UK deports 50 SL asylum seekers

20 September 2012 02:10 am Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 17 Bookmark

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A group of 50 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, mostly Tamils who were deported from Britain, will return to the country today, the PTI reported quoting immigration officials said.

A group of 50 Sri Lankans are heading home on a special chartered flight arranged by the UK Border Agency (UKBA), they said.
The deportation takes place despite a protest from the London-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) which accused the UKBA of turning a blind eye to the conditions faced by the returnees.

"In its haste to be tough on failed asylum seekers, the British government is turning a blind eye to compelling evidence that Tamils deported to Sri Lanka risk torture on arrival," a HRW release said.

Meanwhile, the London based the The Independent reported that dozens of failed Sri Lankan asylum seekers were removed at the last minute from a controversial deportation flight today after a senior judge accepted there was a risk that they could be tortured on their return.

“Lawyers acting on behalf of three test cases went to the High Court to seek an injunction banning the removal of any Tamil ethnicity deportee on the flight on the grounds that they would face a real risk of ill treatment on their return,” the The Independent stated.

“The ruling, which only applied to those three cases, prompted a flurry of further applications from lawyers representing Tamil clients which were then decided on an individual basis using the injunction as guidance. It is not known exactly how many people were taken off the flight but it is thought to be at least a dozen” it added.

However, sources in Colombo said that all 50 asylum seekers were deported as scheduled without any problem.