Michael Taylor, Branch Secretary of Bristol NUJ, is to appear in Court in Uxbridge on 6th April. He was arrested during a Airport Protest at Heathrow against the deportation of Iraqi-Kurdish asylum seeker Amanj Gafor, who has severe mental health problems. Mike faces charges of organising a protest on airport property as well as refusing to leave during a demonstration that stopped the forced deportation of 34 year old Amanj.

Airport protests will become more and more important in the next few months.

Home Secretary, Jack Straw has stepped up his war on unsuccessful asylum seekers. In the last few days charter flights to Warsaw and Pristina, carried asylum seekers forcibly removed from the UK. He has promised a big push from next week, his target to remove 30,000 people in the next nine months. Jack Straw's plans for tearing up the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees will make it virtually impossible to legally claim asylum in Britain.

The New Labour government, determined not to appear "soft" on immigration, has deported 150,000 people since 1997.

We call for all charges against Mike to be dropped and for Amanj Gafor to be brought back to Britain and granted full refugee status on compassionate grounds.

The demonstration is supported by: Transport and General Workers Union, Tony Benn MP, NCADC.

Background: Amanj Gafor deported - but not without a fight
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/news20/amanj.html

For further information:
Box 41, Greenleaf Books, 82 Colston St, Bristol BS1 5BB
phone 0117 965 1803 email: [email protected]

Letter of support from Tony Benn MP

Attn: Mike Taylor Defence Campaign

Dear Colleagues

I would like to call on your support and solidarity in defence of trade unionist Mike Taylor who is the Bristol branch secretary of the National Union of Journalists. He is on trial after being arrested for organising a protest at Heathrow Airport to prevent the forced deportation of Amanj Gafor, a Kurdish asylum seeker who has severe mental health problems.

Amanj's country of origin, Iraqi-Kurdistan, is an intolerable place to live. People like Amanj have fled the devastating effects of harsh sanctions, factional wars and NATO's continued bombardment of Iraq. It is inexcusable that, as a result of the Home Office's decision to deport Amanj Gafor to Germany (his first port of entry in Europe), he now faces deportation to Iraq where his life will be under threat.

The protest and its repression brings into question the nature of civil rights in the UK as well as the government's "ethical" foreign policy. We need to seriously ask ourselves how, under these conditions, can Iraq be classified as a safe haven? It is a crime that people fleeing regimes, poverty and conflict are prevented from being granted asylum at the same time that borders to international markets are being removed by global institutions like the IMF, WTO and the World Bank.

Mike's trial, on April 6th 2001, will be a test case for parts of the new Human Rights Act (1998). His case will be fought on the grounds that "he was exercising his right to freedom of expression, guaranteed under Article 10, and freedom of peaceful assembly and association under Article 11".

I hope you will join me in defending Mike Taylor and the right to protest against human rights abuses and for the right to asylum.

Tony Benn MP
Houses of Parliament
Westminster
London SW1 2PA