More than fifty-five people were deported to the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq early on Thursday morning, leaving from Luton Airport and landing in Erbil International. 

‘Soran’, who was on the flight says: 

‘A lot of police from the Kurdistan Regional Government were waiting for us when we landed in Erbil.   They were very rough with us and beat us.  We feel hurt and abused.  If even the police are doing this, what are our chances to live a good life here?’

’Nazir’, who had been held in Harmondsworth detention centre, says:
 

‘I’ve got scars all over my stomach from when a terrorist group tortured me with electric shocks.  I still have to take medicine everyday but they’ve kept me in solitary confinement for the last two days and refused to give me my medicine.  If I go back I will be targeted again.  I don’t know why they’ve given me this ticket – it is to the KRG area but I’m from Mosul.  Even the UNHCR says people shouldn’t be sent back there.’ 

They had written protest letters to the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government demanding all airports in Iraq be closed to those European countries trying to forcibly deport people.

After the Iraqi Government refused to accept some of the people on the UK Government’s mass deportation in October, its spokesman told Al-Jazeera that they would not accept forcible deportations but in the past week the same government accepted 80 people, deported by force to Baghdad from Norway and Sweden.

The Kurdistan Regional Government claims it does not have the power to refuse deportations but the Iraqi Government says it is the KRG’s responsibility to refuse them.

A representative of the Iraqi Government has said they have to accept refugees back so they do not have to pay back loans given by European Governments to Saddam Hussein’s government.  

The demonstration comes as the Iraqi Government is being put under increasing pressure in Iraq to stop accepting forcible deportations.  People who have already been deported are working together within the KRG and Iraq to pressure the government to take a stand against forcible deportations, while Iraqi MPs have formed a pressure group to demand the Iraqi Government tear up all agreements for such with European governments.

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees held a demonstration outside the Iraqi Embassy on Tuesday and handed a letter to the Ambassador demanding the Iraqi Government stop accepting people deported by force from Europe. 

International Federation of Iraqi Refugees

Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq

 www.csdiraq.com

 (Ends)

Contact: 07856032991, 07824996724

www.csdiraq.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes for editors

1. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees campaigns for the rights of Iraqi refugees and against forcible deportations and detention.  It is a member of the Coalitions to Stop Deportations to Iraq (www.csdiraq.com)

 
2. According to Home Office figures, 632 people were forcibly deported to the KRG region in the north between 2005 and 2008. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees estimates that the figure, with monthly charter flights deporting 50 people at a time since the beginning of 2009, currently stands at over 1000.

3. The flight will be the first to Iraq since the 14^th October, when ten people were deported to Baghdad and the thirty-three others on the plane were sent back by the Iraqi authorities.  See www.csdiraq.com for more information

4. Many of those deported had fled the KRG authorities, to whose mercy they are being sent back.  At least three people have committed suicide, while others have been killed in car bombs and kidnapped, since being deported.  Many others live in hiding.  Last month, a report by Amnesty International revealed "a pattern of abuses" committed by KRG security forces. A 2007 report by Human Rights Watch similarly revealed that KRG security forces "routinely torture and deny basic due-process rights to detainees." The Amnesty International report, 'Hope and Fear', is available at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18152. The Human Rights Watch report, 'Caught in the Whirlwind', is available at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/07/02/caught-whirlwind-0.

5. Violence and bloodshed continue in Iraq, which saw 1,891 civilian deaths in the first six months of this year. As recently as the 26^th October more than 150 people were killed by a series of bombs in Baghdad (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8325600.stm). There are also widespread food shortages and lack of access to clean drinking water in many areas of Iraq (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7856618.stm)

6. As the UK government seeks to increase the number and frequency of deportations, it has started to increasingly use specially chartered flights to deport as many as 80 people at a time. In 2008 alone, there were 66 such flights, deporting a total of 1,529 people.

7. Mass deportation flights limit refugees’ access to due legal process. The UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance states that: "charter flights may be subject to different arrangements where it is considered appropriate because of the complexities, practicalities and costs of arranging an operation." Deportees and their representatives are not even told the date of the flight. On the day of the flight, they are woken up early in the morning and forced to switch off their phones so they are unable to instruct their solicitors to submit last-minute appeals.  More details can be found in the Stop Deportation network briefing: http://stopdeportation.net/node/1

 
8. To operate a mass deportation flight, the Home Office contracts a range of private companies. Airlines that are known to have been used include Hamburg International and Czech Airlines. Bus companies to drive people from detention to the airport have included WH Tours and Woodcock coaches. Private security companies used to escort deportees include Group 4 Securicor and SERCO.
 
9. Standard practice on mass deportation flights, confirmed by people who have been deported, is for each deportee to be shadowed by at least two security guards, handcuffed and forced onto the plane under the threat of violence. Any disobedience or attempt to resist has been met with disproportionate force to 'restrain' the deportees. A mass deportation flight to Iraqi Kurdistan in September 2008 saw deportees who tried to leave the plane beaten by the security guards, with one man's head hit against a window of the plane smashing it. The flight was cancelled.
 
10. For more details on previous deportations to Iraq see the www.csdiraq.com website and:
http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=5&limit...
http://csdiraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=1
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3208
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/30/immigrationpolicy.immigra...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/asylum-seekers-kurds

11. On 19^th October 2009 six protestors were found not guilty of blockading a mass deportation flight to Iraqi Kurdistan in May 2009.