Kurdish Asylum-Seekers Mount Indefinite Protest Fast

Start: Wednesday, 28 February, 12 midday
Parliament Square, SW1
(opposite Parliament, nearest station: Westminster)

Iraqi Kurds face terror on return

Nearly every Iraqi Kurd applying for asylum in Britain is being refused. Lawyers and members of the Kurdish community say a dramatically rising number of Iraqi Kurds are now in danger of being deported and returned to one of the most dangerous places in the world.

The desperation to flee the area was clearly shown this week when 910 Iraqi Kurds were rescued from a sinking hulk off the French Riviera.

The government justifies the refusals saying the region is now a "safe" area. Yet one of the pretexts for last weekís bombing of military installations was the need to maintain a No Fly Zone, preventing Saddam Hussein attacking the area's population.

The government is ignoring the following:

1) An occupation force of around 10,000 Turkish soldiers in South Kurdistan (northern Iraq) which terrorises the local population
2) Ten years of economic sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council at the insistence of the UK and US.
3) Additional sanctions imposed by Baghdad
4) Frequent bombing in the No Fly Zone by US and UK aeroplanes, and by the Turkish air force
5) Sometimes violent economic and political rivalry between the two main Kurdish parties in the area, the KDP and the PUK, both of which collaborate closely with the Turkish government
6) Eight million landmines spread across the area
7) The ongoing Arabisation of Kirkuk and other Kurdish areas of South Kurdistan (northern Iraq), resulting in forced depopulation
The resulting situation is one of chaos and violence peppered with the scourge of "honour killings" which no authority seems able to control.

The government clearly acknowledges conditions in Iraq. Baroness Scotland, a foreign office minister, recently commented: "We are following events in the region closely."

Many lawyers, and the Kurdish Iraqi community, believe sending people back to the region is tantamount to signing their death warrant.

People who have fled the terror which Saddam Hussein's regime has helped generate are deemed to be not deserving of asylum in this country.

The UK government should reconsider immediately its categorisation Iraq as safe, and recognise that Iraqi Kurds applying for asylum in this country have a genuine need for it.

The Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers believes people fleeing persecution, war and poverty are entitled to safe refuge.

Britain is a country of immigrants, as some of the very politicians who wave the race card on this issue so vigorously know from their parents' origins.

The committee appeals to journalists to ask serious questions about the situation Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers are facing, and remember the highly sympathetic coverage given to these self-same people in the weeks immediately following the end of the Gulf War.

The protest has been called by members of the Kurdish community in Haringey and is supported by the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, Jenny Jones, GLA Green Party Assembly member, National Civil Rights Movement, CARF, Kurdistan Solidarity Committee, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign, Hull International Federation of Asylum Seekers, Aslylum Seekers Support Group, Hull & District TUC, Kurdish Womens Organisation, Faili KurdsTrust Association,Haringey Trades Council, Louise Christian,LSA prospective parliamentary candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green,Liz Davies, former Labour Party NEC member, Cecilia Prosper, ppc for Hackney South (check south), National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.


For more information:
Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers
Alan Gibson, 020 7254 5033/ 07941 566183;
Diyari Kurdi, 0793 921 8191
Sarah Parker: 0795 187 5853 or 0208 800 9430

e-mail:  knklondon@gn.apc.org
 info@defend-asylum.org,
BCM Box 4289, London WC1 3XX