Britisah Government under pressure to change policy after court halts removal of 40 people and victim tells of brutal two-week ordeal
LONDON, U.K. - The British government is forcibly deporting asylum seekers who are then tortured in Sri Lanka, according to the testimony of one victim who was left scarred and suicidal after a brutal two-week ordeal.The victim told the Guardian he was tortured over the space of 17 days after being deported from the UK last year. His torturers accused him of passing on to British officials information about previous beatings at the hands of state officials and other human rights abuses, to ruin diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The revelations come as Sri Lanka's head of state, Mahinda Rajapaksa, is expected to have lunch with the Queen and other heads of Commonwealth states as part of jubilee celebrations on Wednesday.- The coalition is coming under increasing pressure to revisit its policy, which suggests it is safe to return Tamils to Sri Lanka.
- Last week the high court halted the deportation of 40 people to the island at the last minute, citing human rights concerns.
- In an in-depth interview, the former member of the rebel Tamil Tigers' intelligence service said he was tortured after the Home Office deported him and two dozen other asylum seekers in June 2011. More than 70 UK border guards accompanied girls and men on the flight from Stansted airport last summer after a last-minute judicial review and his initial claim for asylum based on previous evidence of torture, were turned down by UK authorities, he said.
- Speaking through a translator, the victim, who wants to be identified only as Hari for fear of further retribution by Sri Lankan authorities, said that six months after he was deported, security personnel arrested him and beat him with rods, put petrol-filled plastic bags over his face and hung him by his feet with a nylon rope. Hari's back displays a welter of scars and the Guardian has seen medical reports supporting his claims.
Hari managed to bribe his jailers and escape back to the UK via Russia and is now filing a second claim for asylum. "I came here with a hope," he said. "I believed that the UK authorities would consider my case reasonably but, regardless of all my history and the evidence, they sent me back and I had to suffer again."Source: theguardian...Read more..
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