Iraqi (asylum seeker) sewed up mouth in failed bid to avoid deportation

[sabra]

Source: The Guardian

A Kurdish asylum seeker who sewed up his mouth in an attempt to avoid being returned to Iraq last week had the stitches forcibly removed and was still put on the plane the next day, it emerged yesterday.

He was among 49 rejected asylum seekers who were put on a special charter flight to northern Iraq last Wednesday, which took off six hours late from Stansted and was forced to return to Britain after being refused permission to land in Iraq.

The flight's take-off was delayed because two asylum seekers had to be removed from the cabin. One had smuggled a blade on board and slashed his stomach, while a second concussed himself by banging his head against the window.

A witness on the plane said many of the 76 Group 4 Securicor guards who accompanied the deportees were shocked by what happened. Some deportees were in handcuffs and others in leg irons.

They had been taken to Stansted airport from Dover and Colnbrook immigration detention centres in preparation for the midday flight in an old French charter plane. After leaving six hours late, it stopped at Bucharest for refuelling before going on to Irbil in northern Iraq. It arrived at 3am in clear and calm conditions, but made several passes before returning to Turkey because of "bad weather". The plane and its passengers arrived back at Stansted 31 hours after leaving the UK.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/16/immigration-deportation-iraq

[Soylent Brice]

1. sick

damn are we good at fucking up lives.

[Rebubula]

2. To be fair...

The fact that they were seeking asylum would indicate that their lives were already fucked up.

Being a Kurd in that region is a poverty\death sentence. They have been battered by the Turks and Iraq for generations.

That said...it seems shitty that we cannot take in people who are genuinely in need of assistance and safety.