Inhumane detention of Zimbabwean in the UK

LATELY, there has been increased detention of Zimbabweans in the UK with the aim of deporting them. Detentions and enforced removals of Zimbabweans from the UK have risen sharply in recent times with the Home Office accused of deliberately targeting Zimbabwean nationals.

The UK is not even complying with its own laws and just detaining people, seeking to forcefully remove them from the country.

The Home Office has refused to give figures, but maintains it is targeting 'illegal immigrants'. The Home Office claims the unwarranted removals is not for Zimbabweans only but even for members of the European Union (EU).

Celia Clarke, director of the legal charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BiD), said: "If other European countries were targeting British expats in this way, there would be justified outrage."

During Theresa May's Brexit speech in Florence last year, she offered to write legal protections for EU and foreign citizens living in Britain into the exit treaty.

"The warm sentiments expressed in the Prime Minister's Florence speech are at odds with the actions of the Home Office officials who appear to be riding roughshod over foreign citizens' rights to free movement," said Clarke.

"The Government has a callous disregard for Zimbabwean nationals' rights to live and work in the UK." Zimbabwean nationals are being detained despite having committed no crime.

BiD said Zimbabwean citizens were being detained and facing deportation for relatively minor crimes, such as driving offences.

The organisation also said many Zimbabwean nationals are not being given the opportunity to mount a legal challenge.

If their lawyers launch a judicial review, they are normally sanctioned or reported for wasting time. Their human rights are being trampled and breached by the so-called champions of 'human rights'.

Yet the e-mail sent by the EU's Brexit negotiating team, following a complaint by BiD over the detention and treatment of EU nationals, points out that Britain still has to fully comply with EU obligations.

"EU law continues to apply to the full to the UK and in the UK until it is no longer a member," officials state.

But this is only for the EU members and no one gives a hoot about the Zimbabweans being detained, harassed and denied legal access.

The prohibition of appeal beyond upper tribunal has been the most dictatorial act by the UK.

The 'rule of law', as they preach it, is absent.

Dr Marvelous Ncube, a Zimbabwean lawyer in the UK, said the arrests were abrupt and unnecessary.

"We also have instances where the father of a family has been suddenly arrested and faces deportation while the wife and children remain in the UK without sustainable livelihood support, with other financial commitments such as unpaid mortgages," he said.

Among a flurry of recent cases reported to BiD is that of a 26-year-old Zimbabwean national who had been living in the UK since he was 13 and was working legally.

He committed two driving offences which led to a 36-week custodial sentence, and upon release from prison, was detained and deported.

Another Zimbabwean young man who was on reporting conditions was detained on reporting. He was not served with any document but just bundled roughly to the detention centre. He is not a flight risk; his crime is that he is not British.

Lawyers are being intimidated by the courts; if the court feels that your judicial review application is frivolous, they just castigate you.

There is no legal reasoning but a plot to assist the Home Office to deport people without due process. A Zimbabwean young man was attacked by some thugs.

He called the police for help but claims that, rather than pursuing the alleged attackers, officers took him to Colnbrook immigration removal centre in Harmondsworth, West London, where he has been ever since. He has committed no criminal offence in the UK and has worked throughout his stay.

Other cases include a number of Zimbabwean students currently held in Lincolnshire's Morton Hall immigration centre with one, according to a BiD legal official, detained on reporting while the other has 'clear mental health problems'.

Last week the same official met a Zimbabwean with mental health problems who had been detained for three months despite having no criminal record.

Another family had their front door smashed and the mother handcuffed in front of the children then bundled to a detention centre.

Zimbabwean immigrants who are still waiting for their documents to be sorted are treated is obnoxious and totally flabbergasting, deeply depressing and knee-shaking manner.

The way Britain is treating Zimbabweans here is inhuman and indeed dictatorial.

It is irrational, unfair and surely unlawful.

For views and comments, email vazet2000@yahoo.co.uk