Citizens UK pledge

Many of those who were at the Alyth Shabbat Hagadol service on Friday 27 March were moved by the testimony of Katherine Hallgarten and Guinean asylum seeker Soulemaine who talked about their experiences of indefinite detention. Katherine was a young child when she was detained in an internment camp on the Isle of Man as a German Jewish refugee in wartime. Soulemaine’s experiences were much more recent and brought to light the plight of asylum seekers currently being detained indefinitely while their immigration status is processed, sometimes for several years. Soulemaine, who was detained for three and a half years talked about how detainees are held in harsh conditions and “count up” their sentence because, unlike normal prisoners, they do not have a fixed release date to look forward to.

Alyth recently joined Barnet Citizens, a chapter of Citizens UK, which brings together varied communities and is campaigning on this issue, amongst others. Alyth members raised the issue of indefinite detention with parliamentary candidates standing in Finchley and Golders Green (Alyth’s constituency) at the Mulifaith Hustiings held on 16 April. As a direct result, the Labour and Conservative candidates offered to meet with Citizens to discuss this and other issues that Citizens UK is campaigning on. Both meetings went very well and Sarah Sackman (Labour Candidate) and Mike Freer (Conservative candidate) signed the , undertaking to work to find a solution to the problem of indefinite detention.

Alyth members Deborah Blausten and Vicky Fobel were at the meeting with Mike Freer MP on Tuesday, held at Alyth, together with representatives of Hendon’s Muslim community who also feel strongly about the issue. After the meeting Vicky said “It was a really inspiring meeting and it felt great to work with other local communities to help bring about a solution to such a serious problem.”