Rethink policy of deporting failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers
Ambrose Musiyiwa | 27.06.2005 22:11 | Migration | Repression | Social Struggles | World
Officials in the Zimbabwe government have publicly said Britain is training spies, mercenaries and agents to destabilise the country and is sending them into Zimbabwe under the guise of returning failed asylum seekers.
On arrival the deportees are invariably met by Mugabe’s secret police, detained, tortured and interrogated. Some of the deportees have not been heard of since. Their families, both in Zimbabwe and in Britain, report that the last they heard of them was that they had been picked up by the secret police.
On arrival the deportees are invariably met by Mugabe’s secret police, detained, tortured and interrogated. Some of the deportees have not been heard of since. Their families, both in Zimbabwe and in Britain, report that the last they heard of them was that they had been picked up by the secret police.
Rethink policy of deporting failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers
By Ambrose Musiyiwa
The Home Office should reconsider its policy of returning failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. British people should lend their voices to calls on the Home Office to reconsider its position on failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers and write, call, email, fax their MPs and the Home Secretary asking them to urge the Home Office to suspend deportations until normality returns to Zimbabwe and people can live in safety and freedom in that country.
This past week has seen a rise in intensity of the voices calling on the British government to reconsider its policy of deporting failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers.
These voices include the asylum seekers themselves; Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs; Zimbabwean human rights activists and opposition party leaders; British and international non-governmental organisations; as well as British and international religious leaders.
The 100 failed asylum seekers who are on hunger strike at Harmondsworth Detention Centre at Heathrow; Yarlswood, in Bedfordshire; and Dover feel the Home Office is throwing them right back into the lion’s den from which they thought they had fled when they came to Britain. They dread falling back into the hands of Mugabe’s secret police and its Gestapo interrogation and torture tactics. For those who will survive these with their lives and sanity still intact, there is the added despair of state-imposed homelessness to deal with.
Over the past four weeks alone, the Zimbabwe government has killed three children; made between 200 000 and 1.5 million people homeless when it razed their homes to the ground; destroyed over 100 000 businesses and has arbitrarily arrested over 30 000 innocent people.
These recent attacks have been targeted at Zimbabwe’s urban population and are a calculated punishment for that population’s continued support of the opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Reports coming from Zimbabwe suggest that this is only the beginning. Worse abuses are on the way.
Despite being aware of the on-going, brutal, state-sponsored oppression and violence and the accompanying beatings, torture, political killings, forced evictions and arbitrary arrests that the Zimbabwean population is being subjected to, the British Home Office says it is safe to send people back to Zimbabwe.
In the first three months of 2005, 95 Zimbabweans were forcibly removed from Britain and there are plans to return a further 116, to Zimbabwe.
Immigration Minister, Tony McNulty says: “Since returns were resumed to Zimbabwe last November, we have received no substantiated reports of abuse of any person returned to the country.”
However, officials in the Zimbabwe government have publicly said Britain is training spies, mercenaries and agents to destabilise the country and is sending them into Zimbabwe under the guise of returning failed asylum seekers.
On arrival the deportees are invariably met by Mugabe’s secret police, detained, tortured and interrogated. Some of the deportees have not been heard of since. Their families, both in Zimbabwe and in Britain, report that the last they heard of them was that they had been picked up by the secret police.
Archbishop Pius Ncube, winner of the 2005 Burns Humanitarian Award (Scotland’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize), and a long-standing critic of Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, says it is not safe to return asylum seekers to Zimbabwe.
He says: “People who were asylum seekers in Britain and are returned have been detained by the police in Zimbabwe, some being tortured and forced to confess that they were in anti-government activities.”
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition party lawmakers and non-governmental and human rights organisations operating in Zimbabwe, have said it is not safe to return failed asylum seekers.
The US Department of State spokesman, Adam Ereli has talked of the “tragedy, crime, horror” and obscenity of what the Zimbabwean government is perpetrating against its own people while the head of the European Union, Jose Manuel Barroso says the situation is causing very “grave concern”.
Baroness Williams of Crosby, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, has gone further and accused the British government of acting illegally in breach of the UN Convention on Refugees.
She says: “It is clearly not safe for people with any record of political party activity to go back to Zimbabwe.”
Labour MP, Kate Hoey, who secretly visited Zimbabwe recently, emphasises that anyone who has a slightest involvement with any kind of opposition politics is in real danger.
“There should be an immediate stop on all removals until we have got to the bottom of some of the cases in a lot more detail but also until we see a changed situation in Zimbabwe,” Hoey says.
The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, is aware of the brutality of the Zimbabwe government.
“Over the past three weeks, the Mugabe regime has launched a brutal crackdown on some of the most vulnerable Zimbabweans,” he says. “There are also reports of children being detained in prison and separated from their parents.”
