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PRESS
RELEASE 9.6.2011
Campsfield
Hungerstrike Day 3: Hungerstrikers Issue a Statement
Today,
37 Iraqi and Afghan detainees on hunger strike in an
immigration prison issued a statement and appealed for
support from human rights groups. 23 Iraqi and 14
Afghan migrants in Campsfield House, Oxfordshire, have
been refusing food since Tuesday.
‘We are 23
Iraqi and 14 Afghan detainees being held at Campsfield
House. The British Government want to send us back to
Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not a safe place’.
According to media
reports and evidence collected by the International
Federation of Iraqi Refugees, many of those who have
been deported to Iraq in the past are now living in
hiding, in fear of the persecution they originally left
Iraq to flee. Some have been assassinated. Others
have committed suicide only days after being deported or
have been kidnapped and killed, while others have had
mental breakdowns. Many more have had to leave the
country and become refugees again.
‘The
British government invaded and occupied both Iraq and
Afghanistan, forcing millions of people to leave their
homes’ says Dashty Jamal, Secretary of the International
Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR) ‘With this policy of
detention and deportation, they are continuing to
destroy the lives of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan
people’.
In recent
weeks, many Iraqis have been detained apparently in
preparation for another mass deportation flight to
Baghdad. Across Europe, thousands of Iraqi and Afghan
people have been detained and forcibly returned in
recent years. IFIR has been campaigning against this
policy. IFIR demands that the Iraqi government stops
accepting people forcibly returned to Baghdad Airport
and that the Iraqi government compensates deportees,
providing them with work or unemployment benefit and
supports them to rebuild their lives in Iraq and
Kurdistan. The campaign has had widespread support both
inside Iraq and across Europe.
Tonight,
supporters of the protestors in Campsfield will hold a
demonstration outside the detention centre. In Iraqi
Kurdistan, permission for a similar demonstration was
refused today. Dashty Jamal says ‘When European
governments claim that Iraq is a free and democratic
country it is a lie. Today the Kurdistan Regional
Government denied permission for a demonstration against
their deportation policy. By not giving IFIR permission
to hold a peaceful demonstration, they have shown that
there is no freedom of expression, no democracy in
Iraq.’
Inside
Campsfield, all the Iraqi hunger strikers refused to
speak with a representative of the Iraqi government who
arrived to make preparations for the deportation. All
of them want to remain in Britain where they have family
and friends and have built their lives. They are
determined to have their demands met; ‘if we don’t get
these decisions for us as humans and for our safety we
will not eat until we die, rather than to be made to
return to these war torn countries’.
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Contact: 07856032991
E mail:
ifir@hotmail.co.uk
www.csdiraqi.com
www.federationifir.com
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Notes for Editors
1. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees
campaigns for the rights of Iraqi refugees and against
forcible deportations and detention. The Coalition to
Stop Deportations to Iraq campaigns against the forcible
deportation and detention of Iraqi refugees.
2. See www.csdiraq.com
or www.
federationifir.com for more information on previous
deportation flights
3. At least four million Iraqis have been forced to flee
either to another part of Iraq or abroad since the war
began in 2003
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