Victims of torture face uncertain future in UK

S is a Sri Lankan Tamil. He was 16 when the army rounded up most of the boys and young men in his village and shut them up in a small, dark cell. He was accused of being a terrorist.

During interrogation, he was beaten with a sand-filled plastic pipe, burnt with cigarettes and a hot iron, stabbed in the arm with a bayonet, slashed with a razor, and nearly drowned when his head was forced repeatedly under water. After release, S escaped to Britain. He is being treated by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

Others receiving counselling and medical care include a young Somali businessman, M, who fled across the border into Kenya and reached Britain. His father had 'disappeared', his brother had been killed, and he had been warned that he was about to be arrested. During an earlier detention, M had been handcuffed, put into a sack and plunged into a drum of water until he lost consciousness. M has had to leave his wife and small child behind.

T from the Middle East is a convert to Christianity and at risk of execution under Sharia law if he returns home. As a boy, T was held in a military prison for five weeks, tortured with electric shocks and burnt, then beaten about the head with rifle butts.

What these three people have in common is that they have all been refused asylum in Britain but granted exceptional leave to remain (ELR) for a year. They can apply again, every year, providing they are able to convince the authorities that they would be in danger if they went home.

What they cannot do, is to apply to have their family join them. Nor can they re-apply for political asylum, even though they may not have known how to relate their experiences, or been too confused or frightened to do so, or feared that what they said would be passed back to the authorities at home and would endanger their families, during their original questioning by immigration officials.

What they also have in common is that their torture was so extreme that they need medical care. Since the medical foundation started in 1986, it has treated 6,000 people from more than 40 countries. Many have had to leave families behind that are at risk of torture and imprisonment.

Violent political crises around the world caused a sharp increase in applications for asylum between 1989 and 1991, when 45,000 requests were made. Since last year they have fallen. Between January and September this year only 16,165 people applied. But the granting of asylum in Britain has been falling even faster. Nine per cent of those who applied were given asylum last year, but only 2.6 per cent have been given it this year. Britain still receives fewer applications in relation to its population size than any comparable European country.

The foundation has long been calling for minimum standards in Britain's asylum determination procedures. It now fears that even some of the existing ones will vanish in new legislation. ELR is granted only at the Home Secretary's discretion, and no provision for it has been included in the new laws. ELR did offer something to those refused asylum. Without it, the future in Britain for many political refugees looks grim.