Help Lydia and Bernard to Stay Campaign
Debut Playwright Lydia Besong and Human Rights Campaigner Bernard Batey told to leave UK and return to Cameroon
Lydia Besong is a writer. Her debut play “How I Became an Asylum Seeker” is being staged by Community Arts Northwest (CAN) at the Zion Theater in Hulme, Manchester on 3rd December. She is also on the Management Committee of WAST (Woman Asylum Seekers Together).
Bernard Batey, her husband, has been leading for the national award-winning Human Rights organisation RAPAR in a partnership with Revive, Changemakers, Boaz Trust and Citizens for Sanctuary. Together, they have opened Manchester’s first voucher exchange network.
On Thursday night, 29th October 2009, this married couple got back to their home in Rochdale after a busy day to find a letter from the Border and Immigration Agency telling them that they must go back to Cameroon, the country they fled from late at night on December 17th 2006.
Both Lydia and Bernard were tortured in Cameroon and, as well as being tortured in gaol, Lydia was raped by one of the guards. This happened because Lydia and Bernard were members of SCNC [Southern Cameroon National Council]. SCNC is an organization that is fighting for the freedom and liberation of southern Cameroon [English Speaking Cameroon].
Lydia and Bernard’s MP, Paul Rowen, says: “I believe Bernard and Lydia have a genuine case for political asylum and I don’t say that about every case I see.”
Reverend Graham Lindley, Parish Priest at St Anne’s Church, Belfield, Rochdale, has backed Bernard and Lydia to the hilt. He is calling on the Home Office to grant them leave to remain in this country.
Former Rochdale MP Sir Cyril Smith is also backing Lydia and Bernard’s case and wrote to the Home Secretary on their behalf.
One of the reasons Lydia wrote the play that is now about to have its premiere was to find a way of coping with the horrors of what had happened to her, and also to raise awareness and educate people about Asylum.
Jasmine Ali, Lead Artistic Manager for CAN says: I have been working closely with Lydia over the last few months to help her produce a short play that she has written which highlights important issues faced by women asylum seekers in the UK. Lydia has been an inspiration for the artistic team with her dedication and commitment to the project. Without her contribution WAST (Women Asylum Seekers Together) would not have had the confidence to devise and perform their play to a wider audience.
Recently Lydia has been working with RAPAR and Commonword to collect stories about people in Manchester who are destitute. This publication is being launched in the spring. Commonword’s Artistic Director, writer Pete Kalu, says: “Lydia has been a tremendous resource in helping us to find new pathways to new writers in communities.”
Send messages of support to Lydia and Bernard
c/o RAPAR 6 Mount Street
Manchester
M2 5NS
or email admin@rapar.org.uk
And send your message that ‘Lydia and Bernard Must Stay’ to Home Secretary Alan Johnston,
Quoting Lydia Ebok Besong & Bernard Oben Batey: HO Ref: B1236372
Home Office fax ~ 0208-760-3132
Email:
CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
and cc: admin@rapar.org.uk
For further information contact:
· Bernard on 079 3968 8487
· Lydia on 079 0344 6289
· RAPAR’s Press Officer Kath on 0161-225-2260 or kath.northernstories@googlemail.com
· RAPAR’s office: 0161-834-8221 or admin@rapar.org.uk
Dr Rhetta Moran
RAPAR Matron
Friends Meeting House
6 Mount Street
Manchester M2 5NS
England
T: 0044-161-834-8221
F: 0044-161-834-8221
M: 07776264646
email: rhetta.moran@rapar.org.uk
Help Lydia and Bernard to Stay Campaign
Lydia Ebok Besong & Bernard Oben Batey: HO Ref: B1236372
Lydia and Bernard came to UK on the 17th of December 2006 late at night and claim asylum on the 18th of December 2006. Lydia and Bernard fled from persecution because of their role they play in SCNC [Southern Cameroon National Council]. SCNC is a pressure group that fights for the freedom and liberation of southern Cameroon [English Speaking Cameroon].
Lydia and her husband Bernard Oben Batey have been tortured in Cameroon and Lydia was raped whilst in detention by one of the uniformed officers. Lydia presently still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the abuse she encountered whilst in Cameroon, and she is under depression drugs at the moment still waiting for counseling.
Lydia and Bernard presently are doing voluntary job with Shamwari Project as a means of fighting against depression and social isolation, and also attend a local church in their community.
At present they have no legal representative, as such they made their asylum fresh claim on their own, still waiting for the Home Office reply. If not for their MP Mr. Paul Rowen of Rochdale and the parish priest of St Ann Belfield, Lydia and Bernard could have been in deportation centre because of the blunder the Border and Immigration Agency made. They came to take them to deportation centre whilst they still have an application in the Home Office pending; also they went to the wrong address whilst Lydia and Bernard were still living in the accommodation provided by the Home Office. This shows how incompetent the Border and Immigration Agency is dealing with their case.
We the undersigned, call upon the Home Secretary to reconsider Lydia and Bernard case and grant them stay on Humanitarian grounds.
Download the petition: BesongBateyPetition.doc
Photo: Helen Johnson
Deportation blunder saves asylum couple
A Cameroonian couple seeking asylum in Rochdale have been saved from deportation by a blunder.
The staff from the Border and Immigration Agency arrived in town to deport Lydia Ebok Besong and Bernard Oben Batey, of Rochdale Road, Firgrove, but they went to the wrong house.
They surrounded the home of a parishioner of St Ann’s Church, Belfield, who had sent them a letter of support for the couple, wrongly believing the couple were inside.
It was the only Rochdale address the immigration agency had.
But because of the mix up, the parishioner was able to contact the Father Christopher Ketley, vicar of St Ann’s, who, in turn, got hold of Rochdale MP, Paul Rowen.
And it was only after they spoke to Mr Rowen that the agency officers contacted head office and learned that new evidence had arrived to confirm that the couple could stay Britain.
The couple had earlier been told by the agency that, unless they could produce new evidence proving their lives would be in danger if they went home, they would be deported.
Full story: Helen Johnson Rochdale Observer, 2/ 2/2008
