UKBA-RMY

Twenty four Iraqis have gone on hunger strike this week in an Oxford detention centre in protest against the government’s plans to deport them.

More than 70 refugees are facing deportation to Baghdad and in the last two years Britain has deported 300 Iraqis. There are currently around 3,200 people in immigration detention centres and the UK locks up 20,000 so-called ‘illegals’ a year – more than any other European country.

The Iraqis are by no means alone in their plight. Betty Tibikawa, a 22 year old Ugandan lesbian, has been denied asylum and is due to be deported back to Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal. Betty was ‘outed’ in a national newspaper and attacked and beaten before coming to the UK. High profile gay rights activist David Kato was murdered in Uganda in January, and a similar fate could be waiting for Betty.

Edson “Eddy” Cosmas, an openly gay man originally from Tanzania, is being held at Harmondsworth Removal Centre. He is threatened with deportation back to Tanzania where he’d been beaten, stoned, abused and tortured for his sexuality, and where the ‘crime’ of homosexuality carries up to 30 years imprisonment.

There will be a No One Is Illegal public meeting in Oxford Town Hall on 16th June. In the meantime check http://barbedwirebritain.wordpress.com, www.noii.org.uk and www.noborders.org.uk for more info about repression against asylum seekers in Britain.