Tuesday 2 June 2009

Sent back to die

On 13 March this year, two men travelled to the Congo. But unlike most of the men on their flight, they were not going voluntarily. They were forced to repatriate despite evidence that torture awaited them. Their pleas fell on the deaf ears of Jacqui Smith and her team at the UK Home Office. The men, Rabin Waba Muambi and Nsimbi Kumbi, reports Diane Taylor in the Guardian on 27 May, were both brutally tortured. Kumbi was jailed in the notorious Kin Maziere facility, where he was beaten, burned and forced to perform sex acts on male guards. Muambi was stripped, beaten and forced to drink his own urine.
But do not expect an apology from Smith. She may well be too busy watching porn movies with her husband or filing for refunds on her selfish expenditures. The taxpayer is forced to pay for her sex movies, her drain plugs, and also for her errors in judgement when the HO deports people to places where they are tortured or killed. The price of porn movies and drain plugs may only come to shillings and pence, but the price of human life and liberty is not so cheap.
But, one might argue, these were just some simple errors. Oh that they were indeed isolated incidents. But they are far from that. Talk to detainees in the system and you will find countless stories about people sent back to die. In Iraq, for instance; or Darfur, where Adam Mohamed tasted briefly of liberty after months in a UK detention centre. He told the HO he would be killed if he was sent back. He was, within 24 hours. The last hours of his life were recorded by Robert Verkaik in his 17 March Independent article, titled "Sent back by Britain. Executed by Darfur."
But Smith and her team had deemed the Sudan to be safe, along with Pakistan, the Congo, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and other well known trouble spots that she and her porn loving husband do not choose to visit on their weekends.
We have heard about all this for years, but what are we doing? The purpose of this blog is t0 get an amnesty for asylum seekers in the UK. Recently we cheered on the Ghurkas after Smith's team tried to deny them entry. Good as that victory was, it did not address the more crucial cases of people who are under real threat of death and torture. These cases are more urgent, but sadly, they get neglected. Why?
We will be posting here the stories of those who are at risk of such deportations, and making petitions here for the general public to get involved. If our leaders are not going to dop their jobs, then we must step in and act.

No comments:

Post a Comment