[van-announce] Appeal for Roma Refugee

[No One is Illegal-Vancouver]

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Financial Appeal for Roma Refugee
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Adrian Dragan, a Roma refugee that has been in detention here in Vancouver
for almost 1 year, will be deported back to Romanian in the next few
weeks.  He has been brutalized while in detention, has become criticallly
sick and feels he can either choose to return to Romania or loose his life
while in detention.  The authorities at the North Fraser detention
facility have refused to release his medical records to him after he was
examined at a Maple Ridge hospital for a lump near his liver.

He has essentially been forced to sign papers that state that he is
willing to return to Romania, while not being a citizen, against his will.
 More information on his story is pasted below.

This is a financial appeal for him before he is forced to leave the country.
Spending over a year being detained in Vancouver and Toronto Adrian has
had to spend much of his money on legal defence, telephone, and copying
costs. At this time he will have very little money when he returns to
Romania.

Any amount, (10, 20 or 100+ dollars) would be greatly appreciated.

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Please make cheques out in his name and send them to one of two locations.

If the cheques can be delivered in the next few days, please hand deliver
them before 5:30 on the weekdays to 207 West Hastings (the Dominion
Building) to room 714.

Otherwise, please mail them to the Palestine Community Centre:
1874 Kingsway
Vancouver BC
V5N 2S7

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JUSTICE FOR ADRIAN DRAGAN

Adrian Dragan, a Roma refugee that has been held for 16 months awaiting
removal to Romania will have another detention review hearing on Tuesday.

Last week Dragan was put into solitary confinement and he was on hunger
strike at Fraser Pre-trial in Coquitlam, BC after refusing to sign
documents that he is willing to return to Romania.

He is a Roma (also known as "Gypsy") and faces serious danger and
repression if removed to Romania, where Roma people are regularly attacked
and persecuted. In fact, Adrian renounced his citizenship in Romania in
1993 to condemn the racism against Roma there, and since he does not have
formal citizenship, he is now being held in jailed limbo, without rights
as a citizen in either Canada or Romania.

Canada has already tried once to send Adrian to Romania, but he was
refused at the Romanian border. Since he is no longer a citizen of
Romania, it would have been against international law to force him to
enter, so he was sent back to Canada and now in continued detention by
Immigration Canada.

Since his return to Canada, Paul Martin himself has been negotiating with
the Romanian President to have Adrian accepted back to Romania even though
he is no longer a citizen of that country.

As a stateless citizen, Dragan has no homeland and no country of
residence. As a signatory of the United Nations’ 1954 Convention Relating
to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the
Reduction of Statelessness, Canada has an international duty to accept and
protect stateless people.

Call, write or fax (see sample letter below) and demand that Canada live
up to its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Reduction
of Statelessness (1978) and not deport him to Romania unless the
government can guarantee Adrian's complete citizenship rights, safety and
freedom in Romania.





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No One is Illegal- Vancouver
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The No One is Illegal campaign is in full confrontation with Canadian
colonial border policies, denouncing and taking action to combat racial
profiling of immigrants and refugees, detention and deportation policies,
and wage-slave conditions of migrant workers and non-status people.

We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their
livelihoods and resist war, occupation and displacement, while building
alliances and supporting indigenous sisters and brothers also fighting
theft of land and displacement.