Friday 28 August 2020

Bigboy Sibanda illtreated by Home Office, Again

https://zhro.zimvigil.org/2020/08/Bigboy-Sibanda-ill-treated-by-Home-Office-Again.html
ZHRO and Bigboy Sibanda, second from right
Zimbabwe Human Rights Organisation (ZHRO) member Bigboy Sibanda, who is a human rights activist and political agitator, is currently caught up in a potential Human Rights quagmire with the United Kingdom Home Office.

In 2019 Bigboy Sibanda with the help of ZHRO published an article in which he detailed interviews and interrogation by the Zimbabwean authorities in a UK detention centre in Gatwick called Brook House. The article was published on the ZHRO website and Facebook on Friday the 24th of March 2019 and can be found on the following link

https://blog.zhro.org.uk/2019/05/uk-allows-interviews-by-their.html

This article was one of the first whistle blowing attempts by a Zimbabwean in the UK detailing the extent to which the British Government at the time was involved in illicit dealings with the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) (Zimbabwe government) in the United Kingdom, in an effort to meet the targets of the U.K. Home Offices Deportations targets.

Such cases ended up in the U.K. courts and was seen by the UK courts as a likely breach of human rights as the Zimbabwe Government and Zimbabwean authorities are well known for using State Abduction,Torture and Killings through summary execution to silence dissenting voices.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/05/home-office-faces-legal-cases-over-zimbabwean-asylum-seekers

At present Bigboy Sibanda is not allowed to work, volunteer nor study by the United Kingdom Home Office.  He is also not getting any income from the same United Kingdom of Great Britain and NorthernIreland Home Office although He is an Asylum seeker.

ZHRO is currently helping Bigboy Sibanda by topping up his mobile phone so that he’s human rights of having Internet can be maintained. This also allows Bigboy Sibanda to communicate with other people.  As we all know the right to communicate and express oneself is a fundamental right as human beings are socially inclined and are not used to isolation.

“Home bound Isolation,” also known as extreme Social Distancing, is clearly something that everyone in the whole world is not accustomed to and knows can severely affect mentalhealth.

Unfortunately, for people like Bigboy Sibanda who are Asylum Seekers, getting no help at all from the Home Office, yet are destitute, social isolation is something that he has to live with on a daily basis, because he is not able to go and visit people that he wants to visit, as he does not have travel money and he is not allowed to work.

Unfortunately the Home Office is currently not providing Bigboy Sibanda with any accommodation food or financial assistance.

Incredibly the Home Office have commanded Bigboy Sibanda to go to a reporting centre on the 24th of August 2020.  Yet the same Home Office have not even provided Bigboy Sibanda with the travel money for him to get to the reporting centre. Bigboy Sibanda has verbally advised that he will not be able to get to the reporting centre, as the journey he has to make to get to Becket House reporting centre needs two buses and the Home Office is not helping with travel money.

Every week for 9 years, Bigboy Siabanda had been reporting to the Home Office Reporting centre.  This has recently been changed to fought nightly reporting, still without any funding and without any travel money from the Home Office at all.

They are in effect making him break the law that they have set, yet they are not following their own law of providing Bigboy Sibanda with travel money, the measly £37.50 per week and accommodation.

When Bigboy Sibanda heard that Chipochedenga Parirenyatwa the ZHRO Chair Lady has been nominated for BAME award, he was extremely please for her.  He was also eager to do some studying, but he can not do this as the home office has bared him from studying anything.

To aid Bigboy Sibanda in this, ZHRO leadership have verbally intimidated that they are likely to start a back to school program for asylum seekers and refugees from Zimbabwe, alongside Organisations like OLive which is run by the University of East London, by ZHRO providing transportation costs to and from the courses when lockdown is over.

Bigboy Sibanda has advised that he wishes very much to take part in the ZHRO Walk for Freedom 2020.  The ZHRO walk for Freedom is starting on Saturday 29th of August 2020 in Brighton and is scheduled to end at Hampton Court Train Station.


By Thabo Makuyana

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