[IMC-UK-Features] feature proposal: Hunger Strike in Campsfield as deportee takes his own life in Iraq

Wed Aug 13 06:26:56 PDT 2008

Title: Hunger Strike in Campsfield as deportee takes his own life in Iraq

Author: imc-uk-features

Pic: /images/2006/11/356902.jpg

Abstract:

Some 50 refugees held at Campsfield immigration prison, near Oxford, are
<a href="/en/2008/08/406602.html">on hunger strike</a> in protest at their
continued detention. The hunger strike was started on August 9th by 13
Iraqi-Kurdish detainees, who demanded that forcible deportations to
Northern Iraq are stopped. This is second such protest at Campsfield this
year and one of many throughout the UK detention estate.

An Iraqi-Kurdish migrant had <a href="/en/2008/08/406616.html">taken his
own life</a> after being forcibly returned to Iraqi Kurdistan. Hussein Ali
had been living in the UK for years. He was arrested and detained

An <a href="/en/2008/08/406602.html">emergency demonstration</a> in
support of the hunger strikers, called by the <a
href="http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk">Campaign to Close Campsfield</a>,
was held outside the immigration prison on August 12th.

Meanwhile,

Reports: <a href="/en/2008/08/406602.html">Campsfield
detainees on hunger strike</a> | <a
href="/en/2008/08/406616.html">Unacceptable death of Hussein Ali</a> | <a
href="/en/2008/08/406504.html">Two more deaths of asylum seekers</a>

Related: <a href="/en/2008/06/401100.html">Riot at
Campsfield Detention Centre</a> | <a href="/en/2007/08/377654.html">26
migrants escape immigration prison in Oxford</a> | <a
href="/en/2008/04/396741.html">Detained Mothers on Hunger Strike in Yarl's
Wood</a> | <a href="/en/2008/04/395932.html">Once again, Harmondsworth
hunger strike broken violently</a> | <a
href="/en/2007/02/361861.html">Dozens of Iraqi Kurds deported.. again</a>

Links: <a href="http://www.ncadc.org.uk">National
Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigs</a> | <a
href="http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk">Campaign to Close Campsfield</a>
| <a href="http://www.federation.org">International Federation of Iraqi
Refugees</a> | <a href="http://www.csdiraq.com">Coalition to Stop
Deportations to Iraq</a>
 | <a href="http://www.noborders.org.uk">No Borders UK</a>

Content:
<p>
On August 9th, campaigners received reports from detainees inside
Campsfield saying that 13                                                 
       Iraqi-Kurdish asylum seekers
 detained at Campsfield immigration prison are refusing food in protest at
their continuing detention and demanding that forcible deportations to
Iraqi Kurdistan (northern Iraq) are stopped. Later reports confirmed that
some 50 other Campsfield detainees from around the world have joined the
hunger strike. A message from the hunger strikers read:
<blockquote>
"We are protest[ing] because we are human beings; we are not criminal. We
are locked in the cell like prisoners. We want  freedom and justice."
</blockquote>
<p>
The UK is one off the few European countries to forcibly 'remove' asylum
seekers to Iraq. In 2005, an agreement was reportedly signed between the
Iraqi Government, the Kurdish
 Regional Government and the UK Home Office to accept forcibly returned
asylum seekers. Since then, over 500 rejected asylum seekers have been
deported to Iraqi Kurdistan on special charter flights.
</p><p>
The argument the Home Office has used to deport Iraqi-Kurdish asylum
seekers to Kurdistan (northern Iraq) is that the northern parts of the
country, unlike the rest, are "relatively safe". This is, of course,
totally unfounded. In its <a href="/en/2007/01/359219.html">position paper
on Iraq</a>, UNHCR recently said that the security situation in the three
northern governorates (Sulaymaniyah, Erbil and Duhok), "remains tense and
unpredictable" and that "careful consideration" must be given before any
returns are carried out.
</p>
<h3>Who's responsible?</h3>
<p>
A day after the hunger strike started, an Iraqi-Kurdish asylum seeker, who
was forcibly removed to Northern Iraq after 50 days in detention, took his
own life. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR) was told
by a detainee in Oakington detention
 centre that his friend, Hussein Ali, shot himself in his home in
Sulaimania on August 10th, two days after he was deported to Erbil via
Jordan.

Hussein Ali was 35 years old. He had arrived in the UK six years earlier
but his asylum claim was rejected. Whilst in detention, he wrote many
letters to the Home Office asking to remain in the UK but all fell on deaf
ears.

This is the second this year suicide by Iraqi-Kurdish refugees on return
from the UK. The other man, known as Heman, hanged himself from a tree
shortly after return. Another Iraqi-Kurdish refugee, Kadir Salih, was <a
href="http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=1">kidnapped
last month</a> in front of his house in an area controled of Patriotic of
Union Kurdistan party shortly after returning home. His daughter was so
distressed at his disappearance that she committed suicide. After five
years of fighting for asylum and not being able to work, Kadir had given
up and signed on the IOM's 'voluntary return' scheme.

Another Iraqi refugee <a href="/en/2008/08/406446.html">died from
cancer</a> on August 3rd. Mohammad Hussain had stomach cancer that went
undetected and untreated while he was detained in Lindholme immigration
prison near Doncaster (see <a
href="http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=1">here</a>
for more details).

Meanwhile, Iranian refugee Nadir Zarebee hanged himself in a Manchester
park on August 5th after being asked to leave his home in Trafford by his
private asylum accommodation providers, MNQ. An <a
href="/en/2008/08/406504.html">emergency protest</a> was called last on
August 9th by the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees (IOIR)
and supported by the North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG) and
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI). Protesters gathered in Piccadilly
Gardens and then marched to the BBC offices, who protesters said censor
the "racist treatment and brutal human rights abuses of migrants and
refugees."

-----------