On May 26, hundreds of teachers and pupils from St John’s Primary School in Rochdale marched down the town’s streets to the local Catholic church. The students held homemade signs, one reading: “Why send our friends to their deaths?”. Many carried pictures of the seven pupils at the school facing imminent deportation. The school’s campaign, which is spearheaded by headteacher Jed Morgan, started three weeks before, when a student who had been at the school for four years was suddenly deported to Angola, shocking the school community. The seven pupils, from three separate families, have all had asylum applications rejected, and are facing deportation — to Bolivia, the Congo and Angola respectively — at any time. Two thousand people have signed petitions supporting delaying the petition, and the petitions along with the signs and pictures from St John’s pupils will be presented to 10 Downing Street on June 6.

From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.
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