URGENT: Contact Home Office To Prevent Brenda Namigadde being deported.
Brenda Namigadde is to be deported to Uganda tomorrow. From Chicken Yoghurt:
The British Foreign Office advises visitors to Uganda that ‘homosexuality is illegal and social tolerance of it is low.’
David Kato could certainly confirm that. If he wasn’t dead.
” A Ugandan gay rights campaigner who last year sued a local newspaper which outed him as homosexual has been beaten to death, activists say.”
There’s no proof that Kato’s death and outing are linked. This must have worried him though…” Uganda’s Rolling Stone newspaper published the photographs of several people it said were gay next to a headline reading “Hang them”.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Uganda, with punishments of 14 years in prison.”Anyway, in other news we’re deporting Brenda Namigadde back to Uganda tomorrow.
“A lesbian woman due to be deported from Britain to Uganda has been told by a Ugandan MP that she must “repent or reform” when she returns home.
The politician, David Bahati, intervened in the case of Brenda Namigadde, due to be deported on Friday, saying he would drop a clause making homosexuality punishable by death in a bill he introduced to the Ugandan parliament.”Very good of him, I’m sure you’ll agree. I bet that will put Brenda’s mind at rest. If you yourself aren’t sure about it, you can try and appeal to the Home Secretary’s better nature and ask her to heed the advice of her Foreign Office colleagues:
Ask her to exercise her discretionary powers to stop the flight, release Brenda Namigadde from detention and to grant her protection in the UK. Please remember to quote Brenda Namigadde’s Home Office Reference number 1166867 in any correspondence.
Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Office,
2 Marsham St
London SW1 4DFFax: 020 7035 4745
Emails:
mayt@parliament.uk
UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
(Hope Justin doesn’t mind me quoting his blog post in toto, but I thought the signal boost important and am too tired to compose something myself).
My email, which you’re welcome to use as a guide:
Ref: 1166867
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing to ask that the Home Secretary use her discretionary powers to release Brenda Namigadde from detention and halt her planned deportation to Uganda. As a lesbian Ms Namigadde faces immediate arrest on her return to Uganda, and imprisonment for 14 years. She may well face death, like David Kato, who was beaten to death yesterday because of his homosexuality.
Please do not let this woman, who has done nothing wrong and has already suffered unjustly by being interned in Yarl’s Wood, be punished any more for her sexuality.
Regards,
Andrew Hickey
Given the pretty appalling climbdown over civil liberties Ms May announced yesterday, I’m not holding out much hope, but we do supposedly have a policy of not deporting homosexuals to countries where they’d face persecution, so we’ll see…
Normal blogging resumes tomorrow
But What Have The Immigrants Ever Done For Us?
I made the mistake, today, of agreeing with Stephen Glenn on Twitter about the stupidity of a particularly repellent piece of racist campaign literature by Racist UKIP. I say it was a mistake, because I then spent most of the day being bombarded with messages from members of Racist UKIP, trying to claim that their clearly racist policies are, in fact, not racist.
But, you know, fair enough. If they want to go around being racist and then denying it, they can go ahead. That is, after all, what racists do.
But what I won’t accept is them – or any other ‘anti-immigrant’ (racist) party – trying to claim they’re patriotic. I’m no patriot myself – patriotism is one of those things for which I am just not wired – but I understand it to involve loving your country. Now. when *I* think of Britain, I think of things like:
Parliamentary democracy – our Parliament, of course, being created by Simon de Montfort, a Frenchman.
Winston Churchill – son of an American immigrant
Doctor Who – created by a Canadian, first episode written by an Australian and directed by a gay Indian
the Carry On films – starring Sid James, a South African
Queen – lead singer Farrokh Bulsara from Zanzibar
our great theatrical tradition – playwrights like Shaw, Wilde, Beckett…
The Beatles – ‘Lennon’ and ‘McCartney’ of course being good old Irish names
The Goons – created by Spike Milligan, an Irishman born in India
Prince Philip – a Greek
Our pioneering scientists – such as James Watson, who co-discovered the structure of DNA in Cambridge, and was American
2000AD, featuring Judge Dredd – created by an American and a Spaniard
Queen Victoria – daughter of Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Fish and Chips – invented by 19th century Jewish immigrants
The brave Spitfire pilots in World War II – especially all the Polish ones
Presumably Racist UKIP, and the ‘B’NP, don’t like any of those things, what with them all being the work of the immigrants who they wish to keep out. I’m just wondering what, precisely, about the UK they *do* like then?
Linkblogging For 28/04/10
Sorry for lack of actual content – proper posts tomorrow. For now, some links.
First of all, I don’t plan to discuss Brown’s ‘gaffe’ today, where he was polite to a bigot to her face and then grumbled about her behind her back, without realising his mic was still on. It’s the kind of thing that every single politician in Britain has done, and Brown just got caught. It was fun to joke about on Twitter, but it should not have dominated the news in the way it has. This, however, is important. This illustrates exactly why we need to change the rhetoric surrounding immigration. Meanwhile Justin at Chicken Yoghurt shows precisely how disgraceful it is that this disgusting hypocritical war criminal who has destroyed the lives of millions DARES to criticise someone else for bigotry.
(I must look into how you change party policy on immigration, in fact, and work towards getting ours changed. )
David Brothers says what I’ve been saying for a long time about ‘canon’
Laurie Penny reviews a couple of books on the way the Baby Boomers have destroyed their children’s lives.
Tom at It Took Seconds examines John Cage’s 4’33 and also links to this very thorough examination of the piece.
And a good piece from Language Log absolutely demolishing the fallacy that ‘men don’t listen’
Finally, if you’re using Spotify (and yes, unfortunately, the free software clients are still not up to much, so I’m still reliant on the proprietary client – one of only three non-free pieces of software on my machine, along with Inform 7 and the nonfree rar for unpacking cbr files) you can add me to the social whatsists and send me music or something. as well as seeing all my playlists in one place.
Linkblogging for 17/01/09
I’m still far busier than I expected this week, so I’m still behind on my email correspondence – apologies to those who’ve emailed me recently.
Anyway, in lieu of a longer post, here’s some links:
Debi writes about Thomas Hariot – the most pioneering scientist you’ve never heard of.
Bobsy shows us his pants.
Over on Lib Dem Voice they’re talking about what the ‘liberal attitude to immigration’ should be. Some of the comments there make sense, but some are horribly, nastily racist. Let them know what you think…
People buying tube tickets will soon be automatically giving their consent to be searched by transport police. Well, that’s one more reason for me to avoid That London…
An interesting post about the Einstein/Bohr dialogue about quantum physics.
Cerebus: A Diablog continue their reading of the greatest comic series in history.
Andy Partridge discussing how Jack Kirby influenced one of his songs. (Surprising, because Partridge has always struck me as more of a DC person, and here he’s talking about Ant-Man. Still, it’s another example of XTC and comics, two of my favourite things, overlapping).
Free comic stories by Rick Veitch and Mark Evanier and Tom Yeates and some others.
And pillock has an excellent post on From Hell.
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