Medical Foundation makes headlines!
MF staff, clients and supporters have featured frequently in the media in recent weeks. Items have included:
A full page profile of the MF’s new Chief Executive Simon Carruth was published in the magazine Third Sector, which covers the work of charities.
Third Sector also published an interview with MF patron, the writer and broadcaster John McCarthy, who spoke about his commitment to our work, and his fundraising activities on our behalf. In the article, Debra Lillistone-Squires, head of major gifts in the MF’s fundraising department, speaks about the importance the MF places on the relationship.
MF Director of Clinical Services Alex Sklan is quoted at length in the Guardian newspaper outlining our objections to Government plans to reintroduce vouchers for food and essential travel and toiletries for asylum seekers whose claims have been unsuccessful, but who are unable to return to their country of origin.
MF Director of Fundraising Jasvir Kaur is profiled in the media section of the Guardian, talking about her work in obtaining funding for our activities.
In a Guardian front page article revealing a secret torture programme operated by British authorities during the early days of the cold war, the MF’s Director of Public Affairs Sherman Carroll calls on the Government to apologise, and compensate any survivors.
The Guardian also published a letter from Sherman Carroll pointing out the irony of the manner in which the Home Office loses track of convicted foreigners and fails to deport them, but prematurely removes torture survivors who have committed no crime.
MF advocacy officer David Rhys Jones is a signatory to a letter which appeared in the Guardian saying that "invidious racism lies not so far beneath the surface of the chorus of complaint that foreign nationals have been left free to offend again". The letter is signed by more than 70 human rights and immigration lawyers.
MF legal and policy officer (children) Syd Bolton is quoted in Community Care magazine voicing concern that children of asylum seekers whose claims have been unsuccessful will be taken into care if their parents are prosecuted for refusing to co-operate with the authorities in obtaining new travel or identity documents to facilitate their removal.
Syd Bolton is also quoted in Community Care magazine saying that proposals to introduce medical assessments when there is a dispute over the age of asylum-seeking young people would pose a series of ethical questions. He added that such assessments could breach a European directive on radiological intervention if they became compulsory.
The Daily Express newspaper, in a radical change from its usual treatment of the asylum issue, gave a two page spread to the MF’s Holiday Scheme, highlighting the generosity of a couple in Wales who have provided summer breaks for a number of our clients.
The BBC World Service carried an interview on Easter Sunday with an MF client, a Pentecostal minister from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who talked about how his faith sustained him under torture.
MF Press Officer Andrew Hogg was a guest on the London based satellite TV station the Islamic Channel, talking about the work of the MF, and the prevalence of torture in the world today. The channel covers Europe and North Africa.
Together with the MF’s Regional Development Manager, Emma Williams, Andrew Hogg also appeared as a guest on the Birmingham based satellite TV station the Legal Channel to talk about the MF’s work.
Andrew was also interviewed by the Russia-based English-language satellite TV channel Russia Today about the importance of the Guardian newspaper's revelations that a secret torture programme was operated by British authorities during the Cold War.
