The British Government is responsible for the lack of security in Iraq!

Stop the deportation of Asylum seekers to Iraq !

Dashty Jamal’s Speech in Portcullis House(parliament)

First on behalf of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees I would like to thank John McDonnell for hosting this meeting and to thank all those organisations who have supported the campaign of International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and stood against deporting Iraqi& kurdish asylum seekers. Also thanks to everyone who has come to this important meeting, which is part of our ongoing campaign.

 One week before the invasion of Iraq the British government suspended all Iraqi cases going through the courts, and after the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime they quickly resumed hearings of Iraqi cases.

 More than 90% of Iraqi people got refusal letters from the Home Office and the courts. Once they had a refusal  they were not allowed to work.

The government’s idea was that after the end of the Saddam Hussein regime Iraq was to become a “democracy” so people could be sent back “to help rebuild the country”. Then the government started cutting people’s benefit, and taking people’s accommodation from them as well.

 They also started putting pressure on people to return “voluntarily” to Iraq. Some time ago they sent a new letter to people who are getting “hard case support” under s.4 saying that if they do not sign up for voluntary return they will lose their support and their NASS support.

 A lot of people have lost their accommodation over the last few months because they refused to sign those letters. We have seen the huge pressure this puts people under when we have done meetings around the country.

Now another letter has been sent out offering so-called “reintegration assistance” of up to £3000 to people who agree to go back.

I expect you know that on 19 November the government sent back 15 iraqi Kurdish asylum seeker. They were beaten and handcuffed to get them on to the plane, they refused to sign papers to say they were going back voluntarily, they were taken to Cyprus to change planes, they were made to put on army issue clothing including flak jackets and helmets.

This is a completely inhumane policy and does not adhere to any standards of human rights. I would like to ask a few questions about why the government is doing this. They started this policy in the name of the “war on terrorism” and in the name of “rebuilding Iraq”. In fact Home Office press guidelines at the time of the deportations stated that people were going to be returned to a safe and secure environment so that they could help to rebuild their country!

The reality is that the government used the London’s terrorist action to attack asylum seekers and the people who had been victims of the terrorist war in Iraq and who had fled their country because of the lack of stability and security. The Iraqi asylum case is completely the outcome of a political case which the British government itself is involved in, and a responsible party.

The government says that Northern Iraq is safe. I would like to tell you a bit about what is going on in Iraq since the occupation began. Every day there are a lot of kidnappings and a lot of people killed, and very little has been rebuilt. Living conditions are very difficult.

 This is true in the whole of Iraq, and Iraqi Kurdistan is part of Iraq. There is no freedom of political activity, women are frequently raped or killed

 Northern Iraq is under the control of the two political parties: they shoot at demonstrators demanding work, at students protesting. In December a KDP court sentenced Dr Kamal Qadir, a teacher with Austrian citizenship, who had returned to Kurdistan, to thirty years in prison for two articles criticising KDP leader Masoud Barzani – fifteen years for each article. Bodyguards of the Independent Women’s Organisation were killed by the PUK in 2000 and their offices and shelters for women and children were closed. A lot of left wing writers have been killed in Northern Iraq in the last few years, and the same parties are still in power.

 Kurdistan is a part of Iraq, not an independent country, and Iraq is one of the most unsafe countries in the world, and those two political parties have joined with Islamic and Arab nationalist parties to form the national government of Iraq, and meanwhile the Kurdish question has still not been answered.

Those asylum seekers who fled in the last six or seven years did so because of the policies of those parties. Now the British government wants to send them back, but nothing has changed.

 We in the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees believe that the British government is a part of this situation, as it supports those political parties. While Britain is still occupying the country, those asylum seekers will be here.

 Lastly I would like to ask freedom loving and progressive people to stand with us against deportation of Iraqis – the people of Iraq need more support than ever, now is a time for solidarity. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees has strong links with Iraqi and Kurdish asylum seekers. We have done a lot of demonstrations and meetings in London and other cities and we are the only voice for the Iraqi people.

We would like to set up a coalition to continue the campaign: we would like other organisations and individuals including MPs to join the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees in this work.

We have some plans: we would like to collect signatures for a big petition, and we also hope people will start lobbying local MPs to say what they will do to help resolve the situation. We are going to hold a meeting in the European Parliament with the help of Jean Lambert because we understand it is important to campaign at a European level as well.

We would also welcome other ideas for campaigning.

Our current demands which we hope people here tonight would substantially agree with are:

• No deportation to Iraq, which is an unsafe country;

• Refugee status for all those Iraqi nationals who need it;

• End the occupation – the British government is responsible for what happens there

• The right to work / receive benefits for Iraqi nationals who need to stay here.

Lastly I would like to thank the other speakers and everyone else for coming, and invite you to come to a working meeting soon to plan our future activities.