Out of Sight and Out of Mind?

On October 6, 2010, a small but determined group of people stood in protest outside the Iraqi Embassy in London. They waved banners and shouted slogans in order to express their indignation and anger about the recent deportation of 49 Iraqi refugees to Baghdad - a city still plagued with security risks and sectarian violence. But the officials inside the building did not stir, and the anguished pleas of the protesters fell on deaf ears: their impassioned slogans rendered empty and useless in the still and silent Autumn air.

Since the government of Britain joined forces with the US in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, thousands of Iraqi and Kurdish refugees have fled their homes to seek refuge in neighbouring countries from the violence and turmoil of their own land. Many made the long and arduous journey overland to Europe, in order to start a new life for themselves within the calm shores of the British Isles. According to Dashty Jamal of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, more than 150,000 people have made a home for themselves here in the UK in the seven years since the fighting began. This may seem like a large number, but compare that to the estimated 700,000 Iraqi refugees in both Syria and Jordan in 2007. In light of these startling figures, there is nothing at all unusual about the number of Iraqis and Kurds who have come here, to Britain, in order to seek a new and better life. What is unusual - even worrying - however, is the welcome they receive when they get here.

This year alone, more than 2,000 Iraqi refugees have been forcibly deported, against their will, back to the dangerous and violent country from which they hoped they had escaped. Quite apart from the disturbing accounts of the brutality and violence perpetrated by British officials behind the closed doors of deportation centres, the fact that our supposedly liberal government is quietly removing thousands of individuals from this land against their will is enough to incense even the most morally lax individual. That is not to say that I disregard the need to monitor, and even prevent, the entry of large numbers of immigrants or asylum seekers into Britain, and I fully understand (if not completely accept) the government's "firm but fair" rhetoric when it comes to dealing with the large number of refugees overwhelming out borders - but this is going too far.

It seems that target-driven deportation and removal statistics have come to dictate who leaves when, rather than taking into account the needs and desires of the individual at stake. Not only that, but the tendency to cover up the true nature of the British deportation machine smacks of a guilty conscious and should lead us to question the nature of the red tape and bureaucracy surrounding our immigration policy. The recent death of Jimmy Mubenga, who was fatally beaten by security guards during his deportation to Angola, is but the most recent example of the duplicity perpetrated by our government in its eagerness to meet immigration targets. The public is all too aware of the official line regarding immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers - but what we are not told about are the individual people whose lives are systematically destroyed by the inhuman process our government has subjected them to. And that is even before you take into account the fact that many of the countries to which these people are being returned are themselves inherently dangerous, and that many of the deported refugees arriving in these countries end up in prison or worse because they do not possess the correct documentation on arrival.

The whole system speaks of a worrying cover-up operation that seeks to hide the truth about the human cost of deportation behind an array of targets and figures. We, the public, should not be lied or pandered to by our government - and we have a right to know what is going on. Not only that, but those individuals who are being subjected to inhumane and debase treatment behind the closed doors and red tape have the right to be treated with courtesy and respect. It may well be that Britain needs to deport a certain number of people a year - after all, this is only a small country and there is only a limited amount of land and resources available - but the system that deals with these deportations should be one that is fair and transparent for all. Is that, in itself, too much to ask?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/d8c7a728fce0cc6c240297a9be421c1a.htm

http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/iraq-syria-refugees