News

The government yesterday refused to stop returning failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe yesterday, despite hunger strikes by over fifty Zimbabwean immigration detainees.

Campaign group The UK Zimbabwean Community Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers claims that every failed asylum seeker returned to the country is handed over to the authorities on arrival in Harare and detained for questioning.

The Home Office said that 57 detainees were on hunger strike in protest of the policy but yesterday, speaking in the House of Commons, home secretary Charles Clarke said removals of failed asylum seekers to the country would continue.

Maeve Sherlock, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said that it was “extremely disappointed” by the government’s decision.

She said: “Our responsibilities are clear: even if someone is not accepted by our government as being a refugee, we do not send them back into danger, and Zimbabwe is clearly not safe.  The case grows ever stronger for an independent body, charged with upholding the right to asylum, to make these decisions."