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Deportation fight family win injunction

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  • Deportation fight family win injunction

    Bristol Evening Post, UK
    October 13, 2009 Tuesday


    Deportation fight family win injunction


    Julie Hardingj.harding

    An Armenian mother and her three children have won a court injunction
    to stop them being deported while their case is looked at again.

    But Anna Vardanyan, 33, and her children Mariam, 16, Norik, 12, and
    Gayana, eight, are being forced to stay at the Yarl's Wood immigration
    removal centre in Bedfordshire instead of returning to St George where
    they have lived for seven years.

    Mariam has contracted salmonella food poisoning since being taken to
    the centre on Friday and is seriously ill in hospital.

    Now friends of Mariam and Norik, who both go to the City Academy in
    Russell Town Avenue, Lawrence Hill, have launched a petition and have
    written to Government ministers in an effort to persuade the Home
    Office to let the family return to their home at least until their
    appeal is heard.

    The Vardanyans were taken away by 10 police officers and immigration
    officials at 6am and were due to be deported on Friday evening but at
    5.55pm their solicitor rang supporters, who had demonstrated outside
    Trinity Road police station, to say that an injunction had been
    granted.

    Patrick McInally, 14, of Carlisle Road, Greenbank, who organised the
    petition said: "The point is these are children and they have abducted
    by the state.

    "They do not deserve to be treated like that. They haven't been
    arrested and they haven't done anything wrong."

    More than 300 of the school's pupils have signed the petition so far
    which they intend to take to number 10 Downing Street, the home of the
    Prime Minister. The children have also written to Children's
    Commission Sir Albert Aynsley-Green calling for the Vardanyans to be
    freed.

    In December Asiya Hassan, also 14, of Stapleton Road, Easton, joined
    Norik in addressing politicians and councillors at a conference at the
    school on the plight of children in detention centres.

    Asiya (c) said: "It's wrong to put children in there who are
    completely innocent. The law says you are innocent until proven
    guilty.

    "Norik was one of the main speakers at our conference. He had been in
    a detention centre before so knows what horrible places they are."

    Mariama (c) Jalloh, 16, of Kingswood, is Mariam's best friend. She
    said: "I have known Mariam for three years now. We are really close.
    She should not be in a detention centre."

    Mariama herself faced deportation to war-torn Liberia two years ago.
    She and her sister Binta, ten, went on hunger strike, so desperate
    were they not to return to the country where their father was murdered
    and their mother tortured.

    The UK Border Agency says the Vardanyans were living in the country
    illegally after their claim for asylum was turned down and appeals
    failed.

    Paulette North, a teacher at the City Academy and a member of Bristol
    Defend The Asylum Seekers Campaign said: "Mariam is now very ill after
    contracting salmonella food poisoning. We are so frightened for the
    health and safety of this family.

    "Detention centres are no places for children. The family have strong
    ties to Bristol. They should be allowed to return while the judicial
    review into their case is heard and that could take months.

    A spokeswoman for the UK Border Agency said last week that the
    decision not to grant asylum was scrutinised by an independent
    immigration judge who upheld that decision.

    However the Vardanyan's solicitor has applied for a judicial review of
    the case which will be heard in the High Court.
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