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UK: Home Office Still Planning to Deport
More Kurds to Iraqi Kurdistan
17.1.2007 |
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January 17, 2007
Since Monday 8 January the Home Office has again
begun arresting rejected Iraqi Kurdish asylum
seekers in Manchester, Birmingham and Doncaster,
presumably with a view to forcibly removing them to
Kurdistan region (Northern Iraq). This is in the
week that UNHCR warned that Iraq cannot deal with
the number of displaced persons it already has[1],
that Tony Blair says Britain has to keep fighting
wars, and George Bush announces that he intends to
send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.
The Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq protests
in the strongest possible terms against these
arrests.
We have said before, and we repeat now, that Iraq,
including Kurdistan, is dangerous, and that it is
wrong to return people there. People who had
problems with the KDP or PUK or Islamist groups in
the past will still be at risk of the same problems
if they are sent back now – the KDP and PUK are
still in power, and the Islamists are still active.
The general security situation is not good[2], and
conditions for ordinary people are very difficult
even in Kurdistan – little electricity or oil for
heating or cooking, water shortages, inflation,
housing shortages, lack of decent jobs, restrictions
on freedom of speech etc. Frequent protests take
place against poor living conditions and the
corruption and incompetence of the authorities, and
the protests are often met with violence and mass
arrests.
Indeed the latest UNHCR report on Iraq recognises
that conditions in Kurdistan are problematic, it
lists some of these problems, and says that states
may therefore wish to extend humanitarian protection
to people who have not been found in need of
protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention[3].
CSDIraq is aware that people who were forcibly
returned last year have indeed suffered various
problems since their return, and some have had to
leave the area again. But the Home Office seems
determined to send people back and to ignore the
reality of conditions there. CSDIraq recently
received a reply to a letter in which we explained
why people should not be sent back. In their reply
the Home Office still does not accept that many
people were refused unfairly, or that conditions in
Northern Iraq are unsuitable for returns, and tries
to offload responsibility for what happens to people
who went back voluntarily onto the International
Organisation for Migration, the organisation the
Home Office uses to operate “voluntary returns” to
Kurdistan region (Northern Iraq).
We call on the Home Office to:
· recognise that Iraq is not safe, and that people
should not be returned there.
· to regularise the status of asylum seekers from
Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by
giving them leave to remain, and the right either to
work or to decent levels of benefits, in line with
the proposals made by the Joint Council for the
Welfare of Immigrants in their document “Recognising
Rights, Recognising Political Realities” published
on 13 July;
· explain why they apparently plan to return people
to Kurdistan even given the recent statements by
UNHCR both about refugee protection and Iraq’s
inability to deal with the IDPs it already has.
European Council for Refugees opposes forced and
mandatory returns
The European Council on Exiles and Refugees said in
its March 2006 report, “ECRE believes that the
current situation in Iraq is such that the mandatory
or forced return of Iraqis is unacceptable, and
recommends a continued ban on forced return to any
part of the country, including the Kurdish
Autonomous Region.”
No Deportations to Iraq!
For more information contact Sarah Parker on 0208
809 0633, email sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty
Jamal (International Federation of Iraqi Refugees)
on 0785 603 2991. Email: d.jamal@ntlworld.com.
Federation of Iraqi Refugees- Manchester, Burhan
Fatah: 07929010257. Office number: 0161
2342784.Email: burhanfatah@aol.com. Nottingham;Jasm
Ghafor; jasm_rg@yahoo.co.uk : See also our website
www.csdiraq.com
indymedia org.uk
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