"No hiding place"
01 January 1991
"No hiding place"
artdoc April=1992
New Statesman & Society, editorial 20 March 1992
One of the casualties of the election was the government's Asylum
Bill, lost for lack of parliamentary time (despite Labour's sur-
prising willingness to help rush it into the statute books),
writes Geraldine Ellis. But major part of the government's
"crackdown on bogus refugees" is already on force: increased
fines for airlines who bring passengers without proper papers
into Britain. Fines were first set at Ãl,000 per passenger in
the 1987 Carriers' Liability Act, then doubled last year.
Refugee organisations and lawyers have always argued that
this discriminates against all refugees, not just bogus ones, and
encourages people to use forged documents provided that they are
good forgeries.
Evidence is now emerging that the act also poses a threat
to asylum-seekers even after they arrive in the UK. Immigration
officers are handing personal information back to the government
of the country whence the asylum seeker fled, via national
airlines. Last November, an Iranian who claimed asylum here
heard through his family that the official who forged his
passport had been arrested as a result of a fine being levied
against Iran Air.
When a passenger arrives at immigration control with forged
documents, or no documents, an official of the "offending"
airline receives a notice, which includes the flight details and
name of the passenger. Because of the high levels of fines,
airlines often contest these notices of liability. British
Airways now employs five full-rime staff to deal solely with
them. Some airlines argue that the name is insufficient evidence
and want to see proof of the forgery-at least to help their staff
spot them in future. So British immigration officers have
started to send photocopies of the offending documents.
Most refugees have little say in which airline they take.
"If you want to fly," says Peyman Nasr of the Iranian
Association, "you have to take Iran Air. All the other airlines
require hard currency. And if you need a forged passport, you
have to bribe someone in the government to do it, because before
you can leave, they spend up to a week checking the details
against their records."
The Home Office already recognises the importance of
confidentiality, and the standard form given to asylum-seekers
states that all information given will be treated as con-
fidential. It disputes that handing over the name of a passenger
constitutes a breach of confidentiality, because immigration
officers do not disclose the fact that the passenger is claiming
asylum.
However, this ignores the lengths that some governments go
to in tracking down their dissidents. Even Iranians who are
granted leave to remain in the UK sometimes change their names
to avoid further harassment. Amnesty confirms that Iranian
police often arrest relatives in order to put pressure on the
political opposition, and here in the UK several Iranians have
been informed that a relative will remain in detention until they
return.