Plans by the Home Office to deport Zimbabwean failed asylum seekers will be met with resistance, according to rights groups in the UK. The groups were reacting to news that the UK government has sent an immigration team to Zimbabwe to see if it is safe to send back failed asylum applicants.
On Tuesday a Home Office spokesman in London said: I can confirm that a joint Foreign and Commonwealth Office and UK Border Agency fact-finding team is in Zimbabwe to obtain up-to-date information about the situation on the ground for use in determining the risk on return of Zimbabwean asylum claimants.
Paradzai Mapfumo of the UK-based Restoration of Human Rights Zimbabwe, said any plans to remove asylum seekers was wrong, because of the on-going politically motivated violence: We will definitely protest because it is not in the interest of our members. I know of asylum seekers who went home and were harassed.
I dont see it as a good move because the violence is on its high in Zimbabwe. When they send the [fact finding] team, they will be led to safer parts of Harare and Bulawayo, but they will not be taken to the rural areas where it is really serious, he added.
There has been widespread violence in the country, more recently with ZANU PF militia and war vets terrorising locals during the constitutional outreach exercise.
Over the years, thousands of Zimbabweans have sought asylum in the UK, Home Office figures show that 24,085 asylum applications were received from Zimbabweans between 1999 and 2008.
In September 2006 the UK Home Office announced that it would be halting enforced returns to Zimbabwe, and it is still not enforcing the return of Zimbabwean nationals.
Rose Benton of the Zimbabwe Vigil, a UK-based organisation that campaigns against human rights abuses, said: We will certainly campaign. Zimbabwe is not secure to send people back.
Recently one of our activists went back to Zimbabwe. He was picked up just for being there, taken into custody and beaten up. If it wasnt our big fight to get him out through getting legal help for him, he would still be there. It is a very, very unsafe time for Zimbabweans to go back, she explained.
The Zimbabwe Vigil has successfully helped fight-off Home Office orders to deport another of its members.
Whenever someone needs our protection we will grant it. But where they are found not to need protection, we will expect them to return home, the UK Home Office spokesman said.
Post published in: News