Workers Revolutionary Party - RELEASE CONGOLESE DETAINEES

The News Line: News Wednesday, 29 August 2007 RELEASE CONGOLESE DETAINEES – URGE PROTESTERS

Demonstrators outside Downing Street yesterday demanding ‘Justice for Congolese Asylum seekers’ with a halt to any more deportations

REFUGEES from the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated their court victory last week, as they demonstrated opposite Downing Street yesterday against deportations and for the right to political asylum in Britain.

Rev. David Inanda-Etana, president of the Congolese Community in the UK, told News Line: ‘We have been in the last week to the Royal Courts. They planned to deport people on August 23 and the courts stopped it.

‘We gave evidence to the court that our country, DRC, is not safe to return to. It’s not human to send people back there.

‘We are asking Mr Brown to act on a humanitarian basis, so that we, the Congolese, can live here in safety, rather than be deported to face possible death.

‘We want permanent residence for Congolese refugees.’

He added: ‘There are so many Congolese people in detention camps in Britain. We are hoping for their release soon because of last week’s decision.

‘And there are so many people in the city, here in London, who used to go to sign at the immigration centres every day – you can imagine how stressful that was for them.’

Okito Tongomo, co-ordinator of the Congo Support Project, said they were expecting new guidance on the DRC to be issued in September, adding: ‘We demonstrated in the court last week that the guidance which says they have to deport Congolese people is wrong.’

Pastor David Mafuta said: ‘Congo is a wealthy country but there are now three million refugees in Uganda because there is so much killing, so much trouble.’