We now know that Bita Ghaedi is to be returned to Iran on Tuesday 20th April and is booked on flight BD931 to Imam Khomeini Airport, Tehran. She is currently languishing in a wheelchair at the infamous Yarls Wood Detention Centre. She has been allowed one mobile phone (without camera) and is now under severe stress. She has no where to go once she arrives in Iran and will be on the run almost immediately. She has lost weight as a result of repeated hunger strikes she has been undertaking in her desperate attempt to stay in the UK.

Despite the unrest in Iran, despite her fathers waiting sense of honour, despite her peaceful campaigning in the UK, despite the fact she has been in the UK since 2007, despite the fact she is a professional IT technician and teacher, despite the fact she has married in the UK...she is still to be deported by the UK Border Agency back to a country in political turmoil.

To date the UK Border Agency have been responsible for a number of deaths of asylum seekers and immigrants in the UK. In March three members of one family fell to their deaths in Glasgow , In September 2008 another man fell to his death in Woodford, London as UK Border Agency staff ransacked his home. In 2008, a Ghanaian woman was removed from University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff while receiving Kidney Dialysis. The removal was later described by the medical journal The Lancet as 'atrotious barbarism'. She later died, her forced deportation and resultant airplane journey severely undermining the strength she needed to fight her condition.

Earlier this year, the UK Border Agency were regularly criticised after whistleblowers came forward to expose corruption and rascism which exists within the Government Department. In march this year a whistleblower reported that a colleague sang 'Um Bongo, Um Bongo, They kill them in the Congo' to a congolese woman who had fled to the UK from a life of misery in Congo while she was being deported.

She had sought refuge from the aftermath of the Second Congo War which ended in 2003 and involved eight nations, twenty five armed factions of varying sizes and by its end in July 2003 was responsible for the deaths of over 5.4 million people. The war was the largest multi-regional conflict worldwide since the Second World War and is otherwise known as the Great War of Africa. As expected, fighting and regional skirmishes continue to this day and the humanitarian toll from this conflict is aggravated by disease and malnutrition which continues to claim the lives of around 1,000 people per day. Over the course of the conflict, millions were displaced and large numbers fled to neighbouring countries. A large number have arrived in the UK.

In the UK, due almost entirely to a severely distorted 'political media', the conflict is almost completely unknown and refugees from Congo continue to be deported with little or no knowledge by the 'deporters' of the situation on the ground in the 'wasted nation'. While this injustice continues, the so-called debate about immigration continues to be hijacked by domestic political parties and their followers and loyalists competing for the attention of those voters in 'ram-packed' constituencies in and around city and metropolitan predominantly Labour controlled areas. This is easily seen in the collosal number of politically motivated 'public comments' posted in online newspaper and broadcast websites accompanying stories on immigration which is often backed up by letter writing campaigns for print. As a direct result of this artificial 'political consensus' the people of the UK are often portrayed as anti-immigrant, selfish, stupid and utterly ignorant of the world outside the UK, and the voices of those who concur with a sensible immigration policy based on fact not 'populist politics' is almost always 'smothered' as a result.

As the British General Election enters its second week, there is no sitting Parliament, no Government and no redress for those who have had their deportations scheduled to take place during this period by the UK Border Agency. As a direct result, it is expected that large numbers of deportations will take place as the UK Border Agency play, what is essentially, a free hand. Those in the system at the moment, and those already languishing in Yarls Wood Detention Centre, face immediate deportation without any representation irrespective of their actual circumstances.

On Tuesday 20th April Bita Ghaedi will be deported back to Iran, itself in the midst of political infighting with internal pro-democracy movements. She is in a Triple Jeopardy situation due to her campaigning for justice for those killed and executed for taking part in the pro-democracy protests within Iran, her father and family who will want to appease their sense of honour that their daughter refused to remain inside Iran in a miserable marriage that was forced upon her and finally the rampaging stupidity of UK Border Agency staff and employees who continue to perpetually fail to differentiate between genuine asylum seekers, economic migrants and those who have overstayed visa's and study/work periods.

You can contact the UK Border Agency directly to make representations about Bita Ghaedi, or any asylum seeker on 0207 324 6586 or you can fax your representation about Bita Ghaedi to 0207 324 6548.

Bita Ghaedi Port No STD/1289423, HO Ref G1149090/5.



Daily mail 'Um Bongo' taunting
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255066/UK-Border-Agency-whistleblower-alleges-staff-racially-prejudiced-asylum-seekers.html

Guardian Investigation into UK Border Agency 'rascism'
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/02/border-staff-asylum-seekers-whistleblower

Bita Ghaedi Arrested and taken to Yarls Wood.
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/04/449215.html