NOT BACK TO IRAQ

A combination of courtroom and street level tactics saw a planned deportation flight to Iraq cancelled on Tuesday. This was to be the first mass deportation charter flight to Iraq.  About 70 Iraqi refugees, mostly Kurds, were due to be forcibly flown on a specially chartered flight from an undisclosed airport at 11pm.

No Borders and refugee solidarity activists blockaded the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook immigration prisons, near Heathrow airport, to hold up transport onto the flight. Lying in the road with lock-ons, they held the blockade for around five hours. Meanwhile lawyers on behalf of the Immigration Advisory service succeeded in getting an injunction against the deportations - meaning the blockade was able to pack up at 9pm with no arrests.

* See www.noborders.org.uk