Asylum seeker fears for her life

Catherine Lee
BBC News

Edneth Gotora says she was raped in a rehabilitation camp

A woman, whose family were killed after opposing President Mugabe's regime, says she fears for her life if she has to return to Zimbabwe.

Edneth Gotora fled the country and is now settled on Teesside, but her application for asylum was refused, and she now faces deportation.

Her local church in Stockton organised a petition in her support, which has been signed by almost 18,000 people.

Local MP, Frank Cook, is arranging for it to be presented to the Home Office.

Mrs Gotora's husband had been a prominent figure in the Movement for Democratic Change, and was critical of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party.

In March 2002, he was taken away and killed, and their four-year-old daughter murdered in her bed.

After a series of threats, Mrs Gotora was abducted and taken to a rehabilitation camp where she was told she would be encouraged to "follow the right path" - a result normally achieved by the practice of torture. At the camp she says she was raped so badly that she had to be taken to hospital, from where she made her escape.

Mrs Gotora's four-year-old daughter was murdered in her bed

She settled in Stockton, but her application for asylum was refused on the grounds that it was her husband who was the activist. As he was dead she would be in no danger and must return to Zimbabwe.

However, Mrs Gotora disputes this. She said: "I was raped. We are being tortured. So really I fear for my life if I am to be returned to Zimbabwe right now."

She was backed up by her local United Reformed Church, which organised and widely circulated a petition.

The Reverend Colin Offor said: "There was a deluge. I wasn't expecting such a big response, it made me very unpopular with the postman.

"Certainly the local church community has taken this to heart. In this part of the world I think people are much more friendly and welcoming to people in trouble."

The pitiful thing is that we pay lip service with a great passion condemning domestic violence, but this is taking place in Zimbabwe on a national scale Frank Cook MP

The petition has been handed over to Frank Cook, Labour MP for Stockton North.

Mr Cook said: "I have spoken with the staff in Charles Clarke's private office and am awaiting word from them for a suitable date and time for us to arrive on their doorstep and present this petition.

"The pitiful thing is that we pay lip service with a great passion condemning domestic violence, but this is taking place in Zimbabwe on a national scale, and it seems that unless some level of discretion is exercised by the Home Office Mrs Gotora is going to be returned to the same blood-stained kitchen, and this I cannot accept.

"Ministers have authority to consider the particular circumstances of any given case and exercise a level of discretion which takes a case out of routine regulation.

"This is one such case."

The Home Office does not comment on individual cases, but said in a statement: "We are committed to the protection of genuine refugees who seek asylum in the UK.

Each asylum claim is considered by the Home Office on its individual merits, in accordance with our obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights."