a short space of time; first Jackie Nanyonjo who died after being beaten by their hired thugs, then there was Mary K who is now in hiding in Uganda; there are probably more that we do not know about. We must act NOW, Uganda is NOT SAFE for any LGBT person. TELL QATAR AIRWAYS TO STOP THEIR REPEATED COLLUSION WITH HOME OFFICE BRUTALITY Remind them that in January they flew another lesbian asylum seeker Jackie Nanyonjo back to Uganda and within a few weeks she was dead as a result of the injuries inflicted by the guards on the plane. They must not be a party to another tragedy. TELL THEM IF THEY ALLOW ONE MORE FORCED DEPORTATION WE WILL BE STARTING THE BIGGEST & MOST PUBLIC BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN AN AIRLINE HAS EVER SEEN; this is their last chance to redeem themselves Call &/or fax these numbers: London Office Phone: 0333 320 2454 London Office Fax: 0207 341 6029 Heathrow Office Phone: 020 8976 5621 Heathrow Office Fax: 020 8976 5623 Qutar Airways Facebook Page Tweet @qatarairways PHONE/FAX/E-MAIL THE HOME OFFICE Tell them Linda must stay! Not one more Jackie Nanyonjo! You will need to give Linda's Home Office reference: N1156645 The Home Secretary, Theresa May: [email protected] Tel: 020 7219 5206 Fax: 020 7219 1145 Immigration Minister, Mark Harper: [email protected] Copy all e-mails to: [email protected] [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] | 
