UK: Anti-deportation protests at airports illegal?
Topic
Country/Region
01 March 2001
On 17 April, Mike Taylor, the Bristol branch secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), was found guilty at Uxbridge Magistrate's Court under airport by?laws for refusing to the leave the airport and organising a demonstration on airport property. Taylor and others had distributed leaflets at the Lufthansa check?in desk at Heathrow airport last August, in an attempt to prevent the deportation of Amanj Gafor, a Kurdish asylum seeker from northern Iraq who had serious mental health problems and, under the Dublin Convention, was due to be deported back to Germany. Taylor and his defence lawyer, Sureya Lawrence, are arguing that the finding is in breach of Articles 2, 10 and 11 of the UK Human Rights Act and have appealed against the decision. Anti?deportation campaigners claim that in the light of the government's drive to increase the number of deportations by air, including the use of charter jets to enable mass deportations (see above), the outcome of the appeal will have an important impact on the handling of future anti-deportation actions at airports.< br >< br > Taylor was arrested on 3 August last year while leafleting passengers. Protesters, who were falsely led to believe that Gafor was due to be deported on a Lufthansa plane to Germany from Heathrow, unrolled banners and demanded to talk to the Lufthansa manager in an attempt to avert the deportation, which, they claimed, endangered Gafor's life. Germany depicts northern Iraq as “safe” for Kurds. Indeed, Gafor underwent a deportation attempt at Gatwick that morning, but the pilot of a BA aircraft refused to take him when he resisted his deportation. He was later deported by boat and is now in Nuremburg, awaiting deportation back to Iraq.< br >< br > Tony Benn MP called for support and solidarity for Taylor, and, pointing to the continued sanctions and indiscriminate NATO bombing of Iraq, asserted that :< br >< br >< br >< br >The protest and its repression brings into question the nature of civil rights in the UK as well as the government's “ethical” foreign policy. We need to seriously ask ourselves how, under these conditions, can Iraq be classified as a safe haven?< br >< br >Given the danger of refoulement in this case, Taylor and Lawrence are arguing that the airport by?laws must be interpreted in the light of Article 2 of the Human Rights Act, Amanj Gafor's right to life. Further, they argued that the charges breach Taylor's right to exercise freedom of expression (Article 10) and freedom of peaceful assembly and association under Article 11.
Police treatment of the media has come under criticism too, particularly from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). In their magazine, NUJ reporters present at the scene, claim to have been harassed by police and prevented from taking pictures or filming. One officer even claimed that Heathrow police did not recognise NUJ press cards. The NUJ has taken up the incidents with the Metropolitan police. In a final statement on the Magistrate Court's decision, Taylor commented: < br >< br >if I had jumped in a river to rescue a British citizen, I would have been celebrated as a hero. When I protest at the return of an asylum seeker to his almost certain death, I am prosecuted as a criminal.< br >< br >< br >< br >
More information from the Bristol Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers on 0117 973 3869 or 0117 965 1803 or from BDASC, Box 41, Greenleaf Bookshop, 82 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5BB. National Coalition of Anti?deportation Campaigns Press Release, 17.4.01.