Jury's Ruling Underlines British Churches' Concern for Refugees
Episcopal News Service. March 7, 1996 [96-1409V]
(ENI) Church concern over Britain's treatment of refugees was voiced at the highest level recently when Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey and Cardinal Basil Hume held a joint meeting with a senior government minister. The Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders' expression of concern to the government, made with support from the moderator of the Free Church Federal Council and the Chief Rabbi in the United Kingdom, came on the same day as an inquest jury in London ruled that a Nigerian asylum-seeker, Shimi Lapite, had been unlawfully killed in a struggle with police. The jury in the four-day hearing heard that the two officers arresting Lapite outside a late-night restaurant on suspicion of possessing crack cocaine feared for their lives. But the 34-year-old man was put into a neck hold and died from asphyxiation soon afterwards. Lapite's death in December, 1994, had added poignancy because, just hours before, he was told he could stay in Britain pending an asylum hearing. The British churches' current concerns for refugees are prompted by changes in the Asylum and Immigration Bill going through the British Parliament which will remove social security benefits from most asylum-seekers. Churches fear the measure will leave many refugees destitute, relying on soup kitchens, emergency hostels and blankets to survive on the streets.