Secret deal to remove Zimbabweans from UK

StatusNow4All network members are picking up intelligence about people being summarily snatched when reporting or at home. We are seeking further information.

This post is being continually updated here: https://statusnow4all.org/secret-deal-to-remove-zimbabweans-from-uk/

The deportation flight left, and many people who were scheduled to be on the flight did not go for example due to Covid, or paperwork errors. For these people the struggle to remain in UK continues. The Courts have enables others to remain in UK due to acceptance that they have a personal risk on return. The resistance to the principle of returning people to Zimbabwe needs to be heard loudly.

22 July 2021: Legal bids mean UK deportation flight to Zimbabwe takes off just one-third full

Multiple challenges, as well as Covid self-isolation, result in only 14 of people being on board, it is believed

A controversial Home Office deportation charter flight to Zimbabwe took off at about 10.30pm on Wednesday evening with only around one-third of the passengers on board that officials had hoped to remove.

It is the first mass deportation flight to Zimbabwe for many years and marks the start of a planned ‘summer season’ of charter flight deportations to countries including Vietnam and Jamaica that the Home Office is planning in the coming weeks.

The flight was due to deport about 50 people but only 14 are believed to have been on board when it took off from Stansted. It presented the Home Office with a series of problems, with dozens of escorts self-isolating until later this week due to being exposed to colleagues with Covid. Home Office officials confirmed on Tuesday evening that there is an outbreak of Covid at Brook House near Gatwick. Some of the Zimbabweans at that detention centre due to be deported could not be removed due to the outbreak.

There were also multiple legal challenges due to concerns about the safety of returnees in Zimbabwe, a country with a poor human rights record. Some of those earmarked for return have spent decades in the UK, have families here and were politically active against the Mugabe regime.

The Home Office says that many had committed serious crimes but some interviewed by the Guardian had committed less serious offences such as driving offences or working with false documents.

From Zita Holbourne at BARAC: http://blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com/

17 July 2021: Petition initiated by BARAC: Change.org: Sign the petition https://www.change.org/p/uk-home-office-stop-the-charter-flight-deportations-to-zimbabwe

This petition is hosted by BARAC UK but brought by all the additional organisations listed at the end.

As a community we are gravely concerned about the impending deportation / removal flight to to Zimbabwe by the UK Home Office

Since 5th July 2021, the Home Office enforcement unit has been detaining large numbers of people for the purpose of deporting / removing them on chartered flights – the first of which is scheduled to depart on Wednesday 21st July 2021.

You will also find a suggested letter to send to your MP here: http://blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com/

and follow BARAC’s Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/BARACUK

Change.org: This is the wording: https://www.change.org/p/uk-home-office-stop-the-charter-flight-deportations-to-zimbabwe

This petition is hosted by BARAC UK but brought by all the additional organisations listed at the end.

As a community we are gravely concerned about the impending deportation / removal flight to to Zimbabwe by the UK Home Office

The government is arguing that some of those on the flight need to be removed as a result of their criminal record. This fails to take into account that they have already served their sentences and have likely spent a significant amount of time in detention with no time limit. Deportation amounts to a triple punishment. Many of those being removed will have lived in the UK since they were children or may have even been born in the UK. They have children and marriages here in the UK, are valued members of local communities including trustees with charities, volunteers, workers, campaigners, trade unionists, artists and musicians. The UK is home.

This process also fails to take into account that structural racism is present within the Home Office, from the criminalisation of asylum seekers to the disproportionate policing of black communities. The Home Office also has a long and chaotic history of incorrect decision making, resulting in numerous people wrongly placed in detention or on removal flights.

Most disturbing about this move by the Home Office is that it shows no regard for the fact that the deportees’ lives are in danger when they get to Zimbabwe. In addition, the flight may be[2] the result of a bilateral arrangement between the notorious government of Zimbabwe and the government of the United Kingdom. The clandestine and sinister nature of the operation, and the speed at which it is being executed, is designed to give anyone scheduled for removal little to no chance of access to legal representation.

The Government of Zimbabwe has an atrocious human rights record, including cases of state sponsored murder, abductions, enforced disappearances, torture, rape, excessive pre-trial incarceration and general persecution of those perceived to be enemies of the state. In this category fall members of opposition political parties, human rights activists, journalists and the diaspora community. Members of the diaspora community in particular may be accused of being “”sell outs[3] ”, mainly because they publicly speak out against the human rights violations of the repressive Zimbabwean government state agencies and the ruling party, ZANU-PF. As a result they may be at risk of persecution as they are considered to have exposed the Zimbabwean government’s ugly human rights record to the international community.

It is our considered view that the deportees face imminent danger if they are removed to Zimbabwe.

For the avoidance of doubt we wish to draw attention to a dossier of human rights violations by the Mnangagwa regime since he ascended to power on the back of a military coup in November 2017. In a short space of time, Emmerson Mnangagwa has outperformed his notorious predecessor, Robert Mugabe, in persecuting perceived enemies of the state who happen to be innocent and unarmed civilians of all walks of life. The dossier can be accessed via the following hyperlink;- https://rohr-zimbabwe.org/index.php/2020/07/19/rohr-zimbabwe-dossier-on-human-rights-violations-in-zimbabwe-from-nov-2017-july-2020-pdf-version/ .

More recent record of human rights violations by the government of Zimbabwe can be accessed via the monthly reports by ZimRights here or on the 2021 ZimRights monthly reports for June, April, March, February and January.

We urge the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Home Office to immediately stop deportations / removals to Zimbabwe. We also ask all residents of the United Kingdom to support the Zimbabwean community in the United Kingdom to oppose these deportations / removals.

The BLM movement has shown that we must challenge systemic discrimination in all instances,, and this must include the standing up for the rights of black migrants and refugees

This Petition is supported by:

Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Human Rights Organization (ZHRO)
Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants (LGSMigrants)
Right To Remain
Voice for Voiceless Immigration Detainees Yorkshire
BARAC UK
Actors For Human Rights
Bail for Immigration Detainees
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

15 July 2021: Stop Zimbabwe Deportation Flights – Sheffield Protest Friday 16 July 3:00 pm outside Vulcan House – bring your banners and placards.

150 undocumented Zimbabweans are to be deported from the UK on a private jet from Heathrow next week on Wednesday 21 July Those to be deported include undocumented people. Reports are coming in suggesting Zimbabweans have been snatched when they have turned up to report at centres, and taken from their homes – in Manchester, London, Southampton, and Wakefield – 28 people so far.

Vulcan House, Riverside Entrance, 6 Millsands, Sheffield, S3 8NU

Source: SYMAAG – South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group

Independent: Zimbabwean nationals with British children rounded up for deportation

Exclusive: Dozens detained ahead of controversial charter flight to Harare next week

Zimbabwean nationals who have been in the UK for decades and have British children are being rounded up for removal on a charter flight to Harare next week, The Independent can reveal.

Ministers are being urged to halt the flight after it emerged over a dozen people from Zimbabwe have been detained this month, and many of them issued deportation orders for 21 July.

Keep up to date with the history and development of this concern here: https://statusnow4all.org/secret-deal-to-remove-zimbabweans-from-uk/