HOME office accelerates removal of failed asylum seekers, permitting Zimbabwean government officials to interview potential returnees

UK HOME OFFICE ACCELERATES REMOVAL OF FAILED ASYLUM SEEKERS BACK TO ZIMBABWE, permitting Zimbabwean government officials to interview potential returnees.
The Home Office faces a series of legal challenges over its decision to allow Zimbabwean government officials to interview people from the country who are seeking asylum in the UK.
The government was criticised earlier this year for working with the Zimbabwean state to accelerate the removal of asylum seekers after Robert Mugabe was forced from power, despite continuing human rights abuses in the country.
The Home Office faces a series of legal challenges over its decision to allow Zimbabwean government officials to interview people from the country who are seeking asylum in the UK.
The government was criticised earlier this year for working with the Zimbabwean state to accelerate the removal of asylum seekers after Robert Mugabe was forced from power, despite continuing human rights abuses in the country.
Zimbabweans seeking asylum in the UK, who fear persecution by the new government, were asked to attend Home Office centres across the UK, only to find officials from the governement in Harare waiting to question them. Lawyers acting on behalf of one of the applicants, Chishamiso Mkundi, 51, applied for a judicial review after his asylum claim was rejected.
AdvertisementGranting permission for the review last month, judges said: “It is at least arguable that the respondent [the home secretary, Priti Patel] failed to consider whether her own actions, in inviting an official from the Zimbabwean embassy to an interview with the Home Office in December 2018, might have brought the applicant to the direct attention to the Zimbabwean authorities.”
Many asylum seekers from Zimbabwe sought refuge in the UK because of their anti-government protests or support for the country’s opposition. Their claims were often rejected on the basis that they were not of sufficiently high profile to come to the attention of the Zimbabwe authorities and thus risk being mistreated on their return.
Earlier this year, the high court granted permission for judicial review in a case of another asylum seeker, AG, who challenged the Home Office practice of interviewing asylum seekers whose claims had been rejected, and sharing their information with Zimbabwean government officials. A date for a hearing has been set in February.
AG’s lawyer, Rowan Pennington-Benton, said: “Our client is one of many asylum seekers told by the Home Office that it was safe for them to return, as they were not high profile and would slip under the radar upon arrival in Harare.
“The Home Office practice of highlighting the presence of these persons, and even allowing them to be interviewed by Zimbabwean officials, seriously and somewhat obviously undermines this.
“The practice is dangerous and from a Home Office policy perspective curiously self-defeating, as it provides failed asylum seekers with good grounds to resist removal.”
Zimbabweans seeking asylum in the UK, who fear persecution by the new government, were asked to attend Home Office centres across the UK, only to find officials from the government in Harare waiting to question them. Lawyers acting on behalf of one of the applicants, Chishamiso Mkundi, 51, applied for a judicial review after his asylum claim was rejected
The very presence of Zimbabwe authorities at Home Office interviews a dangerous practice, and even allowing them to interview Zimbabwean asylum seekers,effectively undermines the process. However to the Discerning Eye www.newzimbabwevision.com, perhaps this is not as bad as it may look as it now sets grounds for failed asylum seekers to resist removal from UK.
This horrendous practice by a powerful First world democracy that on one hand should protect asylum seekers, is unfortunately placing failed asylum seeking Zimbabweans living in the UK at risk through interviews with Zimbabwe officials , clearly failing to protect the claimants against the militarised Mnangagwa Zanu pf regime which is keen to please the British government by taking back failed asylum seekers, unlike the late Mugabe’s Zanu pf regime which refused to cooperate with British attempts to return people to Zimbabwe
“Zimbabwean failed asylum seekers are being required to meet their persecutors in face-to-face re-documentation interviews, thereby exposing them to real risk on return for inability to demonstrate loyalty to a brutal Zimbabwean regime,” she said.
According to a Sheffield constituency MP, Paul Blomfield , Sheffield Central is home to a number of Zimbabwean aylum seekers invited to attend Home Office interviews, and he is pleased that the court had said there was a strong case for saying the practice is illegal.
Many Sheffield Zimbabweans were invited to attend Home Office interviews, an illegal practice of identifying people to the Zimbabwean authorities thus placing their lives at risk of persecution from a country with documented high human rights abuses as UK prepared their deportations.
The Home Office claimed: “Re-documentation interviews are a standard part of Home Office process where an interview is required by the receiving country in this case Zimbabwe to confirm the identity of the failed asylum seekers so that travel document could be produced for them. Sibusiso Ngwenya-Guardian
Photo-Judges accepted Chishamiso Mkundi’s application for a judicial review after his asylum claim was rejected. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/for the Guardian
WELCOME EVERYONE: 286,261 MEMBERS, A Quarter of a million members, thank you for the fast growth, participation and continuous encouragement to others to join the group, and engage other progressive minded people in respectful and inclusive debate focused on information dissemination in issues that directly affect the ordinary person including human rights, good governance, accountability, transparency, housing, employment, development, girl child, equality, gender, peace, climate change, pollution, youth, freedom and more issues that directly affect the ordinary person. Information dissemination empowers the readers so that they are better placed to make well informed decisions and choices such as voting. Please feel free to add and encourage others to join.
INFORMATION IS POWER!-Thank you for the support. Please email all your articles, photos and breaking news, to newzimbabwe.vision@yahoo.com ,linkedin.com/in/sibusiso-ngwenya-563a572b ‘Twitter-@sibungwenor whatsapp to Mr Sibusiso Ngwenya 0044 79 3 9100534 for publication on the constantly growing online groups, currently standing as follows:1) Zimbabwe Global News 286,261 Members2) Newzimbabwevision.com website 24,436 likes24,468 followers.Manages NewzimbabwevisionFollowed by 12,801https://www.facebook.com/sibusiso.ngwenya.967/videos/10211107528700959/?t=2