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The British asylum system has been denounced by a commission as "marred by inhumanity" and hobbled by a "culture of disbelief."

The Independent Asylum Commission, tasked with examining the asylum system and reporting in its findings, blasted the U.K. asylum system as "not yet fit for purpose," reported the British newspaper The Independent in a March 27 article.

The report is the end result of a comprehensive review that finds the system "falls seriously below the standards to be expected of a humane and civilized society," with the interim report scheduled for delivery to the British Home Office by a group of individuals seeking asylum.

Its interim report will be delivered to the Home Office today by a delegation of asylum-seekers.

Calling the system "adversarial," the report details that there are several main areas of concern in need of correction. Foremost among them is the brutal treatment of individuals at the hands of enforcement officers, who are not government employees but rather are attached to private security concerns sub-contracted to deal with asylum seekers.

Detention centers also came in for criticism, as asylum seekers are often kept locked up for extended periods of time regardless of medical condition (torture victims and pregnant women, for example, are kept locked away) and the treatment of people in detention centers was denounced. Detainees are shuffled around among various facilities or even deported summarily; little or nothing is explained to the detainees.

Even in cases where asylum seekers are released or not locked up to begin with, the way that asylum seekers are left to descend into poverty was cited and criticized.

Another area of concern is the interview process, which the report says is rife with "a culture of disbelief" that causes "decision-makers" to gloss over the situations of authentic seekers of asylum such as torture victims or women who have endured sexual assault.

Said the report, "Some of those seeking sanctuary, particularly women, children and torture survivors, have additional vulnerabilities that are not being appropriately addressed," leading to their cases being denied despite legitimate claims.

The report says that, "Along with lack of access to legal advice for applicants this is leading to perverse and unjust decisions," reported The Independent.

The commission’s report pulls together testimony from several former home secretaries, as well as testimony from a large number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as police, citizens, and nearly 100 asylum seekers.

A group of independent academics also examined all published work on the issue from over the last half decade, reported The Independent.

The commission’s co-chair, Sir John Waite, was quoted in the article as saying, "The overuse of detention, the scale of destitution and the severity of removals are all areas which need attention before the system can be described as fit for purpose."

Suggesting that the system treats asylum seekers as though they were criminals, Sir Waite continued, "The justification for such a system is the fear of absconding, and that fear is, in our opinion, grossly exaggerated."

The commissioners echoed this, saying, "The detention of asylum-seekers is overused, oppressive and an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer."

Chris Huhne, spokesman for the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs committee, said, "The whole system is fundamentally a mess and broken, and this report makes a pretty good job of summarizing that," reported The Independent.

Huhne continued, "The asylum system combines incredible complexity with systematic incompetence, and thousands wait for a decision year after year."

The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Donna Covey, commented, "This is an important set of findings from an independent commission, which presents overwhelming evidence that the asylum system is still not fit for purpose."

Continued Covey, "It is surely now time for the Government to take a long hard look at the way it treats people seeking sanctuary on our shores."

Added Covey, "We must treat people with basic decency, and the system must get asylum decisions right--they are a matter of life and death."

Often, the phrase "life or death" is not an exaggeration in the case of asylum seekers, especially GLBT individuals looking for safety in a country other than their nation of origin.

As reported by the Associated Press in a Mar. 14 article , one such asylum seeker who looked to Britain for sanctuary had to leave the U.K. and go to the Netherlands for fear that he would be deported to Iran, where he would likely have faced execution for being gay.

19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi had left Iran to study in England. While in the U.K. Kazema learned that his boyfriend had been arrested and killed by police in Iran.

Said Ben Summerskill, of the British GLBT equality group Stonewall, "There are overwhelming reasons why people should not be deported to Iran in the current circumstances, and it is important that Britain is seen as a safe haven."

The Independent article quoted a 25-year-old asylum seeker named Yeukai Taruvinga, a refugee from Zimbabwe who looked for safety in the U.K. after her support for the political party Movement for Democratic Change led to her being persecuted.

The young woman’s story typified many of the aspects of the system that came in for the harshest criticism in the commission’s report.

Related Taruvinga, "I was expecting to receive sanctuary, but when I came to the U.K. it was a completely different scenario [than I had expected]. I found the treatment of asylum-seekers was very brutal and inhumane," The Independent quoted her as saying.

Continued Taruvinga, "I was detained several times without committing any crime--just because I was an asylum-seeker."

Said Taruvinga, "My treatment by officers was very rough, and in one center I was put into a cell with no windows and a dirty bed."

Added Taruvinga, "If you needed help there was no way of calling because the reception was so far away. All we could do was bang on the door."

Like many detainees, Taruvinga was shuffled, seemingly at random, between different detention facilities.

Said Taruvinga, "It was very traumatic and they never explained why they were moving me."

Added Taruvinga, "I kept thinking they were about to take me back to Zimbabwe."

Taruvinga was released three years ago, but her release amounted to essentially being thorn out into the street, where she was reduced to begging at churches in order to survive. reported The Independent.

American practices have come under similar criticisms from watchdog organizations, especially in relation to GLBT asylum seekers. An article from 2006 published by new American Media likened the process for GLBT asylum seekers to "Russian roulette," especially in light of the fact that American law does not provide any protections for gay or lesbian couples, unlike the protections extended to married heterosexual couples seeking asylum in the U.S.

Reported the New American Media article, a married spouse can see his wife or her husband granted asylum status in America because of a "derivative" extension of one partner’s approval to remain in the country.

Gay and lesbian couples, however, must go through the process separately, their cases determined independent of one another’s.