Britain has stopped deporting failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe
July 10th, 2008
The deportation of failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe has now been halted, Gordon Brown said.
The Prime Minister told MPs that while officials continued to deal with the issue on a case-by-case basis, no returns were currently taking place.
“No-one is being forced to return to Zimbabwe from the United Kingdom at this time,” he said.
Mr Brown, who has been under pressure to stop the deportations in the wake of the violence surrounding the disputed presidential election, said that ministers were also looking to help failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers who were unable to work.
July 10th, 2008 17:57
Thank god.
July 10th, 2008 18:24
They were not deporting anyway because of a legal challenge – it’s not news.
what’s desperately needed is that the Zimbabweans in the UK are granted ‘leave to remain’ so they can work.
At the moment 11,000 are officially destitute. Many are homeless and begging. All are reliant on charity. This is intolerable.
What Brown said was, frankly, a lie.
This is what the Refugee Council said:
The Refugee Council will tomorrow accuse the government of “utter hypocrisy†as its Chief Executive, Donna Covey, addresses a rally outside Parliament calling on the government to give Zimbabwean asylum seekers leave to stay in the UK and allow them to work.
Thousands of Zimbabweans have been refused asylum in the UK, yet the government admits it is not safe to send them back. They are left homeless and destitute, with no entitlement to any support or the ability to work and support themselves.
It comes close to a charade for the Foreign Secretary to applaud the courage of refugees from Zimbabwe in South Africa, while in this country Zimbabwean refugees are being left to rot.
“The current situation amounts to a policy of saying to Zimbabweans, we won’t return you but our protection will amount to you being allowed to stay and beg on our streets.
“If the government had a shred of decency it would act now, to give Zimbabweans some temporary status in this country, allowing them to work and indeed to reskill so that they are better placed to help rebuild their country when the Mugabe regime falls.â€
http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/press/2008/july/20080710.htm
July 10th, 2008 18:41
http://www.friction.tv have a very interesting video of Dumi Tutani- a Zimbabwean living in the U.K.
He discusses life in the U.K as a Zimbabwean, the post-election situation in Zimbabwe, and calls on peace-loving people to put pressure on Governments to re-enforce the message that this is an international problem.
http://friction.tv/ftv_debate.php?debate_id=3556
July 10th, 2008 21:08
An extremely interesting and informative comment by Paul Canning. Thank you. What is the UK government’s response?
Surely everyone wants the Zimbabwean tragedy to end so we can all go back and rebuild the country. Any help the UK government can give in the meantime would be highly appreciated. There is no downside to this… surely?
July 11th, 2008 09:07
Unless you have tried to integrate into the UK you will not understand why this is a problem. Most of us who come here with or without the rights to work have to pay our dues to the rules and regulation which are harsh and often incomprehensible to us. (If you are a Polish person coming to UK you are given a leaflet of your rights how to integrate and how to use the system to your advantage etc as an EU citizen) most of us from Zimbabwe are left to try and work it all out on our own….Being open and honest souls we often give too much information we look at questions on forms and if we answer yes or no we feel we are lying because it doesn’t give the real truth. If we stay with friends we have no proof of where we live and the process of getting an NI to start work becomes a merry go round..If you want to rent on your own you have to be able to give UK references of professionals who are not your relatives so we end up paying six month rent in cash in advance usually our only form of saving when we have left the country with only 20 kgs of luggage..and we are well educated and have experience usually above and beyond most in the UK but still have to work below our education and experience line because we do not have the papers or references etc…A recent experience for me is I live in a relatives house I pay towards the utility bills but don’t have my name on the bills however, this is the only proof that is accepted by the CRB department and NI number interviews (the amount of catch twenty two situations created by red tape here makes it impossible to integrate) I have been a sport’s coach for over 10 and half years working in various school abroad including Zimbabwe yet at my own expense I had to get the curriculum from Zimbabwe present it to the various sporting bodies of my qualifications and pay for a decision as to see if I was qualified enough to teach… outcome was I allowed only to be an assistant and would have to do further training at my own expense… this would cost me half of my annual income if I worked in this profession and can barely live on that anyway… yet I had run my own business in sports etc etc.. another story I heard was a farmer who had run his own farm for many years but had little formal education tried to get a job as council landscaper (gardener to you and me) he didn’t have papers to prove he could drive a sit on lawn mower yet this guy has driven large farming equipment since he was 14…There is this constant need to prove you are innocent yet we all were bought up on the premise that we are all innocent before proven guilty…I carry around large files of papers to prove who I am and they all have to be originals not photocopies..It carries on and on and on..Then you have put up with the stupid questions like do you have lion in your back yard ….But having said all that I would rather be here than in Zimbabwe and whilst not a perfect place as I have said before the UK at least tries to sort out it’s problems and as an individual I can always write to my local MP and point these all out to him and he will take it up….So I am hoping they will do the right thing in this situation again and wish the refugee council every success in getting the message through otherwise we always have 10 Downing Street petition to take up the cause…
July 13th, 2008 18:27
i am zimbabwean asylum seeker and i have one massage to all asylum seekers alover the world thinking of coming to uk and seek asylum DONT even think about it.
england don’t care about asylum seekers you better off dogging bullets where ever you because here you will sufer and oftern regreat coming here.
i have been here since 2003.when i came here i had a work permit but soon after i seek asylum ai had stop working,since then i have not herd a job oran sort of help from the government and yet they want see my face evert month at the police sation.
i 100% regreat coming here and now i have reached breaking point.
i hate everything here and iwant want to die.
i have to rely on people from italy to help me with my rent and food money without them i would die.my question to the officials is where and the human rights?
its true to say until there is no longer first and second class citizen of any nation,untill the colour fo a man skin is of no more significant than the colour of his eyes will not know peace,untill the besic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regars to race as blake people will sufer continueer.
i can go on and and on for ever this country is so forgotn to african people.
July 13th, 2008 21:01
@ Sufer, I really am sorry to hear of your troubles in the UK. This shouldn’t happen to you and other innocent Zimbabweans. I believe there are now moves afoot to help Zimbabweans in the UK regain their dignity.
There is also a petition to Gordon Brown -
All UK residents can participate. It reads:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to do all he can to counter the – at times vicious and often unfounded – media propaganda against asylum seekers and immigrants; and inform British people of the sort of circumstances that lead people not born here to come here.
SEE IT HERE -
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/MigrantsAreHuman/
July 13th, 2008 21:15
Suffer Hang in there… we are all working towards a better future for you and all of us…Please try to think of a positive future envisage us all going home to a place we can put back together and use our experiences of this type of hardship to make sure that if we have assylum seekers in the future in Zimbabwe we will know how to treat them with respect…but also always remember their are 60 million people who live in the UK many of them have come here because they believed that the type of governence they have here is much better than what they have at home….perhaps we have had to go through these thing to teach us lessons for the future let learn from their mistakes but lets also take back what is good here Like free health care, free education, good university facilities available and affordable to most, freedom of speech, the freedom to complain and winge without looking over your shoulder and wonder who is going to report you to the police..phoning the police and they actually come and not only that but they actually do their jobs, civil servants who don”t expect bribes because they are paid well and on and on I can go…I hope todays sunshines has lightened your load you are in my prayers…