Brenda Namigodde: Andy Slaughter calls for W12 deportation to be halted

A Ugandan lesbian woman who was due to be deported, and was actually on the plane, was dramatically released back into UK custody following a halting of her deportation by lawyers. Brenda Namigodde has been living in our borough since arriving in the UK but was told by the Home Office that she had to return.

Full story in the Guardian here.

Uganda is of course the same country where gay people are routinely abused and face, as in the case of David Kato, murder. Even the pastor speaking at Mr Kato's funeral launched into a rant about how gays should repent of their ways until his grieving family shouted him down and he was bundled from the pulpit.

Andy Slaughter has written to the Immigration Minister Damian Green, and has this to say:

"Whatever the circumstances surrounding Ms Namigadde’s presence in Britain, it is clear that she cannot be deported to Uganda at present. Both the public mood and the official stance towards homosexuals in Uganda are lethal at the moment – we should not be contemplating sending my constituents back to a society where she will be in grave danger of her life.

I call upon Damian Green to intervene personally to halt this deportation immediately and suspend the removal notice against my constituent, until we can find a resolution to this case that does not involve sending Ms Namigadde to face certain persecution and possible death."

I defy anyone to give me a good reason why it is in the interests of the UK to deport people who we know to be in fear of their life like this.

I also can't understand why we don't sit back and take a good hard look at deportations anyway - on my way out here to Sri Lanka I came across someone being forcibly deported on my plane - one of the officers doing it admitted to me that they were never going to keep up with the numbers already in the UK - he was just doing his job, he said. But wherever you stand on that, I hope this woman's life is spared and she is able to carry on living among us here. At least she'll still be living.