Iraqi asylum seekers given deadline to go home or face destitution in UK
Since last Sunday more than 78 Iraqis have been killed in incidents across the country and yet the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has decided that Iraq is safe enough for her to order that all Iraqi asylum seekers in Britain should be ordered to go home... only after they sign a special waiver that exonerates the British government from any responsibility for what happens to them when they get there.
So, unless they agree to return to a war zone all of their benefits will be stopped and they will be kicked out of whatever council housing they have been put up in since they arrived here.The United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said its policy was that returns of asylum seekers to central and southern Iraq and for some categories to the north of the country were not advisable because of the continuing conflict.
The Refugee Council said the decision disclosed by the Guardian was a shocking example of the government's policy of using destitution to starve people into leaving the country.
Although the government has repeatedly tried to return failed asylum seekers to northern Iraq since 2005 with special charter flights to Arbil, it has never regarded the routes from Britain to Baghdad or Basra, as safe enough to return anyone to central or southern Iraq.
The letter from the Borders and Immigration Agency's (BIA) case resolution directorate makes clear that the home secretary now considers that travel to Iraq from the United Kingdom is "both possible and reasonable". It continues: "Therefore these Iraqi nationals no longer qualify for support under this criterion."
I've an idea. As it is so safe to live in southern and central Iraq, why doesn't Jacqui Smith prove this by living in Baghdad, outside the Green zone, for a month to show these asylum seekers that their fears are unreasonable? I'm sure this would work wonders to allay their fears.
And we won't even make Jacqui sign a declaration that states, "I acknowledge that the IOM has no responsibility for me and my dependents once I return to Iraqi territory and I hereby release IOM from any liability in this respect." No, no, the British government will accept full responsibility for Jacqui and will pay for any funeral costs and compensation should anything ill befall her in this newly created peaceful haven known as Baghdad.
I would understand her reluctance to take this offer up, as the stories of previous asylum seekers returned to Iraq are certainly not trust inducing:
I know the government are keen to present Iraq as a success story but sending asylum seekers back to a war zone really is ludicrous. Sometimes I remind myself that these actions are being carried out by a Labour government and hang my head in shame.One Iraqi refugee, Solyman Rashed, who agreed after 15 months in a UK detention centre to voluntarily return to northern Iraq, was killed in a car attack in the city of Kirkuk.
Another refugee, Burhan Namiq, 28, complained in an open letter after being deported 18 months ago back to his native Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan: "I sought asylum in the United Kingdom, stayed and lived there without committing any crime for two years, but you did not accept my claim for asylum.
"That decision made me depressed, isolated and forced me to consider suicide. The treatment in detention and the deportation can only be described as inhuman and humiliating.
"Only two days after my removal I was sent to hospital. I had suffered a heart attack due to depression and the inhuman treatment I received whilst in your 'care'."
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