Forthcoming events and venue details (click ‘Read more’):

The Square Centre can be found at Alfred Street North (near top of Huntingdon Street), Nottingham, NG3 1AA. Food is for a recommended donation £4 vegan / £5 meat.
22nd April African Night. Fundraiser for Nottingham Refugee Forum and Aegis Trust. Food at 7pm Film 8pm

29th April Iranian Night. Fundraiser for Nottingham City of Sanctuary- Food at 7pm Film 8pm

The barbecue is followed by a meeting organised by members of the Tuesday Night Project and No Borders Nottingham. The meeting will give a report back from Calais No Borders Camp and give an opportunity for members of the Zimbabwean community to talk about the current situation in Zimbabwe. Everyone is welcome. Hope to see you there.

Hello. Im 28 and I am a Zimbabwean national who is at the present moment detained at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Clapham, Bedfordshire. I was given a flight date for Tuesday the 6th January 2008 , where I was to be removed to Malawi by force.

In Zimbabwe I was residing in Harare in Warren Park and here in England I was living in Kent since 2004 and I moved to Leeds in 2007 where I was until I was brought to Yarl’s Wood. I have been in detention since the 20th October 2008 and recently I was given a flight to Malawi despite me not being a Malawian and despite the fact that my case was still being heard at the high court.

I will not forget this dreadfull day in my life, the time of the flight was 7pm, but I was told to prepare my luggage and get ready to leave the centre by 12pm and then was transported from the centre to the airport at 2pm. I did not expect to be escorted by 4 people, three of them were huge and hefty men and one was a woman, thats when I knew that this day was going to be difficult one for me as the men had handcuffs and looked like they were prepared for a fight.

We got to the airport around 3:30pm and had to wait in the van out in the cold for some hours until they were ready to force me on the plane. I thought my life was over, one of the men who was in charge of the escort kept asking me if i had contacted my lawyer about the flight or about the injunction from the court to stop the removal order and I assured him that I was not going to board the plane no matter what it took.

I found it to be an unlawfull thing to be removed to a country that I did not belong to because of the passport I was holding, I was protesting all the way to the airport and trying to explain to the escorts that I was a Zimbabwean and that I had enough evidence to prove this and that i had used the passport to flee from my country Zimbabwe, but they turned a blind eye on the matter.

I explined that I had a friend who had been in the same situation as mine and she was also detained at Yarl’s Wood. she was deported to Malawi by force and Malawian Immigration arrested her for “abusing their” passport and she was to be held in custody for a month and then later be deported to Zimbabwe the country she had ran away from. All this happened even though UK Border Agency deny that Zimbabweans deported to Malawi are arrested or detained and are deported to Zimbabwe. My friend phoned me from Zimbabwe and told me of her ordeal in confidence as she is still in hiding.

All this I explained to the escorts and all they said was they were just doing thier job. I was tired, cold and scared all the time I was in the van and I was very disturbed. at 6: 20 pm, I was informed by the leader of the escorts that the flight was cancelled , he gave me a reason that there was something wrong with the booking of the tickets and that I was to be returned to the centre. I cried with joy, my prayers had been answered?.

Until the day when people are able to escape war and torture freely without borders, all asylum seekers should be able to work so they can try and avoid destitution while they concentrate on their cases and appeals, without this unnecessary additional hassle from vehicle licensing snoopers, immigration officials, police and the so-called justice system.

Full story from Evening Post:

Illegal Zimbabwean worker spared jail. Monday, September 15, 2008, 07:30

A ZIMBABWEAN man who used fake documents to get work has been spared jail.
Judge Dudley Bennett described Weldone Javangwe as a “perfectly respectable man” who has contributed to the Nottingham community.

The court heard Javangwe, who is a member of the political party Movement for Democratic Change, could not go back to Zimbabwe because his life would be in danger.
But he is not able to work legally in this country, because he has been refused asylum.
Judge Bennett said: “You are a perfectly respectable man who fled from Zimbabwe.

“You have been paying your taxes and you have not been a drain on our society in any way.”
Failed asylum seekers are normally deported, but deportations to Zimbabwe have been suspended because of the difficult political situation in the country.

The court heard Javangwe, 26, paid £50 for a false letter giving him refugee status. He used it to get work for employment agencies.

He came to England in 2002, and has been working since 2003. He has even been making contributions to somebody else’s National Insurance, because the number on his documents was a real one.

Javangwe, who pleaded guilty to possession of a false ID document, has not committed any other offence since coming to the UK, and only came to the attention of police after applying for a driving licence in June.

