When two of my current reading topics (UK immigration fiascoes and football) combined today I happened to fall across the story of Watford Football Club's and soon to be deported to Sierra Leonean, Alhassan Bangura who faces going back to his homeland where he could face the prospect of murder after having his appeal to remain in the UK refused.
According to stories that I've read about him online: he arrived in England four years ago, to escape the civil war in his country because his life was in danger due to his late father’s connections to the Soko cult in the country. After his father’s death, its elders threatened to kill Bangura after he refused to join and take part in its rituals of withcraft and mutilation.
He fled his home and a Frenchman who found him sleeping rough in Guinea trafficked him to London via Paris in 2004, when he was aged just 16. He was then taken to a house where two men attempted to rape him. Bangura escaped and was found in the street by a passer-by who took him to the Home Office’s immigration centre in Croydon.
He underwent therapy to help him deal with his ordeals and began playing non-league football where he was spotted by a Watford scout.
Since he signed for Watford, Bangura has been a great player and fan’s favourite. Al became a father less than two weeks ago. He says he feels more English than from Sierra Leone and his ambition is to play for England.
He was originally given indefinite leave to stay in Britain. However, the Home Office has decided that Bangura shouldn’t be here anymore and wants to deport him back to Sierra Leone.
As part of its evidence at the tribunal it accused him of lying, as he told the Watford programme that he came to England with an uncle he trusted called Eric. This was rather than tell fans a man tried to traffic him for use as a sex worker and that he was almost homosexually raped – hardly the kind of thing a footballer would tell in a culture where no player dares to admit they are gay for fear of opposition taunts.
Al can appeal the decision and needs as much support as he can get to continue living in the country where he has built himself a life with a family and a job.
I'm not the kind of person to ask people to go and sign petitions and I'm not even posting it in your inbox but on this occasion I am appealing for your action, not just because he's a footballer, or not even because our family have our own struggle with the very same corrupted and anachronistic system but because I feel that this man's plight should cause a difference in how immigration issues are looked upon by people in the United Kingdom.
“In a country where our borders are seemingly open to people from all over the world and in a game where we make plenty of noise about kicking racism out of football and society, it’s beyond belief that someone like Al has been subjected to the things he has had to go through in recent weeks.” Aidy Boothyroyd Watford's Manager.
It's a sad state of affairs that inefficient government departments much more acute at controlling the media than empowering the people that put them there can divide young families of this globalised world apart as if they are some kind of toy. And that this is condoned by a largely lethargic and unaware general public fostered on misunderstanding, fear and ignorance.
Please help and sign http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/928961524
Take it East
