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Late
on Saturday August 21, asylum-seeker Naseh Ghafor
ended a 46-day hunger strike begun in protest at
plans by Britain’s Home Office to deport him to
Iraq.
Ghafor, 20 years old, had sown his lips closed on
July 8 outside the Sheffield office of Home
Secretary David Blunkett and began refusing food.
His decision to end the protest came at the urging
of friends and supporters, in the face of the Home
Office making plain it was prepared to see Ghafor
die rather than grant any reprieve.
An Iraqi Kurd, Ghafor fled his country after his
father and brother were shot dead by the Saddam
Hussein regime as part of its reprisals in the
north. Ghafor’s mother and two sisters are also
missing, presumed dead.
He has argued that despite the removal of Saddam
Hussein, his life remains at risk if he is returned
to Iraq. This stand is supported by the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR),
which has requested a continued ban on forced
returns, including rejected asylum cases, to all
parts of the country. The UNCHR has stated that
continuing instability in Iraq means that all Iraqi
asylum-seekers should continue to be offered
temporary protection by governments in those
countries in which they currently reside.
Nearly three-quarters of those applying for asylum
in the UK are fleeing conflicts at home. People from
Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia make up
the largest number of claims—a further indication of
how the Blair government’s neo-colonial ambitions
are causing instability and suffering to ever-larger
numbers of people. The US-led invasion of Iraq has
only substituted new forms of oppression and
violence in place of that which it was supposedly
aimed at resolving. Human Rights Watch has
highlighted the fact that property disputes between
Kurds returning to northern Iraq and Arab settlers
is “potentially one of massive proportions” that
“could soon explode into open violence.”
The British government has rejected the UNCHR’s
recommendations, however, and in March Ghafor’s
final appeal against deportation was turned down.
Subsequently, Ghafor was evicted from his
accommodation and all financial assistance was
withdrawn, forcing him to sleep on the floor of a
friend’s flat.
Homeless and destitute, Ghafor begun his hunger
strike in a last-ditch attempt to highlight his case
and pressure the Home Office into a stay of
execution. In the last days of his protest, Ghafor
had become extremely weak and was told that he was
only days away from death.
But Blunkett insisted there would be no reprieve for
Ghafor, and accused those backing his fight against
deportation of being responsible for the young
Iraqi’s plight. In a letter to Sheffield Trades
Council, the home secretary accused Ghafor’s
supporters of being “dangerous and irresponsible”
and of encouraging those whose asylum claims have
been rejected “to believe that they can simply
overturn the process by self-mutilation.”
Turning reality on its head, Blunkett went on to
claim that those defending asylum-seekers against
deportation were acting “in a way which is clearly
against the interests of individual asylum-seekers”
and without “sufficient concern for Mr. Ghafor’s
health, wellbeing and safety.”
Having abandoned his protest, Ghafor was still too
ill to attend a press conference on his plight held
on Tuesday, August 24. Suffering from headaches and
stomach pains as a result of starvation, he is only
able to take small quantities of water and vitamins
at the moment. In a statement he explained that he
felt that he had no alternative but to take such
extreme action. “I preferred to die rather than stay
in the UK with no job, housing or income and face
deportation,” he wrote.
Ghafor has entered a new asylum application for
temporary humanitarian protection, in line with the
UNCHR’s recommendations, and has requested that he
be allowed to work whilst it is considered. “I
should not have special treatment,” he said.
“Everyone should have the right to work. The UN has
said no Iraqi should go back now.”
His appeal continues to fall on deaf ears, with the
Home Office reiterating its refusal to reconsider
Ghafor’s case.
In the last years the government has seized on the
issue of asylum as a political means of
demonstrating its right-wing credentials, whilst
scapegoating refugees for the social crisis that its
policies have produced. The lack of affordable
public housing, overburdened health and education
services, crime rates and general social disrepair
and neglect—all these are now routinely blamed on
asylum-seekers by the media.
This has the desired effect of diverting attention
from the real source of such social ills in Labour’s
pro-big business agenda, whilst providing a pretext
for the government’s efforts to further curtail the
right to asylum as part of a broader offensive
against democratic rights in general.
One such example is the plight of failed a
asylum-seeker, Dorcas, who fled the war in the
Democratic Republic of Congo in fear for her life,
following the murder of her husband.
Dorcas arrived in the UK in 2003 and applied for
asylum, but her claim was turned down in October and
her right to appeal was also rejected. In the
meantime her health deteriorated rapidly. Doctors
uncovered a large lump in her abdomen that was
causing her to bleed profusely and recommended a
hysterectomy, but under new rules introduced in
April Dorcas is classed as an “overstayer” or
“tourist” and must pay for any non-emergency
treatment in National Health Service hospitals. The
rules will also apply to General Practitoner
services from next month.
The hospital informed Dorcas that despite her
continuing pain, she was not a medical emergency as
they had been able to stem the bleeding and she
received a £700 bill for tests that had been carried
out to identify her problem. Without any means of
subsistence Dorcas was neither able to pay the bill,
nor fund the operation she requires. The Home Office
has said it intends to proceed with her removal. If
the forced journey does not kill her, then her
return to the DCR almost certainly will.
The imposition of such harsh conditions against
those seeking asylum—including forcible deportation
and detention—combined with ever-tougher border
controls that have made it virtually impossible for
refugees to enter the country legally, has led to a
significant drop in the numbers of asylum
applications. The Home Office’s rejection of
Ghafor’s latest appeal came at the same time that it
released data showing that the number of new asylum
applications had fallen by 13 percent in the second
quarter of 2004. True to form, the government
celebrated the figures as a “success” story.
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