16/3/2010 PRESS RELEASE More than Fifty people detained for mass deportation to northern Iraq More than fifty men from northern Iraq have been given deportation tickets telling them they will be removed to Erbil in the Kurdistan Regional Government controlled area in northern Iraq. The 50 are currently being held in immigration prisons in Heathrow, Gatwick and Doncaster. They told the detainees that they will be removed at 6pm tomorrow morning (17 March). The tickets state that they will be: ‘removed no sooner than 7 days and no later than 22 days from the date of this notice’. Serhan Omer who is currently being held in Tinsley House with 23 other Iraqi detainees said ‘this is the second time I have been removed to Iraq. I was deported on the 17/12/09 but was returned the same day with 12 others. I have been a resident in the UK for 5 years. If I am returned my life will be in danger, it feels like I am being given a death sentence tomorrow.’ Fwad Ali Moulod Salih currently held in Colnbrook with 15 other Iraqi detainees said ‘I have been living for 10 years in the UK without any criminal record. I make a special appeal to all freedom loving people in the UK to support my claim to remain in the UK, which I now think of as home. Dashty Jamal of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees says: ‘It is a shame that even following the recent corrupt election held on the 7 March. That the UK Government still insists on trying to convince the British people that Iraq is safe, and that the war has brought democracy and security to Iraq. All the parties that stood in the 7 March election representing tribal, militia and nationalist parties do not have in their agenda any democracy or human rights. In the mean time Iraq continues to descend into sectarian violence and a cycle of killing. We are asking people to protest against these policies’ (Ends) Contact: ifir@hotmail.co.uk, www.federationifir.com www.csdiraq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for editors 1. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees campaigns for the rights of Iraqi refugees and against forcible deportations and detention. It is a member of the Coalitions to Stop Deportations to Iraq (www.csdiraq.com) 2. According to Home Office figures, 632 people were forcibly deported to the KRG region in the north between 2005 and 2008. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees estimates that the figure, with monthly mass deportations of 50 people at a time since the beginning of 2009, currently stands at over 1000. 3. Many of those deported had fled the KRG authorities, to whose mercy they are being sent back. At least three people have committed suicide, while others have been killed in car bombs and kidnapped, since being deported. Many others live in hiding. Last month, a report by Amnesty International revealed "a pattern of abuses" committed by KRG security forces. A 2007 report by Human Rights Watch similarly revealed that KRG security forces "routinely torture and deny basic due-process rights to detainees." The Amnesty International report, 'Hope and Fear', is available at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18152. The Human Rights Watch report, 'Caught in the Whirlwind', is available at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/07/02/caught-whirlwind-0. 4. As the government seeks to increase the number and frequency of deportations, it has started to increasingly use specially chartered flights to deport as many as 80 people at a time. In 2008 alone, there were 66 such flights, deporting a total of 1,529 people. 5. The flight will be the first to Iraq since the 14th October, when ten people were deported to Baghdad and the thirty-three others on the plane were sent back by Iraqi authorities. See www.csdiraq.com for more information 6. Mass deportation flights further limit refugees’ access to due legal process. The UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance states that: "charter flights may be subject to different arrangements where it is considered appropriate because of the complexities, practicalities and costs of arranging an operation." Deportees and their representatives are not even told the date of the flight. On the day of the flight, they are woken up early in the morning and forced to switch off their phones so they are unable to instruct their solicitors to submit last-minute appeals. More details can be found in the Stop Deportation network briefing: http://stopdeportation.net/node/1 7. To operate a mass deportation flight, the Home Office contracts a range of private companies. Airlines that are known to have been used include Hamburg International and Czech Airlines. Bus companies to drive people from detention to the airport have included WH Tours and Woodcock coaches. Private security companies used to escort deportees include Group 4 Securicor and SERCO. 8. Standard practice on mass deportation flights, confirmed by people who have been deported, is for each deportee to be shadowed by at least two security guards, handcuffed and forced onto the plane under the threat of violence. Any disobedience or attempt to resist has been met with disproportionate force to 'restrain' the deportees. A mass deportation flight to Iraqi Kurdistan in September 2008 saw deportees who tried to leave the plane beaten by the security guards, with one man's head hit against a window of the plane smashing it. The flight was cancelled. 9. For more details on previous mass deportations to the KRG, see: http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=5&limit ... http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=1 http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3208 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/30/immigrationpolicy.immigra ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/asylum-seekers-kurds 10. There have been two blockades of mass deportation flights to the KRG, On 19th October 2009 six protestors were found not guilty of blockading a mass deportation flight to Iraqi Kurdistan in May 2009. Details at: http://stopdeportation.net/node/12 http://stopdeportation.net/node/16 http://stopdeportation.net/node/28