There is a bit of this story missing. How did she get to Britain?

@1. Dr Bob: I suspect that the only omission is from your conscience.

@1 Dr Bob

“There is a bit of this story missing. How did she get to Britain?”

Gosh, the story also failed to mention what her favourite foods are and whether she can play the piano!

Let’s not demand totally irrelevant bits of information.

3. Chaise Guevara – “Let’s not demand totally irrelevant bits of information.”

No but let’s demand entirely relevant bits of information. Like whether she is actually a lesbian or not. The Courts found the last such claimant was lying.

The world is full of people who face persecution for one reason or another. Literally tens if not hundreds of millions. We can’t take them all. So I see no particular reason why we should take any. Why this one and not the other ten million worthy and deserving applicants?

@4
Link please to claim that last such claimant was lying?

As far as I know, a recent campaign to prevent the deportation of B to Uganda was successful. Whether Betty Tibakawa is gay or not is irrelevant now, as she is believed to be gay in Uganda and so is at risk of violent assault, rape, imprisonment, even murder if she is sent back.

Is that something we are happy with our government doing? Is this a society we want to live in, that sends people to countries where they are at risk of violence and a life of fear and repression? No thanks.

‘B’ was a different case, concerned that wasn’t clear in my last comment.

@ 4 So Much For Subtlety

“The world is full of people who face persecution for one reason or another. Literally tens if not hundreds of millions. We can’t take them all. So I see no particular reason why we should take any.”

That logic is truly bizarre and rather unlike you. Do you tell your boss “You can’t pay me all the money in the world, so I see no reason why you should pay me any”?

Put simply, helping some people is better than helping nobody.

5. sianushka – “Link please to claim that last such claimant was lying?”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8306041/The-truth-about-the-lesbian-asylum-seeker.html

Despite attempts by the Home Office to deport her, and a judge’s ruling that she should go, Brenda Namigadde managed to stay in Britain after lawyers secured a last-minute injunction to halt her removal.

The failed asylum seeker has been backed by homosexual rights campaigners and MPs, who said she risked being beaten up or arrested if sent back to her African homeland.

However, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained a court judgement which considers Miss Namigadde’s case and concludes that she is not, in fact, a lesbian.

Immigration Judge Toby Davey, who heard the appeal, criticised Miss Namigadde, 28, for a “lack of candour” over her sexuality, and concluded: “I find that the appellant was and is not, on the evidence before me, a lesbian.”

“As far as I know, a recent campaign to prevent the deportation of B to Uganda was successful.”

Although that is meaningless.

“Whether Betty Tibakawa is gay or not is irrelevant now, as she is believed to be gay in Uganda and so is at risk of violent assault, rape, imprisonment, even murder if she is sent back.”

Well no, it is not irrelevant. Large numbers of people from a particular region are told to claim they have converted to Christianity and would face persecution if they are sent back. It is obviously important that we work out if these claims are true or not. For this case we would have to be sure that the woman claiming asylum is actually Betty Tibakawa and that she did not make it all up. Otherwise we risk perverting the system.

“Is that something we are happy with our government doing? Is this a society we want to live in, that sends people to countries where they are at risk of violence and a life of fear and repression? No thanks.”

I am fine with it. I am sure most British people are fine with it. The world is a large place with many bad governments. Either we cease to exist as a nation or we send people back to where they are at risk of violence. Which do you choose?

7. Chaise Guevara – “That logic is truly bizarre and rather unlike you. Do you tell your boss “You can’t pay me all the money in the world, so I see no reason why you should pay me any”?”

No I don’t. But I also don’t, like Cnut, go down to the sea side and command the tide not to come in. Policy has to be practical and sensible. It has to be workable. It has to be beneficial to Britain as well. Ideally.

Our asylum policy is not practical or sensible. It does not work. There are simply too many people in the world with very genuine fears of persecution who want to come to the UK. It is not as if we can get this system right. It is always going to be a question of turning away a few droplets in the face of the tide. We have a system designed for a more naive world.

