Attempted deportation to ‘safe’ Iraq
On 15 September, 60 Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers were taken from four detention centres in handcuffs, put into five coaches and driven to Stansted airport. Their mobile phones were confiscated to prevent them calling solicitors or friends. A German aircraft was waiting to take them to northern Iraq. One asylum seeker smashed a window of the plane, leading to violent beatings in retaliation. The flight was cancelled as a result; however the reprieve is certainly only temporary as the British government is desperate to effect successful deportations to northern Iraq to demonstrate that at least part of the country it has been ‘liberating’ for the past five years is ‘safe’. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and the Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq are demanding the release of all Iraqi asylum seekers, an immediate end to forcible deportation and a boycott of Royal Jordanian Airline and all other complicit companies. For more information contact: Dashty Jamal 07856 032 991; [email protected].
Criminalising Good Samaritans
On 17 March passengers on a British Airways flight to Lagos were appalled at the maltreatment of a Nigerian man being forcibly deported and made their views clear. BA employees called the police and 134 people were ordered off the flight. Passenger Ayodeji Omatode was dragged off by over 20 officers, thrown against a wall and then into a police van, arrested, held for eight hours and charged with threatening behaviour. BA banned him from flying with them, didn’t return his fare and only gave him his luggage back a week later – damaged.
The Respect Nigerians Coalition is calling on ‘all decent people everywhere’ to boycott BA. They picketed the BA AGM earlier this year and demonstrated outside the Harmondsworth HQ of the company on 17 September. More information at http://respectnigerians.com/
Good riddance to XL
In February 2007 the government contracted XL Airways UK to deport 40 asylum seekers, including 19 children, to DRCongo. Despite nationwide protests, XL went ahead with the deportation. So we are delighted to learn that XL has collapsed and is no longer flying anyone anywhere.
FRFI 205 October / November 2008
