Re-printed from ”Stockholms Fria” (Original Text in Swedish)
Refugees from U.S.A. Don’t Get Asylum
English Translation:  Sylvia Villför

Saturday, March 2, 2002
Stockholm, Sweden

"In the 1950’s during President [sic] (correction-Senator) McCarthy’s term, a branch of the FBI was started which went under the name of  Counter Intelligence Programs, COINTELPRO, to control opposition groups like the Black Civil Rights Movement, the Puerto Rican Movement, Indigenous Americans organizations and such.  In  1967 COINTELPRO started to just focus on the Black organizations, which were labelled as ”Hate Groups”.  Though Taylor and Irungu never did anything illegal and never have been arrested, their views and what they did were seen as a threat against the USA anyway.  They ended up on COINTELPRO’s blacklist.  COINTELPRO was started in order to ”expose, disrupt, discredit or in another way neutralize Black nationalist activities, hate groups, their leaders, their  spokesmen, their  members” and supporters.”  

 

Refugees from U.S.A. Don’t Get Asylum

 

Aisha Angela Taylor and Bankole Irungu live in exile in Europe.  They have been active within the American Black Civil Rights Movement.  Because of the their political views they have had to endure grave harassment from American authorities.  Their views are seen as a threat against the USA and they are blacklisted by the FBI.  In connection with the rejection of their refugee claim in Canada, they have also gotten to know that they are not welcome back in the USA even though they are American citizens.  Now they live as stateless without access to healthcare or social welfare.  

 

 

They Have Fled from the USA

 

After years of persecution and harassment from the American authorities, Aisha Angela Taylor and her husband Bankole Irungu left the USA.  After having their Refugee claim rejected in Canada they are now stateless and forced to move around in Europe.

 

STOCKHOLM (SFT) – The notion of political refugees from the USA sounds strange, but for Aisha Angela Taylor and Bankole Irungu it is reality.  They grew up in Chicago, and started early to engage themselves politically.  They were both active with the Black Civil Rights movement in the 70’s when they struggled for an acknowledgment of their roots.  They wanted to be called Africans instead of Americans and arranged workshops focusing on African culture.  But their struggle was not tolerated by the American government who saw it as a threat.

 

In the 1950’s during President [sic] (correction-Senator) McCarthy’s term, a branch of the FBI was started which went under the name of  Counter Intelligence Programs, COINTELPRO, to control opposition groups like the Black Civil Rights Movement, the Puerto Rican Movement, Indigenous Americans organizations and such.  In  1967 COINTELPRO started to just focus on the Black organizations, which were labelled as ”Hate Groups”.  Though Taylor and Irungu never did anything illegal and never have been arrested, their views and what they did were seen as a threat against the USA anyway.  They ended up on COINTELPRO’s blacklist.  COINTELPRO was started in order to ”expose, disrupt, discredit or in another way neutralize Black nationalist activities, hate groups, their leaders, their  spokesmen, their  members” and supporters.”  

 

Taylor and Irungu were subjected to COINTELPRO’s systematic harassment, so-called ”Eavesdropping”.  The purpose of which is to get the victim to become as paranoid as possible, not necessarily to gather information which otherwise is common.  Taylor talks about harassment.

 

"They opened our mail, they followed us, bugged our telephone, they sent people to our workplaces.  The purpose, and this is in the FBI’s own language, is to get you to believe that 'there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox'.  It is psychological warfare."

 

 

When the harassment continued and finally became unbearable, Taylor and Irungu fled to Canada in the middle of the 1990’s to seek asylum.  But they received no help, not even the basic support that other refugees get.  They even were forced to pay for their own lawyer.  

 

The harassment did not stop even though they left the country.  The USA’s network exists nearly everywhere, and especially in Canada which stands close to the USA in many ways.  Taylor and Irungu tell about friends who didn’t dare to visit them in Canada because they had a criminal record and therefore risked becoming a target for the government’s harassment.  Eventually a letter came issued by the Canadian authorities.  The letter contained a rejection of their refugee claim.  They were told that they had 30 days to leave the country, and they were also forbidden to return to the USA even though they had American citizenship.  

 

"The message was: Get out here, you can’t go back to your own country.  But if you stay we will force you back to the States.  We became stateless, says Taylor."

 

Now Taylor and Irungu are trying to find out if  Canada has any  legal right to issue such a decision.  A difficult job, because they don’t get any legal aid, but have to finance their lawyers themselves.  They have repeatedly tried to back the Canadian authorities up against the wall, but they are met with total silence.  

 

Something that aggravates them both is the general view of the USA as being the perfect country to the public.  They think that many get annoyed at them and ignore them consciously because they have another picture of  ”the perfect democracy”.  After the 11th of September they have noticed a change in people’s attitudes towards the US.

 

"The whole Western world is so sickeningly pro USA!  No one dares to say anything negative about the USA."

 

Both Taylor and Irungu have been met by difficulties when they have tried to reach out with their message,  Taylor as a musician, Irungu as an author.  Not even the ”alternative” media wants to have anything to do with them.  There exists a taboo against criticizing the USA, something that has become more obvious since September 11th.

 

"For us it is blasphemy, a challenge.  Dare us!  It is our mission, we that have succeeded in taking this out of there, to tell how it is for many people in the USA, says Irungu.  Everything  that Europeans get to hear from the States is tailor-made, the CNN  you see and the Time (magazine) you read is not the same as CNN and Time in the USA."

 

Something that Taylor and Irungu are continually met by is the environment’s astonishment about their situation.  It seems impossible for many people to understand that it is actually possible to be a political refugee from the USA.  Taylor tells about the frustration of always being questioned.

 

"Can’t they just look at me and remember how my people came to the USA in the first place?  Don’t they remember the uprisings  in the 1970’s?  Demonstrations with police and dogs, those who were killed and put in jail?"

 

Taylor and Irungu don’t call themselves American, even though they are born and have lived most of their lives in the USA. 

 

"We have no say in matters, we get  no social welfare or healthcare.  When we travel we are not treated as Americans.  White Americans can move wherever they want and work wherever they want, when they pass through customs it’s ”welcome here and have a nice trip”.  Us they detain and ask 1,000’s of questions about everything, so don’t call us Americans as long as we are treated this way."

 

One of Taylor’s and Irungu’s biggest problems right now is money.  Money to get through the day, and to be able to be afford to travel when in about a month’s time they will be forced to leave Sweden and the Schengen area.  They have no possibility to work because they can’t get a residence permit, but even if they would succeed in getting a job they don’t think that they would be allowed to keep it for long.

 

"That’s the way it is being blacklisted.  All that the FBI or CIA has to do is to pick up the phone and call someone who will call your job and you’re out.  It has happened to me many times when I have booked performances, says Taylor.  Someone gets a telephone call and gets to know who I am, and then they pull the engagement."

 

It’s hard for Taylor or Irungu to have any actual future plans.  Both suffer from different stress-related illnesses because of the constant pressure.

 

"The most important thing that people can do is to take time to listen to what we have to say, says Irungu.  To be able to change society one must be conscious."

 

They want to urge people to help them and others in their situation, to see what is going on in the world.  Irungu ends with: 

 

"Of course we want to start a family and live a calm life like everyone else, but how can we do that when we don’t even have a country where we are allowed to live?"

 

 

Ylva Franklin