A demonstration was held today at WH Tours bus company in Crawley, in protest at its involvement in the deportation of dozens of migrants to Nigeria via a charter flight.

Demonstrators entered the car park at the premises carrying banners, but WH Tours employees claimed that the bus carrying those to be deported had just left.

Employees at WH Tours confirmed that the company is indeed involved with the UK Borders agency in assisting with mass expulsions.

The press department of G4S (a private security firm which runs detention centres throughout the UK), stated that WH Tours is contracted to them to run transport for deportations.

In March WH Tours ferried a group of over 50 Iraqi Kurds from detention centres. In May a further group of 60 Kurds were deported with the help of WH Tours.

The mass deportation of migrants is a crime under international law. The practice of mass expulsion by charter flight is quickly becoming a favourite tool of the UK government, allowing it to deport as many people as possible with the minimum level of public attention. The use of mass expulsion clearly makes a mockery of the Home Office’s claims to consider each case ‘individually’.

Charter flights such as these undermine the legal rights of the migrants being deported. Many deportees have not exhausted all legal avenues available to them and have not had access to adequate legal representation.

Those being deported today are mothers and fathers who have been locked up with their children at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire. Detaining children in this manner is in breach of the UN convention on the rights of the child.

Many of today’s deportees have been on hunger strike in protest at the imprisonment of their children and the inadequate medical care at the centre. The hunger strikers have been subjected to isolation inside Yarl’s Wood and have been assaulted by SERCO staff.

Every deportation is a violation of people's right to freedom of movement but these charter flights are a particularly sordid way to do that. We will not stop campaigning against WH Tours until they stop assisting the Home Office in repressing migrants.

stopdeportations {a t} riseup (dot) net