Vigil to be held for playwright

Article published: Friday, January 7th 2011

Playwright Lydia Besong and her husband Bernard are to have their appeal heard next week against the UK Border Agency’s decision to turn down their fresh claim for asylum.

Supporters will be holding a vigil during their hearing at 10 am outside the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal offices at Mosely Street, near Piccadilly gardens in Manchester city centre, on Thursday 13th January.

Campaigners are urging people to attend the vigil in solidarity with the couple, who claimed asylum in the UK in December 2006.  They were forced to flee Cameroon due to Besong’s involvement with the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), an organisation which peacefully campaigns for the rights of the English-speaking minority of Southern Cameroon.

Prior to their arrival in the UK the couple were imprisoned and beaten in Cameroon, during which Besong was raped by a uniformed guard, as a result of their activities with the SCNC.  The chair of the SCNC has since written to affirm Besong’s membership of the organisation.

Besong, who was an English teacher in Cameroon, has achieved widespread recognition as the author of her debut play ‘How I Became an Asylum Seeker’.  The play is based on the experiences of herself and others in claiming sanctuary in the UK and is performed by the members of Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST), a mutual support organisation formed and run by women who are forced migrants.

Over the last year the play has been performed in locations across the country to raise awareness of the situations faced by displaced people.  A recent London performance organised by Women for Refugee Women was held in November, after which Besong took part in a panel discussion on the issues raised alongside Labour MP Bridget Phillipson, journalist Natasha Walter and actor Juliet Stevenson.

Cameroon’s human rights record is a subject of international censure, with the US State Department condemning the government’s “numerous human rights abuses,” including “numerous unlawful killings” at the hands of the security services and “torture, beatings, and other abuses, particularly of detainees and prisoners.”  Minority rights have been repressed, with the state department reporting how “…Authorities arbitrarily arrested and detained Anglophone citizens advocating secession, local human rights monitors and activists, and other citizens.

Supporters have warned of grave danger to the couple if they were to be deported to Cameroon, which since 1982 has been ruled by President Paul Biya in what respected Brussels-based human rights watchdog International Crisis Group (ICG) has called “authoritarian rule behind a façade of democratic practice.” In May, ICG predicted “multiple risks of conflict…in the build-up to presidential elections in 2011 and beyond.”

Since their arrival in the UK the couple have won strong support.  A campaign to win Besong’s release from her detention in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre throughout December 2009 was backed by communities across Greater Manchester and human rights groups including English PEN, a national organisation which defends writers from persecution.  Following a meeting with the Bishop of Manchester Nigel McCulloch in October a spokesperson for the bishop praised the couple’s “dignity and integrity whilst living under constant threat of deportation.”

Manchester-based human rights group RAPAR is organising the vigil and are calling on supporters to meet outside the tribunal service office from 9.45 am.

Richard Goulding

For more information on the campaign please contact

• Kath Grant on 0161-225-2260 or at the RAPAR office 0161 834 8221; email kath.northernstories@googlemail.com

• Or email admin@rapar.org.uk

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Comments

1. It’s a parody well arranged and all faked by SCNC, there is no abuse of authority in Cameroon. If it were the case, there will be severe sanctions from the administrative authorities.

   Comment by Rooney on January 14, 2011 at 3:27 pm

2. Rooney, you know that doesn’t make sense. The authorities aren’t going to impose sanctions upon those who abuse authority, because they’d be imposing sanctions on themselves. The behaviour of Biya’s regime is common knowledge.

   Comment by Heisenberg on March 18, 2011 at 11:12 pm

The comments are closed.