France: Asylum and immigration (2)
01 January 1991
France: Asylum and immigration
artdoc April=1995
Algeria has become a trap!
`A Collective to welcome to France Algerian asylum-seekers and
exiles', comprising about sixty organisations and trade unions,
has been formed. A spokesperson for the organisation said:
`Algeria has become a trap. The borders with Morocco are closed.
Those with Tunisia are in the process of being closed. And France
is only giving out visas required urgently for professional
reasons or owing to grave health problems' (Libération 13.10.94).
The French consulate in Algiers has closed so that any
applications have to be made by courier and the visa service has
been closed in Algeria and transferred to Nantes in France.
Applicants have to apply to Nantes by letter and no time-limit
is set for a reply. As the visa office at Nantes came into
operation on 6 October, all applications made before that date
were voided and will have to be made again Many believe a quota
system has effectively been introduced (Libération 1.9, 13.10.
94).
Even before these new measures, the number of visas being given
out had been reduced dramatically by increasing administrative
barriers. And the new measures will make arbitrary refusal even
easier (Libération 1.9.94). In a separate move, a number of
French people of Algerian origin have been expelled to Algeria
while on holiday in Morocco owing to a new visa requirement
Morocco has introduced for French citizens of Algerian origin.
The French foreign ministry has condemned the visa requirement,
saying that no distinction should be made between French
citizens, whatever their origins (Libération 3,4.9.94).
Deportations, expulsion orders, asylum rights denied
Double punishment: the case of Ahmed Ajarray
Ahmed Ajarray, a 42-year-old Moroccan married to a French florist
from Doullens (Somme), who is an insulin-dependent diabetic, has
gone on hunger-strike in a bid to avoid deportation.
The case against Ahmed Ajarray, who has so far managed to fight
off six emergency expulsion orders, rests on a six year prison
sentence for drugs trafficking which he was conditionally
released from in November 1991 on the instructions of the
minister of justice. It was not until September 1992 that he was
issued with an urgent expulsion order as an `imminent danger to
the public', even though his social worker and the judge
responsible for overseeing the terms and conditions of his
sentence have testified to his good conduct.
Ahmed Ajarray is fighting his deportation on the grounds that
his original conviction does not justify deportation. After his
last expulsion order he was placed under house arrest and ordered
not to work (Libération 19.9.94).
The case of Nasser Djabbour
Nasser Djabbour, accused of aiding a known-terrorist, has been
deported to Algeria without ever being allowed to hear the case
against him. Nasser Djabbour's parents fled from Algeria in 1963
when Nasser was two. He grew up in Rouen and has nine brothers
and sisters, all of whom were born in France and are French
citizens. In 1986, police accused Nasser Djabbour of being in
contact with a known terrorist and he was deported. He returned
illegally six years later and was arrested last July. Anti-
racist organisations such as MRAP and SOS-Racisme, who supported
Nasser Djabbour's case, say that he should be tried in a court
of law, like anyone else. But the interior ministry, which
declined to provide any evidence of Nasser's alleged terrorist
connections, say he is a `dangerous criminal' who continues to
commit misdeeds (Libération 17,18.9.94).
Expelled for going on a demonstration!
The case of the 18-year-old student Mouloud Malaci, expelled from
France as a matter of `absolute urgency' after participating in
a demonstration against the Contrat d'insertion Professionelle
in March 1993 and accused of throwing stones at the police came
before a magistrates court in Lyons in September.
The co