He was arrested after the DVLA realised his documents were false.
Javangwe is living in Cranwell Road, Strelley. The court heard the rest of his family have either come to the UK or fled to South Africa.

Judge Bennett gave Javangwe a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. He will not have to serve it unless he commits another offence in that time. He will also have to do 80 hours unpaid community work.

The decision was welcomed by Regis Manyanya, chairman of the Nottingham Zimbabwean Community Network, which campaigns for Zimbabweans refused asylum to be given the right to work.

He said: “There are a lot of people in the same situation. Because they are living in destitution some of them feel they have no option but to work illegally. Some are being pushed into prostitution.

“They are hard-working and want to make a living, but because of the system they are forced into committing these types of crime.”

No Borders Nottingham group [in association with Zimbawean asylum seekers] had called for the demonstration at our shinny new [temporary] Speakers Corner, on the edge of the Market Square, Nottingham. Some who had gathered there were asylum seekers who have come here for help, and their supporters demonstrating their wish that these people should not be turned away. Original story, audio interviews & lots of great photos can be found at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/not…/03/395015.html
Addition – Link to more interviews here: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/not…/04/395427.html

Next day, No Borders Nottingham and our friends in the Zimbabwean community will be DEMOSTRATING in favour of asylum rights and against the Mugabe regime on Saturday 29th March, the day of the Zimbabwean election. We will meet at Speaker’s Corner in the Market Square, Nottingham, at 2.00pm to show our solidarity and to talk to the people of Nottingham about the situation for Zimbabwean asylum seekers. Please join us!

– Human rights activists and Zimbabweans living abroad have started a campaign against Lufthansa airline after it was used by the German government to deport a former Zimbabwe soldier who was arrested upon setting foot at the Harare International Airport and is suspected to have been tortured for the past three days

Farai Robert Mutyambizi, 28, deserted the Zimbabwe National Army and went to seek asylum in German. The German authorities, known for being tough on asylum seekers, put him in detention and deported him back to Zimbabwe where all his papers were handed to government officials at the airport, prompting his immediate arrest.

Mutyambizi’s family learnt yesterday that he was being held at the Harare Central Police Station and there were fears that he was being tortured, especially after being returned to the country at a sensitive time when the government of Zimbabwe, accused of paranoia, is attacking former colonial master, Britain and her allies of continued meddling in the country’s internal politics. A source in the police force tipped the family about their son’s plight at the police station.

Mutyambizi’s plight comes hard-on-the-heels of an announcement by the British government that it will soon be resuming enforced deportations of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers.

The British authorities argue not everyone from Zimbabwe is in danger of being tortured or arrested by the Zimbabwe government while on the other hand lawyers representing the failed refugees say the mere fact that their clients tried to seek asylum is enough to warrant bad treatment by Harare for they are accused of being “sell-outs”, tarnishing the image of the country.

Speaking last night from his Leicester home, Julius Sai Mutyambizi-Dewa, who is Farai’s elder brother and former secretary of the Morgan Tsvangirai MDC in the United Kingdom, said the family was making frantic efforts to try and secure the services of a lawyer to represent their brother. The family says Farai is being held unlawfully by the Zimbabwe authorities, long known for their contempt of Zimbabweans serving in the British army and deserting soldiers who now live abroad.

“Our main concern is that no-one has seen him since he was handed over to the authorities three days ago. We are trying all we can to secure the services of a lawyer so that he can be released,” said Mutyambizi-Dewa. “His plight could have been made worse by the documents that were in his possession upon deportation and these include papers about the British army. This kind of thing cannot be allowed to continue.”

Another brother, Tendai, who is a British soldier was besides himself yesterday thinking it was him who had landed his brother into problems in Harare.

“It is me they want. I will blame anything that happens to him on the German government. They will now probably charge him with high treason, I do not know but I think the right thing is for me to get my uniform and go there so they can arrest me because they are torturing the wrong person. If they kill me that will be my destiny,” said Tendai.

Meanwhile activists in London, upon hearing the news of Farai’s detention, have started working on plans to start today a campaign against Lufthansa the German airlines which took Farai to South Africa for onward transportation to Harare.

“We have long been saying that it is risky to send people back to Zimbabwe but look now at what has happened. The British government is soon to start deporting failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. Like Thomas in the Bible they want to believe only by seeing the wounds and in this case, probably death. We are calling on everyone to unite and fight these deportations and the double standards by Britain and her European counterparts,” said one Clive Mwenengeni.

? 2005-2008 zimbabwejournalists.com