So the choice is we take those that can game the system until Britain has a population of a billion or so or we don’t take any. We cannot solve the world’s problems. I don’t see why we should stake our national existence on trying.

“Put simply, helping some people is better than helping nobody.”

Helping people is not a valid goal of British government policy. At least not when those people are not British. Nor is it true. Where I used to live there were children who begged. They were often bought from poor rural families and deliberately maimed in order to beg. By giving them money I was helping them, but I was also helping maintain a system where they were maimed.

Our asylum system encourages people to lie, to cheat, to commit fraud, to risk their lives at sea, to risk exploitation and murder at the hands of traffickers and much worse. We reward those that can cheat well. We should stop.

I’d hate to live my life with so much cynicism, disbelieving people in the way you do. Maybe i’m naive, maybe i’m too trusting.

However, i do know a lot more about this case than you do So Much For Subtlety, including the reasons why we know that this woman is “really” who she says she is, and why her safety is at risk if she returns and why at this point her sexuality is irrelevant.

Out of curiousity, how do you propose we decide whether a man or a woman is actually gay or not? what is the test they need to pass? How do you ‘prove’ your sexuality? I mean, straight or gay, how do you ‘prove’ it? Is there is a quiz?

Look, if you agree that she should be deported because we can’t take everyone onto our tiny island, in case we reach a population of 70 million blah blah or whatever your reasons are, then you don’t have to sign the petition. That simple.

SMFS call for tests of sexual orientation reminds me, somehow, of this news story from Egypt:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13620712

…which is probably the kind of world the cynical fascist sympathiser would like us to live in, so it’s not surprise.

@ 9 SMFS

“No I don’t. But I also don’t, like Cnut, go down to the sea side and command the tide not to come in. Policy has to be practical and sensible. It has to be workable. It has to be beneficial to Britain as well. Ideally.”

I agree, but letting people stay here rather than sending them off to be tortured is pretty high-priority in my book. Sounds practical and sensible to me.

“Our asylum policy is not practical or sensible. It does not work. There are simply too many people in the world with very genuine fears of persecution who want to come to the UK. It is not as if we can get this system right. It is always going to be a question of turning away a few droplets in the face of the tide. We have a system designed for a more naive world.”

What’s your basis for saying it doesn’t work – i.e. what are the negatives?

“So the choice is we take those that can game the system until Britain has a population of a billion or so or we don’t take any. We cannot solve the world’s problems. I don’t see why we should stake our national existence on trying.”

A billion? SMFS, that’s a sixth of the people in the world. Even assuming that birth rates are higher among immigrants, imagining the UK population could jump from 60m to a billion due to immigration is frankly hysterical.

“Helping people is not a valid goal of British government policy. At least not when those people are not British.”

That’s POV, and I reject it. I think helping people is one of the most important goals of any government.

“Nor is it true. Where I used to live there were children who begged. They were often bought from poor rural families and deliberately maimed in order to beg. By giving them money I was helping them, but I was also helping maintain a system where they were maimed.”

Yes, there are complexities to offering aid, and sometimes something that looks like help actually isn’t. But please explain how this is relevant to this case: will sending Betty back to face brutality somehow improve things overall?

“Our asylum system encourages people to lie, to cheat, to commit fraud, to risk their lives at sea, to risk exploitation and murder at the hands of traffickers and much worse. We reward those that can cheat well. We should stop.”

That’s only one side of the issue. The other is that making immigration harder can trap people in poverty or danger. So while we shouldn’t let cheats in, we should err on the side of generosity where it’s not possible to tell the cheats from the genuine cases.

Look, I know you’re anti-immigration, or at least anti-open-borders, but you’ve picked a bad battleground here. Demanding that we send people to countries where they will be assaulted and possibly killed makes you look like a zealot.

This interview with Betty Tibakawa explains more about the facts of her case

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/06/09/interview-branded-a-liar-by-uk-authorities-the-ugandan-lesbian-outed-in-a-national-newspaper/