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UK: Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers recount
enforced removal
7.9.2006 |
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London, September
7, -- Two of the thirty-two Iraqi Kurds who were
deported to
Kurdistan (northern Iraq) on a military plane
this week have given eye-witness accounts of their
enforced removal.
The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR)
has spoken to two of the deportees, who have said
they are 'angry, tired and stressed' after being
handed over to militia of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party on the runway at Erbil international airport
and being questioned for several hours.
They have described how, on the morning of 5
September 2006, Home Office security guards entered
the sleeping quarters at Colnbrook detention centre,
west London, and led thirty-two Iraqi Kurds,
barefoot and handcuffed, onto a coach.
The deportees were then transferred onto a military
plane at RAF Brize Norton and given flak jackets to
wear. |
Protestors outside the Home Office demand an end to
deportations to Kurdistan-Iraq
Photo:IRR |
While the flight was being readied for take-off,
protestors gathered outside the Home Office to
demand a halt to the flight. Sources inside
Colnbrook detention centre spoke to demonstrators by
telephone to report that at least one of those set
to be deported had attempted to harm himself the
evening before his deportation. It is thought that
one Iraqi Kurd, who had spent six months in a prison
in northern Iraq, before claiming asylum in Britain,
had cut himself severely.
Legal challenges
This week's enforced returns to Iraq are the first
that the Home Office has carried out since last
November, when an attempt to deport more than
seventy Iraqi Kurds ended with just twenty being
returned. On that occasion, the majority of
deportees made last-minute legal applications to
prevent their removal. The Home Office attempted to
avoid a repeat of last year's legal challenges by
issuing a letter to the duty high court judge, which
warned that it would ignore any last-ditch
applications for judicial review of individual
cases. It wrote that it was taking such steps
because of 'the complexities, practicalities and
costs involved in arranging' enforced returns to
Iraq.
In the event, five of the thirty-two who were to be
deported this week were able to obtain injunctions
from the high court to halt their removal. But their
places were taken by five others whom the Home
Office had placed on a 'stand-by' list.
Around fifty people protested outside the Home
Office against the deportations and called for the
release of detainees. The protest was organised by
IFIR and the Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq.
Dashty Jamal, co-ordinator of IFIR, said: 'The
British government wants to send asylum seekers back
to the most unsafe country in the world, a country
that is in the midst of civil war, occupation and
terrorism, and where the authorities shoot at
demonstrators. We will continue to campaign to stop
this dangerous policy.'
The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from
expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed
are therefore those of the authors.
irr org.uk
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