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UK judge blocks deportation
03/07/2005 07:22 - (SA)
London - A High Court judge intervened on Saturday to stop the deportation of a Zimbabwean asylum-seeker who says she will face abuse if she is returned home.
The 26-year-old woman, who has asked not to be identified, had been told that she would be put on a flight to Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, on Saturday night.
Lawyers for the woman applied to the High Court for an injunction blocking her deportation. It was granted by justice Sir Richard McCombe at a special hearing.
"In this case the judge decided the removal was inappropriate and has given an order that it be stayed," said lawyer Jovanka Savic.
The woman, whose repeated requests for asylum have been turned down, is one of more than 50 Zimbabweans who have been on hunger strike for 11 days in protest at the lifting of a ban that prevents people being returned to the southern African nation against their will.
They are opponents of the government of President Robert Mugabe, which has been accused of human rights abuses. They say they will be arrested and possibly tortured if they return home.
News reports last week said that Zimbabwean deportations had been put on hold until after the forthcoming summit of the G-8 wealthy nations in Scotland.
But a spokesperson for the home office, which is responsible for immigration, said the government's policy remained to look at each case on its merits.
Kate Hoey, a lawmaker from the governing Labour Party, said the attempt to deport the woman "is a shameful act by a Labour government."
"To do it on the same day they support something like the Live 8 concert shows outrageous hypocrisy," she said.
In an interview with the British news agency Press Association, the woman said she is now so weak that she cannot walk.
"I am so confused. One minute you are told the deportations have been stopped. I can't believe they want to send me back to the lion's den," she was quoted as saying.
She said her father, a manager employed by a white farmer, was killed by supporters of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in 2000 and her two brothers had since been killed by the authorities.
She has been held for more than six months in a center for failed asylum seekers.
Savic, the lawyer, said the ruling applied only in the woman's case, but that other Zimbabweans facing deportation had what she called an "arguable" case to remain in Britain.
"There was no reasoned thinking behind the home office decision in November that the ban on deportations should have been lifted," she said.
- AP
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