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Written by Jelena
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Thursday, 26 November 2009 14:10 |
Right-wing hysteria about immigration kills people. That’s right, it kills people. Consider this: the UK has a group of Iraqi asylum seekers who left the country to escape the bombing by al-Qaeda and our own military invasion. But under pressure from the right-wing hysteria about immigration, the Home Office actually tried to deport them back on grounds that Iraq was now safe to live in. Unbelievable. The plane landed in Baghdad airport but was told to go back by the Iraqi military who did not want any refugees and said the place was too dangerous and could not guarantee those people’s safety. The plane returned and the Iraqi refugees were promptly put in prison where they remain now. And yet there are people in this country who call it ’soft touch immigration’. That’s Compassionate Conservatism for you.
I got this press release:
Iraqi refugees locked up in Brook House and Colnbrook detention centres have been on hunger strike since Monday 19th October, to protest against their inhumane treatment and demand their immediate release. The hunger strikers include some of those who were forcibly deported to Baghdad in the first mass deportation to southern Iraq last week but were returned to the UK after the Iraqi authorities refused to accept them. Others have just been given their “removal directions” to Iraqi Kurdistan (northern Iraq) and
could be deported any time.
In a statement, the hunger strikers explained: “We have been in detention centres for months and years and our cases have not been handled professionally. We are all locked up in detention, which is exactly like a prison, but most of us have never committed any crime whatsoever. We are going on hunger strike until they release us. Most of us are being falsely removed to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, which are clearly war zones. Most of us have families in the UK. What are we supposed to do? Leave them
behind or take them with us right into the middle of a war zone to be killed?”
Many human rights organisations and NGOs, including Amnesty International and the UNHCR have strongly criticised the UK and other European governments for deporting people to a war zone like Iraq, as this clearly puts their lives in danger. Many more campaign groups, refugee organisations and MPs have condemned the government’s cynical move, but the Home Office is not listening!
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Right-wing hysteria about immigration kills people. That’s right, it kills people. Consider this: the UK has a group of Iraqi asylum seekers who left the country to escape the bombing by al-Qaeda and our own military invasion. But under pressure from the right-wing hysteria about immigration, the Home Office actually tried to deport them back on grounds that Iraq was now safe to live in. Unbelievable.