By Claude Mills, Staff ReporterJOAN SHURLAND, a 45-year-old Jamaican woman who fled to Britain years after armed thugs murdered her son and shot her in the head, has been told she must return to Kingston despite fears that she will be murdered by gunmen.
It was announced yesterday that an immigration appeals tribunal has backed the Home Office's rejection of her asylum application on the grounds that her experiences did not constitute persecution in terms of factors such as race, religion or political opinion.
NOT SURPRISED
While overseas supporters reacted in horror at the refusal for asylum on compassionate grounds, local human rights groups were not surprised given the recent trend towards an increasingly hard-line stance by United Kingdom authorities to Jamaicans abusing their visa status.
Yvonne Sobers, convenor of the Families Against State Terrorism (FAST), commiserated with Ms. Shurland's predicament. "I met her in the U.K. last year, and I am kind of feeling it for her. What I am aware is that there is a general squeeze on asylum-seekers in the U.S. and the U.K., which is an offshoot of the 9/11 attacks, but I suspect that there are parti-cular reservations about Jamaican asylum-seekers," she said.
"We're not in an official war situation like Sudan or Burundi, so when the Home Office looks at the policies of this government, they see that there are policies on paper to protect persecuted citizens, but these policies are not enforced in reality. So, in some situations, these people are genuinely at risk," Ms. Sobers said.
OVERSTAYING
Jamaican asylum-seekers are not exactly odds-on favourites to gain asylum in the United Kingdom. During the year 2003, figures provided by the British High Commission indicate that although 720 Jamaicans applied for asylum, less than 10 were granted.
"The most common problem is that Jamaicans who had overstayed or found themselves in trouble often applied for asylum to prolong their stay, but were not genuine asylum-seekers, or someone generally fearing persecution in his homeland. They just wanted to abuse the system to remain in the U.K. illegally," Mark Waller, press and political affairs officer of the British High Commission, said.
Anecdotal reports suggest that since the introduction of the visa regime, the number of those applying for asylum has fallen quite a bit.
In the meantime, the family and friends of Joan Shurland are worried about her fate. Yesterday, a news team visited the Wildman Street Pentecostal Tabernacle where Ms. Shurland often worshipped.
"Joan? Yes, I knew her. She went overseas two years ago. Mi hear that she might not get the asylum. But how she mek that happen to her? Why she wait so long? She have it hard," a church sister told the news team.
LIFE IN DANGER
During a November 1999 attack by armed thugs in the Text Lane area of central Kingston, Ms. Shurland lost her son, Rasheed Lopez, and she was shot in the head. The attack left her in a coma for three months, blinded in the left eye, and partially disabled. She has also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She believes that her life is in imminent danger.
"If I go back, I will be dead," Ms. Shurland told a Guardian newspaper reporter, from her home in the west Midlands in the U.K.
Tragedy follows her like a shadow as three years ago, in December 2001, policemen shot dead her eldest son, Kirk, in controversial circumstances.
According to the Home Office, all asylum claims are considered on their individual merits in accordance with the U.K.'s obligations under the 1951 U.N. Convention relating to the status of refugees.
Recently, an application by a Jamaican mother to seek asylum on the basis that she would be persecuted because she was a lesbian was denied. Outrage!, which represents gays across the U.K., is pressuring British Home Secretary David Blunkett to make the asylum application process easier for gays and lesbians fleeing persecution.
