Zim asylum seekers go on UK hunger strike

Zim asylum seekers go on UK hunger strike

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By Staff Reporter

SEVEN Zimbabwean asylum seekers held in British Immigration Removal Centres have gone on hunger strike to protest their "illegal detention", New Zimbabwe.com learnt last night.

The UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled recently that it was not safe to return failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe.

Tens of Zimbabweans awaiting deportation have since been released from the seven detention centres since the decision early last month.

The United Network of Detained Zimbabweans (UNDZ) which has led similar protests in the past, leading directly to a High Court action, said at least seven more detainees remained in the holding centres.

"The detention of any individual is justifiable only when their removal is imminent," UNDZ spokesman Noble Sibanda said last night.

"Mr Justice Collins (High Court judge) put a stay on all removals of Zimbabweans earlier this year which was followed by a similar decision by UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal which concluded that Zimbabwean asylum seekers cannot be returned home because the very act of claiming asylum in Britain could single them out for possible abuse from the authorities on return.

"The UNDZ feels that the continued detention of fellow Zimbabweans is infringing their human rights.The average detention period of detainees is seven months.These women and men have been detained for a very long time. Consequently, seven men and women are now on their second day of a hunger strike to protest their continued incarceration."

Last week, immigration lawyers told how Home Office officials were routinely ignoring the national identities of failed asylum seekers in order to get round the ban on returning them to Zimbabwe.

The lawyers say that officials reject evidence - including birth certificates - that the asylum seekers are Zimbabwean citizens and try to deport them to South Africa or Malawi.

Since the high court ruling, the Home Office has attempted to remove eight Zimbabweans on the grounds that they are South Africans. The Refugee Legal Centre successfully argued in the high court that all eight were Zimbabwean nationals.
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