Urgent

knowledgeappliedispower:

Hey If any of you guys can help please do,

Someone the campaign I am in Hands Off Somalia has been working with Said Kasim, has been on hunger strike for 22 days, he is currently in Critical condition. He is in immigration detention but is Somali, and shouldn’t be in detention, he speaks a Somali dialect. Due to the cutting of funding for immigrant defence, he has had to represent himself in court and as they believe him to be from Tanzania they have given him Swahili translators on 2 occasions and then mocked him for his English (See Below).

Previous to his Hunger Strike.

• He has been left untreated in his cell, with a broken leg for 4 days, the reason being they wanted to hand cuff him and walk him to the medical room (with a broken leg).He has been given inadequate health care on several other occasions 
• He has been called racist slurs by the guards on many occasions. 
• He has been forced to represent himself in court. And when given the wrong translator been asked such questions as:

‘why are you in England?’
how can you live in this country if you don’t speak English?’
‘who wrote your application if you don’t speak English?’ 

‘where did you work before being in detention?’

‘how did you eat if you cant speak English?’

‘how did you survive if you cant speak English?’

• He has been told that he will be deported to Nigeria

 In Said’s own words:

“I better off die than to be locked inside like this… I am not a terrorist and I’m not a danger to the public. In short, I’m not going to stop my hunger strike until I die”

Please if you can: 

Call UKBA switchboard (9am-445pm)

Telephone: 0870 606 7766

Call the Ministry of Justice (in charge of prisons etc)

Telephone: 020 3334 3555 (open 9am-430pm)

Call Colnbrook IRC directly to complain

Tel: 020 8607 5200 – we recommend PRESS OPTION 1 THEN PRESS 303

Ring the Home Office (immigration) to report a hunger strike protest and ask the above questions:

Telephone: 020 7035 4848
Fax: 020 7035 4745
Email: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Contact local MP John Mcdonnell to inform him about Said’s hunger strike and critical condition (he has intervened before)

Email: mcdonnellj@parliament.uk

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP

Alert journalists

Zoe Williams, Twitter – @zoesqwilliams. She is a journalist for the Guardian who has written recently about asylum seekers on section 4.

The Independent
Phone: 020 7005 2000
Email: c.hamilton@independent.co.uk, newseditor@independent.co.uk, foreigneditor@independent.co.uk, letters@independent.co.uk

The Guardian
Phone: 020 3353 2000
Email: owen.bowcott@guardian.co.uk, sam.jones@guardian.co.uk, national@guardian.co.uk, news@observer.co.uk

The Telegraph
Phone: 020 7931 2000
Email: rosa.silverman@telegraph.co.uk, dtnews@telegraph.co.uk, stnews@telegraph.co.uk

Metro
Phone: 020 3615 0600
Email: joel.taylor@ukmetro.co.uk, news.london@ukmetro.co.uk

This be the answer

A prisoner on his knees

scrubs around a toilet bowl

and the bristles of the brush

scuttles to and fro

as a guard swaggers over

to yell rather than ask-

Where is your God now?

And the prisoner still on his knees

his brush still cleaning answers:

He is with me now, gov.

My God is with me now

hearing and seeing,

whilst your superiors

when they see you, do not look at you

and when they hear you, do not listen to you

My God is risen above the heavens

and closer to me than my jugular vein,

whilst your superiors no different to you

allow you no further than the desk

My God wants me to call Him

whilst your superiors demand you knock

And when I go towards Him a hand span,

He comes to me a yard

and when I go to Him walking,

He comes to me running

Ignorance is cured by knowledge

and the key to knowledge is to ask.

Less now the exclamation

and more the question mark,

the guard sulks away,

and a prisoner on his knees,

still, as if in prayer.

- by Syed Talha Ahsan, written in HMP Long Lartin, June, 2008.

Talha Ahsan has been extradited to the US and is currently in solitary confinement, despite having no charges, no evidence, and no trial against him.