Below is the testimony of a young woman, Caritas Sony. Please read this testimony of a young woman and her babies, and the suffering they have experienced at the hands of the state. It is the kind of story that Immigration Judges routinely throw out as unbelievable, but it is sadly true. Please read this testimony and act.
Every day, in Immigration Courts in Britain, women like Caritas are forced to go over their experiences again, trying to persuade officials to give them sanctuary. Telling again of the time that the state forces came, smashing down the door before dawn. How the children were snatched from her breast, bundled in a van, how she cried and cried, fearing she would never see them again. And every day Immigration Judges throw out cases like these - that sort of attack doesn’t happen to women like you in a country like that, they say. Case dismissed.
But that sort of attack does happen, and this one happened in a Glasgow high rise. Children were torn from their mother by British state forces.
Please read this testimony. Please read of how this is only the latest state attack on this young woman. But this attack was carried out by your government, in your name, on your behalf.
Another dawn raid in Glasgow. It’s happening every day now. Please don’t let this government think it can carry on with this violence in our names. Please raise your voice and demand an end to these violent attacks on our communities. Contact the Unity Centre in Glasgow for details of how you can get involved in the resistance. See www.unitycentreglasgow.org for details.
Thanks to Positive Action for putting this out. This is getting serious. Scotland’s refugee communities are under attack. We have to act.
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from Positive Action in Housing
TESTIMONY OF CARITAS SONY, 24 YEARS OLD, AND 2 BABIES AFTER DAWN RAID ON HER HOME AT KINGSWAY, SCOTSTOUN, GLASGOW
Churches, charities, schoolteachers, neighbours have condemned the treatment of 24 year old Caritas Sony who was brutally removed from her home of two years in Kingsway Court (Block 50, Flat 2/2) in a dawn raid by immigration officials this morning, Monday 2 October 2006. This is the latest in a series of several dawn raids on innocent families in Kingsway, Scotstoun and highlights the continuing brutality of the home office’s asylum policy on Scottish soil.
Dawn raid
Between 6 and 7 am this morning, Monday 2 October 2006, Caritas Sony, 24 years old, and her two children, Heaven (son), 2 Years old and Glad, (daughter), 4 Months old, were woken by around 10 immigration officials who broke down her door with a metal battering ram.
Between 6 and 7 am this morning, Monday 2 October 2006, Caritas Sony, 24 years old, and her two children, Heaven (son), 2 Years old and Glad, (daughter), 4 Months old, were woken by around 10 immigration officials who broke down her door with a metal battering ram.
She was then handcuffed while her children were distressed in the bedroom, her two-year old was screaming for her. She asked to see her children and calm them down but immigration refused. Other immigration officers took her children away from her; both children were very distressed and cold. The officers did not put warm clothing on the children despite caritas’ request. They took the mother out first and placed her in a caged van, and then the two children were taken separately in a different vehicle in a very distressed state.
The family was taken into brand street home office. They wanted to look in her bag, she refused it, but they took her bag anyway and searched her documents. Then they searched her body and the children’s bodies too.
Dungavel
Immigration officials took Caritas and her children to another van. During the journey her two year old fell from the baby seat and screamed, she had to plead for immigration to put him back into the seat. She was too terrified to help her own child because she was warned by immigration officials not to touch her own children, or hold him to comfort him or keep him safe. Caritas hasn’t eaten or drunk anything. She said she would rather die here than go back to the Congo where she fears she will be killed as soon as she returns. There is no baby food for her 4 month old child, while her 2 year old has been eating only yoghurt. She is in a room with no other women and has been crying most of the day. There are 5 other empty beds in the room. Caritas’ baby needs SMA Gold baby milk, yet the only milk available in dungavel is for babies of six months or older. Caritas tried to breast feed the baby but because she herself can’t eat she cannot produce breast milk.
Why she left
Caritas fled Congo after her father, a politician, disappeared in 2001 and his body was never found. They were the all arrested. Then her mother was executed in front of Caritas in prison November 2003. In prison, her brother was ordered to rape her, he refused and was then executed in January 2004. Caritas was kept in prison where she was repeatedly raped and tortured. Her two year old son is the child of one of the men that raped her. She cannot count the number of times she was raped. Caritas managed to escape prison and she arrived as an asylum seeker in Glasgow in February 2004. Both her two children were born here. Caritas’s 19 year old sister was put in a different cell when the family were arrested. She never saw her again. In summer 2005, Caritas received the death certificate for her sister. Caritas has a twin sister who was not arrested and she understands fled the country for somewhere in Europe, Caritas does not know where.
Speaking from Dungavel, Caritas Sony said:
“I cannot go back to Congo because I went to prison and I know that if I return back there I will be killed, I want to fight for my children, I know that in Congo they will kill me because they don’t want any evidence left and I am the last piece of evidence. I cannot tell you how much it tears my heart to see my baby starving without the milk that she needs, or to see my two year old so crying and unable to eat, my children are restless; we have been put away like criminals. I came here to seek refuge and I feel like me and my children’s lives have the worth of nothing.”
Robina Qureshi, Director, Positive Action in Housing, said:
“The inhumanities of dawn raids have not stopped. A young woman was handcuffed in front her children without any regard to their psychological welfare. She was REFUSED PERMISSION to go to them when they were crying. She was FORBIDDEN from helping her two year old son when he fell from AN IMPROPERLY FASTENED baby seat. She was then given formula milk for babies 6 months and upwards instead of the proper prescription formula for a four month old, thereby putting her child in danger. According to Caritas, both her children has not been properly fed in dungavel since this morning.
“The inhumanities of dawn raids have not stopped. A young woman was handcuffed in front her children without any regard to their psychological welfare. She was REFUSED PERMISSION to go to them when they were crying. She was FORBIDDEN from helping her two year old son when he fell from AN IMPROPERLY FASTENED baby seat. She was then given formula milk for babies 6 months and upwards instead of the proper prescription formula for a four month old, thereby putting her child in danger. According to Caritas, both her children has not been properly fed in dungavel since this morning.
This family’s treatment highlights yet again that absolutely nothing has changed regarding current policy of dawn raids. There are no safeguards to stop this inhumane treatment. There is no protocol to protect them. They are being treated worse than animals under the pretext of a ‘reserved asylum policy’.
“It is all very well for us as a country to complain about the human rights abuses going on abroad, and Congo DRC has many. What is shameful and disgusting is that the UK is prepared to allow this young woman to be further tortured by an asylum policy designed to force her back to the country she desperately fled. The worst shame of all is a Scottish government that is prepared to turn a blind eye to the inhumanities practiced by a Westminster run Home Office on Scottish soil as if it never happened in the first place. It did happen. It is happening. And we simply ask the Executive to intervene to stop any more inhumanities against children and their families.
“Enough is enough. We are calling on members of the Scottish public to write to their MSP, their MP, and the First minister and demand an end to any more dawn raids on Scottish soil, and an amnesty for Scottish asylum families so communities are no longer terrorised and school kids don’t have to be terrified by the disappearance of their school friends overnight without even so much as a goodbye.”
Caritas and her children are currently in Dungavel Detention centre and will be transferred to Yarlswood tomorrow, then due to be deported on Wednesday.
