Rabar teacher’s award honour

FORMER BreezeHill School head teacher Bernard Phillips, Rabar Hamad, Bob Miller and Sally Hyman

AN Oldham teacher who has been fighting to stop Iraqi student Rabar Hamad from being deported has scooped a human rights award.

English teacher Sally Hyman, from Springhead, has been battling to keep the Kurdish youngster in the UK since July following an age dispute with Wigan Social Services.

The asylum-seeker, a student at the former Breeze Hill School, claims to be a teenager but social workers say he is an adult.

Now the Waterhead Academy teacher (51) has been honoured for her work at the annual Human Rights Awards by pressure group Liberty at London’s Southbank Centre.

She won the Human Rights Close to Home gong for her “valiant campaign in support of a secondary school pupil facing deportation to Iraq.”

Mrs Hyman collected the award from Saddleworth television presenter John Stapleton on behalf of herself and fellow campaigners Katie Miller, Bob Miller, Patricia Ross and Tracy Hynes.

She said: “The nomination was fabulous in itself, but we were absolutely floored to find out we had won.

“It’s an unseen nomination so, although we don’t know who nominated us, we would like to thank them.

“We travelled to London on Monday and were reminiscing about the last time we drove down to London which was in August to see Rabar who was being detained.

“He is still in the care of Wigan Social Services, but his case is ongoing and looking positive.”

Mrs Hyman said the award has given her a platform to carry on campaigning for the rights of child asylum seekers.

She said: “It’s not just Rabar, its other children detainees and asylums seekers who are wrongly assessed and are being locked up and shipped back to unsafe countries without the psychological assessment and support they need.

“I’m hugely surprised that Rabar’s case went national but Shami Chakrabati, the director of Liberty, said she had been aware of what we were doing while we were doing it. We will carry on campaigning.”