Here’s how you can support the campaign to stop the deportation of Osime Brown

Osime Brown's mother holds a framed photo of her son


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Osime Brown – a Black 21-year-old autistic man with learning disabilities – is facing deportation from his home in Britain to Jamaica. He was imprisoned in 2018 under the joint enterprise act for the theft of a mobile phone, and lost his leave to remain. The Home Office now intends to deport Brown from his home in Britain to Jamaica, a country he left when he was four years old.

Throughout his tumultuous life, Brown has been systematically failed by the services that were supposed to protect him – the education, health and social care, and criminal justice systems. Brown has a learning disability, has high support needs, and now suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his distress. Regarding the Home Office’s plan to deport her son to Jamaica, Brown’s mother said:

He doesn’t have anybody there. He hasn’t been back to Jamaica, he doesn’t know Jamaica. When he found out the Home Office wanted to remove him he said: “Mum, is there a bus that I can come back on?” His removal would be a death sentence.

She told the Independent:

He wouldn’t cope. If he can’t even cope here, how is he going to cope in a environment and a culture he doesn’t know? He would be exploited because of his vulnerability.

34 MPs have signed a letter calling on home secretary Priti Patel to halt the planned deportation of Brown, saying:

If Osime is deported, it is our and his mother’s belief that he will die.

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#StopTheDeportation

Brown’s family have taken to social media to call for a twitterstorm at 7pm on 25 February to raise awareness about his case and stop the planned deportation:

They have shared a useful thread on how people can get involved in the online campaign:

They encourage those taking part to tag the official @FreeOsimeBrown page and to use hashtags to ensure the campaign is impactful:

Who will be joining?

Emma Taylor shared some information about Brown’s case and how to get involved in the twitterstorm:

One Twitter user has shared a reminder for those taking part in the twitterstorm to tag their MPs to make sure the word gets out:

Another user has shared graphics that people can use to draw attention to the cause:

Bill Ward shared a helpful reminder that users can schedule tweets using sites such as Tweetdeck:

How else can I help?

As Aimee-Nicole has highlighted, people can sign the petition to halt the deportation:

Another Twitter user has shared the template people can use to write to the Home Office and their MP, calling on them to end the injustice:

Supporters can also donate to the campaign fundraiser.

However we choose to support the campaign, we must use our collective voice to demand justice for Brown and send a loud, clear message that we do not accept the Home Office’s plans to put a vulnerable young man into an extremely dangerous situation.

Featured image via @FreeOsimeBrown/Twitter

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  • Show Comments

    1. The only books in the household I grew up in were military- and WWII-themed part-works my adoptive dad bought and read every night. I don’t know what would have been going through his mind, because these days, even pushing 80, he seems only a hair away from being some kind of neo-Nazi, and most people I meet seem quite gleeful about the Hostile Environment policies, as if they aren’t enacted purely to court them. What exactly is it that people wear a poppy for?

      We have seen some ugly shit in recent years, but this is one of the worst, most shameful, warped and morally repugnant things I’ve heard about.

      I’ve sent the template emails to my local MP and Patel for what it’s worth. There are no Tory signatures though doesn’t one of them have an autistic son? But it just feels awful to be still implicitly tolerating all this. Isn’t there a relative who can hide him until the decision is overturned? These deportation flights, is there no scope for direct action? I am increasingly glad I’m not a taxpayer funding this and would leave this shithole tonight if I could.

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    3. In my town there is a petty criminal with over a dozen convictions who at his last trial had a doctor claim that he has Asperger Syndrome. When the local paper’s website stated this detail I felt sure the reporter or editor had included this to make the reader scoff, “Pull the other one…” Having been a neighbour of the criminal I know his behaviour is malicious and structured in ways at odds with what most of us are acquainted with regarding autistic specrum conditions. I’d say he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as a result most like of some form of child abuse, and the compatible evidence of his partner’s Stockholm Syndrome remains public due to the coverage of his crimes. Nevertheless, Asperger Syndrome was what was recorded by the legal system and what decided his sentence, one altogether different from Osime Brown’s. This latest sentence was cut twice despite that conviction being for a particularly unhinged and dangerous offence. Being acquainted with the police myself as a victim of crime and observing their almost laughable machinations for long enough I know that their game is to leave people like him free to create an oppressive air. Things like the County Lines situation are allowed to continue – token arrests are made and then the activities go on in broad daylight, often within two hundred feet of ‘police officers’. Racial profiling is done as much to provide arousal for racist passers-by as it is a cultural failing of the individual officers. The practice remains in place despite more than ample exposure because it is part of a feedback loop for the benefit of pleasing those who love and want the Hostile Environment. Punishing my former neighbour properly, cutting off the sense of impunity he has ended up with, would be no good to the police, the architects of their systemic corruption and their agenda.

      Needless to say I am talking about a youngish ‘white English’ man, who is practically an agent, an incontinent agent doing our masters’ bidding in his incontinent fashion. The would-be authorities make what kind of example of people that they choose, according to the aspect of their agenda that suits in the moment. Serving the public according to the wishes we have when we agree to provide the funding, and treating individuals with respect, whether people like Osime or like myself, is of absolutely no interest to the police, the legal system and the Home Office.

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