In light of the above, the Home Office should reconsider its policy of returning failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. British people should lend their voices to calls on the Home Office to reconsider its position on failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers and write, call, email, fax their MPs and the Home Secretary asking them to urge the Home Office to suspend deportations until normality returns to Zimbabwe and people can live in safety and freedom in that country.
end
By Ambrose Musiyiwa
The Home Office should reconsider its policy of returning failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. British people should lend their voices to calls on the Home Office to reconsider its position on failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers and write, call, email, fax their MPs and the Home Secretary asking them to urge the Home Office to suspend deportations until normality returns to Zimbabwe and people can live in safety and freedom in that country.
This past week has seen a rise in intensity of the voices calling on the British government to reconsider its policy of deporting failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers.
These voices include the asylum seekers themselves; Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs; Zimbabwean human rights activists and opposition party leaders; British and international non-governmental organisations; as well as British and international religious leaders.
The 100 failed asylum seekers who are on hunger strike at Harmondsworth Detention Centre at Heathrow; Yarlswood, in Bedfordshire; and Dover feel the Home Office is throwing them right back into the lion’s den from which they thought they had fled when they came to Britain. They dread falling back into the hands of Mugabe’s secret police and its Gestapo interrogation and torture tactics. For those who will survive these with their lives and sanity still intact, there is the added despair of state-imposed homelessness to deal with.
Over the past four weeks alone, the Zimbabwe government has killed three children; made between 200 000 and 1.5 million people homeless when it razed their homes to the ground; destroyed over 100 000 businesses and has arbitrarily arrested over 30 000 innocent people.
These recent attacks have been targeted at Zimbabwe’s urban population and are a calculated punishment for that population’s continued support of the opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Reports coming from Zimbabwe suggest that this is only the beginning. Worse abuses are on the way.
Despite being aware of the on-going, brutal, state-sponsored oppression and violence and the accompanying beatings, torture, political killings, forced evictions and arbitrary arrests that the Zimbabwean population is being subjected to, the British Home Office says it is safe to send people back to Zimbabwe.
In the first three months of 2005, 95 Zimbabweans were forcibly removed from Britain and there are plans to return a further 116, to Zimbabwe.
Immigration Minister, Tony McNulty says: “Since returns were resumed to Zimbabwe last November, we have received no substantiated reports of abuse of any person returned to the country.”
However, officials in the Zimbabwe government have publicly said Britain is training spies, mercenaries and agents to destabilise the country and is sending them into Zimbabwe under the guise of returning failed asylum seekers.
On arrival the deportees are invariably met by Mugabe’s secret police, detained, tortured and interrogated. Some of the deportees have not been heard of since. Their families, both in Zimbabwe and in Britain, report that the last they heard of them was that they had been picked up by the secret police.
Archbishop Pius Ncube, winner of the 2005 Burns Humanitarian Award (Scotland’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize), and a long-standing critic of Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, says it is not safe to return asylum seekers to Zimbabwe.
He says: “People who were asylum seekers in Britain and are returned have been detained by the police in Zimbabwe, some being tortured and forced to confess that they were in anti-government activities.”
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition party lawmakers and non-governmental and human rights organisations operating in Zimbabwe, have said it is not safe to return failed asylum seekers.
The US Department of State spokesman, Adam Ereli has talked of the “tragedy, crime, horror” and obscenity of what the Zimbabwean government is perpetrating against its own people while the head of the European Union, Jose Manuel Barroso says the situation is causing very “grave concern”.
Baroness Williams of Crosby, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, has gone further and accused the British government of acting illegally in breach of the UN Convention on Refugees.
She says: “It is clearly not safe for people with any record of political party activity to go back to Zimbabwe.”
Labour MP, Kate Hoey, who secretly visited Zimbabwe recently, emphasises that anyone who has a slightest involvement with any kind of opposition politics is in real danger.
“There should be an immediate stop on all removals until we have got to the bottom of some of the cases in a lot more detail but also until we see a changed situation in Zimbabwe,” Hoey says.
The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, is aware of the brutality of the Zimbabwe government.
“Over the past three weeks, the Mugabe regime has launched a brutal crackdown on some of the most vulnerable Zimbabweans,” he says. “There are also reports of children being detained in prison and separated from their parents.”
In light of the above, the Home Office should reconsider its policy of returning failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. British people should lend their voices to calls on the Home Office to reconsider its position on failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers and write, call, email, fax their MPs and the Home Secretary asking them to urge the Home Office to suspend deportations until normality returns to Zimbabwe and people can live in safety and freedom in that country.
end
Ambrose Musiyiwa
