Artists, authors and academics from overseas are regularly being refused permission to enter the UK under the government's points-based visa system, according to a dossier of cases to be presented to Downing Street tomorrow.

Writers have been prevented from attending their book launches, painters deported for carrying their own works and a Pakistani band banned from attending the World Pipe Band championship in Glasgow, according to the civil rights group, Manifesto Club.

A petition opposing the visa restrictions is to be handed into the prime minister's office tomorrow. It has been signed by prominent figures, such as the sculptor Antony Gormley, the director of the National theatre, Nicholas Hytner, the lawyer Lady Kennedy and the poet Blake Morrison, as well as 10,000 others.

An accompanying dossier, naming those turned away over the past year, records their anger and disappointment. "This is an account of talent stopped at our borders, which has left the country all the poorer," the petition says.