Justine McCarthy's excellent piece on Serbia's extremely brave Frontline Defenders (News, 30 November), reports that among the rules for self-protection in Serbia today are: "you must not look like a Roma, a Kosovar, a gay or lesbian, or a well-known human rights defender, all punishable by verbal or physical assault." The piece explains that the minister in charge of the police was one of Milosevic's senior apparatchiks, that there are increasing violent attacks on minorities, judges are compromised and though the rest of the world thinks all is well, the old guard continues.


The Department of Justice would seem to be among those who consider that all is well there, judging by their assessment of Serbian asylum cases here. A recent deportation order issued to an Ashkali (Roma) family who are, according to doctors, "very unwell" and "severely traumatised" from their past brutalisation there, face deportation from Ireland, though they have been here for almost five years. Approximately 1,000 local people in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, have signed a petition on their behalf to urge the minister for justice not to deport the family.


This is the real test of the new Immigration and Residency Bill currently being reviewed. If such extremely vulnerable asylum cases with clear protection needs are being deported to countries like Serbia which, as the Frontline piece outlines, remain highly dangerous, then I would suggest that any talk of proposed improvements to the asylum system in the new bill regarding its fairness or basic humanitarianism lacks credibility.


A far cry from "the breathtaking and magnificent visualisation of humanity" portrayed by President McAleese in her recent speech to the Irish Human Rights Commission to mark the 60th Anniverary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.


Valerie Hughes,


Annaly Road,


Cabra, Dublin 7.