\n<\/p>\n
An asylum seeker staying at a hotel that has been the flashpoint for anti-migrant protests has described being called a \u201cscumbag\u201d and treated like a criminal by local people.<\/p>\n
Dozens of residents of Epping\u2019s Bell hotel face an uncertain future after a court ruled on Tuesday that it cannot be used to house asylum seekers because of a breach of planning rules.<\/p>\n
The verdict came after weeks of violent protests outside the hotel by far-right activists sparked when an asylum seeker resident was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.<\/p>\n
Khador Mohamed, 24, from Somalia, says residents were locked in their rooms during the protests. When they are allowed to venture outside they are insulted, he says. \u201cPeople call you scumbags sometimes and they throw cans of soda at you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting this in England. I thought it would be friendlier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mohamed says local attitudes changed sharply after the charge against the resident. \u201cNow we\u2019re seen as criminals. Before that we were just normal people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The Bell hotel in Essex. Drivers have been passing by honking their horns since the court ruled that residents must move somewhere else.<\/span> Photograph: Jack Taylor\/The Guardian<\/p>\n He claims one woman shielded her children behind her when she saw Mohamed on the street. \u201cIt was a painful thing to happen to me \u2013 now we\u2019re seen as rapist, paedophiles and thieves,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cI am sorry for what happened, but there is nothing much I can do. We are not all the same.\u201d<\/p>\n On the road outside the hotel on Wednesday many drivers sounded their horns in apparent celebration at the court\u2019s decision. One unfurled a union jack from a black Audi as he passed. The driver of one van leaned out the window to shout: \u201cShoot the lot of \u2019em\u201d. The driver of a meat company van shouted: \u201cGoodbye, goodbye\u201d and \u201cWe pay our taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n Mohamed says he arrived in England earlier this year in a small boat carrying 60 people after he paid \u20ac1,000 (\u00a3865) to people smugglers.<\/p>\n He says: \u201cThe only offence I committed was coming to this country illegally. I had to do it. I had no any other option but I\u2019ve not done any other crime.\u201d<\/p>\n He says he understood why people were angry at asylum seekers being put up in hotels. \u201cI don\u2019t need a free house, or free food. I just need my asylum application to be accepted. Then I can work on my own and I can earn my own food and my rent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mohamed, who worked in Somalia as a tuktuk driver and in Austria as a dishwasher, says: \u201cI\u2019ll do anything to earn money, even if it\u2019s cleaning toilets, I don\u2019t mind. I don\u2019t have the luxury to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnything, as long as British people are not mad at me sitting in hotel getting stuff for free. That\u2019s a reasonable thing to get mad about.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bell hotel\u2019s owner, Somani Hotels Ltd, has until 12 September to comply with Tuesday\u2019s court decision. The ruling has thrown the government\u2019s asylum policy into chaos as other councils seek similar injunctions to stop hotels in their areas being used to accommodate those waiting for asylum applications to be processed.<\/p>\n It potentially leaves about 30,000 asylum seekers currently housed in hotels in limbo. Those at the sharp end of the crisis, the residents of the Bell hotel, do not know where they will be staying in the coming days.<\/p>\n Mohamed says: \u201cThey just keep us in the dark. And if you ask them what\u2019s going to happen they just ignore you.\u201d<\/p>\n Yonas (not his real name), a 29-year-old from Eritrea, says: \u201cWe have no information from the hotel. Nobody has said anything. I\u2019m new here. I\u2019ve been here two weeks and I don\u2019t know anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Yonas says he arrived in England by a small boat from France after paying smugglers \u20ac1,700.<\/p>\n Speaking beside a mini-roundabout that had been painted with a cross of St George, Yonas says: \u201cBritain is a democracy. That is why I come to ask to be a refugee. But there\u2019s no freedom here in the UK. It\u2019s like jail. I don\u2019t have anything here.\u201d<\/p>\n Yonas says he could work as a mechanic or driver and had served in the army in Eritrea. \u201cI would like to work but I don\u2019t have documents,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The remnants of previous protests remain scattered outside the hotel. They include a Reform UK sticker stuck to a \u201cno parking\u201d sign, and an \u201cEpping says no, the hotel must go\u201d flyer; and a discarded placard saying \u201cChildren\u2019s Lives Matter\u201d.<\/p>\n Broxbourne council was among those to announce it would be mounting a legal challenge against the housing of asylum seekers in a hotel in its area. On Wednesday the sign for the Delta Marriott hotel in the Hertfordshire town had been obscured by a white covering. For the last three Fridays anti-migrant protesters have gathered there, angry about having asylum seekers accommodated on their doorstep.<\/p>\n The hotel is one of six across Hertfordshire used to accommodate asylum seekers and is used to house families with children. Some could be seen nervously leaving the hotel with their children riding bikes or scooters.<\/p>\n \u201cOur children were terrified when the protesters came every Friday,\u201d says one father. \u201cWe kept them away from the windows. We have heard that the council want to close this hotel but nobody has told us where we will go. Will the Home Office put us in the street?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike other asylum seekers we did not leave our country willingly \u2013 we had a nice house and a good business there. We only left because our lives were in danger.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Home Office could solve this by allowing us to work while we are waiting for our claims to be processed then we could provide our own accommodation and buy our own food. We know the UK is a civilised country but we have seen racism here. Racism is killing the world. We are here for peace.\u201d<\/p>\n One man who has lived in the hotel for more than two years says: \u201cThis is my only home. Our bedrooms are on the ground floor and sometimes the protesters come up to our windows and film us. I have filmed them too as evidence of what they are doing to us. How would an English person feel if someone came into their home and filmed them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An asylum seeker staying at a hotel that has been the flashpoint for anti-migrant protests has described being called a \u201cscumbag\u201d and treated like a criminal by local people. Dozens of residents of Epping\u2019s Bell hotel face an uncertain future after a court ruled on Tuesday that it cannot be used to house asylum seekers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[2917,160,8506,9428,4986,5360,2081,10148,571,5309],"class_list":{"0":"post-16924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-asylum","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-criminals","11":"tag-epping","12":"tag-facing","13":"tag-hotel","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-limbo","16":"tag-ruling","17":"tag-seekers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}