Deportation news
Tamil asylum seekers deported from UK to Sri Lanka
Despite allegations that returned Tamil asylum seekers are being tortured upon arrival in Sri Lanka, the UK continues to schedule mass deportation flights. In December 2011, an article in the Guardian reported on a Sri Lankan national, holder of a UK student visa, who was tortured on a visit to Sri Lanka from the UK. This man was later granted asylum in the UK ‘on the strength of his evidence of torture’. More recently, a failed asylum seeker who was returned to Sri Lanka on 21 February 2012 claims he was arrested and assaulted by guards who kicked him on the legs while questioning him. On 25 February 2012, Human Rights Watch released a statement calling on the UK government to ‘suspend deportations of ethnic Tamil asylum seekers to Sri Lanka and immediately review its policies and information about the country’s rights situation used to assess their claims’. The statement notes that HRW has documented eight recent cases where people deported to Sri Lanka were abused upon arrival. Nonetheless, the UK Border Agency moved forward with a mass deportation flight of up to 100 individuals on 28 February 2012. At the time of writing, there were no media reports about the departure of the flight; however, after consulting with the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC), we were directed to Detention Action’s Twitter account, which stated ‘The #Srilanka flight did go after substantial delay and with some people.. taken off the plane as they got…last minute injunctions.’
Kurdish man ‘bound by neck and legs’ in attempted deportation from France
The following text is a translation of an article in French published on LaDepeche.fr, on 15 February 2012.
A 31-year-old Kurdish man was reportedly assaulted by border police last Saturday, as he was put on a plane in Toulouse airport, on a flight bound for Turkey. ‘With no papers, my client had already been brought twice to be sent back to his country of origin, but he refused to depart. On Saturday, however, policemen bound him by the neck and legs to prevent him from moving on the plane’, explains Me Saliha Sadek, the foreigner’s lawyer. She adds, ‘Due to the emotional reaction of the other passengers, the captain demanded that my client and his escort get off the plane.’ She wrote to the state prosecutor for an investigation to be opened to look into the ‘violence’ her client was subjected to, as well as to the Minister of Interior, asking that he re-examine her client’s administrative situation. The man, who was returned to the Cornebarrieu detention centre, was examined by a doctor on Monday, who confirmed a number of bruises and strangulation marks.
For Cimade, an association which supports foreigners, there was a ‘blunder’. ‘Normally, police are trained to restrain individuals without brutality. In practice, they very often use violence.’ Faced with these accusations, the border police did not wish to make a statement.
