SWAN collected a donation in their support on the day, but just as importantly we gave all conference delegates of the conference a copy of the letter to Teresa May which you can download at the bottom of this article. The letter argues for Amanpreet Kaur’s right to remain in the UK.
Please support this campaign and publicise it as widely as possible among your networks, colleagues and friends – we need as many people as possible writing to Teresa May in her defence.
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More on Amanpreet’s situation (taken from Global Women’s Strike website and other sources):
Amanpreet Kaur is a young Lesbian woman from the Sikh community in Punjab, India. After coming out she was subjected to torture, death threats and attempted rape by her father. She and her partner fled to the UK to seek asylum, in fear for there lives and hopefully to join a society where being a lesbian is not a crime.
Unfortunately bad legal advice and severe trauma and a fear of speaking out about their sexuality led to Ms Kaur and her partner being detained by UK immigration and held in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Center.
Here they were subjected to lack of health care, lack of food, abuse (physical, psychological and sexual), rape…. Ms Kaur cut her wrists and wrote a goodbye message to her partner, in blood, on the cell walls.
Ms Kaur was released from the detention center on 8th March but both she and her partner face deportation to India. Where they will suffer abuse, “corrective” rape and honour killing, especially if they do not comply to their arranged marriages. They will never see one another again and Ms Kaur will not receive the mental health support she needs.
Please, download, print, sign and send the letter I’ve attached to Teresa May. Insta-click contact MP internet plugs don’t have the same affect as 1000s of letters heaped on a desk! You can also copy and paste the letter and email it if you’d rather (email address is on the letter).
Please look for more updates about Amanpreet Kaur and Ms D at the Global Women’s Strike website here.
You can also write/phone Yarl’s Wood protesting the homophobic, racist discriminatory treatment by staff. These are just two examples of many: an officer told Ms Kaur: “Don’t think pretending you’re homosexual or going on hunger strike will help you, they will not release you. If they cannot send you alive then they will send your dead body back to India”. On another occasion when Ms Kaur was banging her head against a wall in desperation, an officer, instead of helping her, sexually assaulted her and an officer standing nearby laughed. When Ms D tried to report what had happened to the Yarl’s Wood Manager and the psychiatrist, they claimed Ms Kaur had been hallucinating!
UKBA centre manager Fiona Quaynor via: Christopher.harlow2@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Tel: 01234 821 300
SERCO centre manager: James Wilkinson james.wilkinson@serco.co.u
Tel: 01234 821 1000
Please send copies of your letters to Queer Strike queerstrike@queerstrike.net and Ms Kaur at friendsofamanpreetandd@gmail.com
