BRITAIN: Asylum seekers can be sent to death, Lords rule

On May 5, the Law Lords overturned the decision of an immigration official to grant asylum to a woman suffering from full-blown AIDS, deciding that it was permissible to deport her to Uganda where she will be denied the drugs needed to keep her alive. The woman was kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army and gang raped before she escaped to Britain, where she was diagnosed with AIDS and treated while her asylum application was processed. The Home Office appealed the granting of her visa to the court on the grounds that the Human Rights Convention was not meant to ensure medical treatment for immigrants with no right to stay. The woman's doctors estimate that she will die within a year or so of returning. The decision has implications for hundreds of AIDS sufferers awaiting deportation. For more news on asylum seekers in Britain, visit <http://www.irr.org.uk>.

From Green Left Weekly, May 25, 2005.

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From GLW issue 627