The Foreign Office advises “against all travel to Baghdad and its surrounding area” on the grounds that it is unsafe, but somehow the UK Borders Agency thinks it’s fine to forcibly take Iraqis who have sought refuge in this country on planes, fly them back there under heavy guard and dump them back on its streets, leaving them to fend for themselves having shoved a few dollar bills in their hands.
They flew 44 to the airport last, but the Iraqis refused to let most of them disembark. One who was put off there was interviewed by a reporter for the BBC, obviously in fear of his life, in hiding there. He’d only left Baghdad after his brother was murdered, convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity and that the real target for the attack had been him. Now he feared to meet his attempted killers on every street he walked.
It’s a sorry tale of a government determined to look tough over migration into this country, to appear to take a harder line than the Tories – or even the ultra-right. More about this shameful failure to meet our obligations under the UN Convention on the Treatment of Refugees and the EU on My London Diary.
Standing alongside the lawyers, the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and others at the emergency demonstration on Saturday was Brian Haw who has become a public hero for his continued peace protest in Parliament Square since June 2001 – over 8 years. It is a vigil that has taken its toll on him, but he still spoke strongly at the event.