I always seem to be writing to you in a bit of a state. I wish that I could be cheerful and have good news for you.[1]
– Katharine Gun
KATHARINE GUN WAS not the only one dropping bombshells. The British government had one of its own, targeting not Katharine but her husband. This is not to say that what they did, or tried to do, was illegal or prejudicial. Having said that, one can be excused for wondering about the timing of it all. Recently charged with a serious crime against the people of the United Kingdom, Katharine suddenly found herself in another conflict with the law.
She begins, on a cold January day: ‘At lunchtime, as was true every week, Yasar had to go to the police station to sign a piece of paper for immigration purposes. We knew after the first deportation attempt, two weeks following our marriage, that his status was still insecure, but we didn’t know just how insecure. We found out soon enough.
‘Because it was so cold, I waited in the car outside the station. Yasar seemed to be taking his time. Suddenly, two young girls came out of the station and asked, “Are you waiting for your husband?” I said that I was, and they said, “He’s been taken into the cells by the police.”
‘Terrified, I jumped out of the car and dashed into the police station. It had been less than ten minutes since he left me, but there was no trace of him in the reception area. I asked the lady officer behind the desk what was going on. She cheerfully responded, “Your husband is going back to Turkey.” I almost shouted at her, “How can you say that? He’s my husband! You can’t take him away!” All she could say was, “It’s out of our control; this is an immigration matter.”
‘I tried to see Yasar, but the officer wouldn’t let me. She showed me his deportation papers, and there it stated, quite clearly, that he was booked on a flight to Turkey scheduled the following day.
‘I left the station weeping and cried the whole way home. Luckily, my dad was staying with us, as he had a Chinese New Year teaching break from his Taiwan university. I opened the door and sobbed, “They’ve taken him again.” He looked aghast. “The bastards!” he said.
‘I knew I had to do something in a hurry. We’d chosen a new lawyer to act on Yasar’s behalf after the first one seemed to do very little. This woman, extremely considerate and efficient, promised to do what she could. Next, I called my member of Parliament, Mr Nigel Jones, who was a Liberal Democrat. His was the only party that officially opposed the war in Iraq. He was in a meeting in London, but his assistant said she would beep him urgently. I was frantic, but I kept trying, calling anyone I could think of who might be able to help.
‘Nigel Jones managed to corner a minister for home affairs, Beverley Hughes. He suggested that to deport Yasar at this time would look like state bullying, as I had been charged two months earlier. She seemed to agree. Our lawyer argued that since my passport had been taken away during my legal proceedings, I would be unable to join him if he were sent back to Turkey. This could be considered a breach of our basic human right to a family life. I knew we had a case, but was terrified that the immigration officers would fail to get news of what was happening in time to stop the deportation process.
‘By now, I still hadn’t spoken to Yasar, and it was getting frighteningly late. Eventually, that evening I managed to speak to him on the phone. I reassured him that we were doing everything possible to stop his deportation. I tried not to cry, tried to sound strong and encouraging. But he seemed resigned to the inevitable. It was heartbreaking.
‘The next day I rushed down to the police station with fresh clothes, hoping that the immigration officers had been informed of efforts to stop the deportation, and that my husband would be let go. Perhaps he already was free! But when I arrived, the police officer in charge told me that he was already on his way to Heathrow Airport.
‘I rushed home and began making frantic calls. Around eleven, Yasar rang from the departure lounge of the airport. He was devastated, fully believing the battle was lost, not knowing when we would ever see each other again. It could be years.
‘He said he’d asked to call me before he left Cheltenham in the immigration van, but they wouldn’t let him. I wanted to scream, thinking the system unbelievably callous. They at least could have let us say goodbye. I hadn’t seen Yasar since he got out of our car the previous day; we hadn’t hugged or kissed. Was this going to be farewell? We ended the conversation in tears. My heart was in my mouth, why hadn’t word got through yet?
‘For the next several hours I was in a state of panic. And then, Yasar called from his mobile! He was on his way to a detention centre in Oxford. An enormous relief – at least he wasn’t on a flight to Turkey. After three days of being held in detention, he was released and given six months’ leave to remain in the United Kingdom. From what I could gather afterwards, Ms Hughes was in direct touch with immigration officials at the airport and told them not to put my husband on the flight.
‘From being two ordinary people, newly married, looking forward to a future together, we were now two not-very-ordinary people. I had been very much in the news and was likely to be there for some time to come. Both of us, for different reasons, had been behind bars. We were two young people whose future was, at best, uncertain.’