the Disillusioned kid: Safe, just & tolerant
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Safe, just & tolerant

The New Iraq is shaping up to be quite the family-friendly holiday destination. Local attractions include a faltering economy, the burdgeoning kidnapping industry, repression of trade unionists, anti-gay death squads, widespread sectarian killings, often violent discrimination against HIV-positive Iraqis, ongoing coalition military operations and, of course, the continuing insurgency. Given how delightful all this sounds, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that John Reid is eager to help Iraqi refugees back their newly liberated homeland.

According to the Grauniad, the Home Secretary "will sanction the forced removal of up to 32 Iraqis today after telling the high court he would ignore any last-minute legal challenge to their deportation... the home secretary has told the high court that today's specially chartered flight will not be stopped by anything short of an injunction."

In a friendly missive to the duty high court judge sent on August 31, the Home Office insisted: "Because of the complexities, practicalities and costs involved in arranging such charters, it is essential that these removals are not disrupted or delayed by large numbers of last-minute claims for permission to seek judicial review." Reid isn't one to allow himself to become entangled in pointless diversions like legal process.

Inexplicably, given the happy-go-lucky atmosphere pervading the New Iraq, those killjoys over at the Foreign Office "strongly advise against all travel to Baghdad and the surrounding area, the provinces of Basra, Maysan, Al Anbar, Salah Ad Din, Diyala, Wasit, Babil and Ninawa" and "advise against all but essential travel to the rest of Iraq." On a previous deportation flight, the Home Office even paid attention to such hand-wringing and decided to avoid flying directly into Iraq, instead travelling via Cyprus.

Predictably, there has been criticism of Reid's selfless statesmanship in this matter. Maeve Sherlock of the Refugee Council moaned: "News reports every day show that Iraq is still a highly volatile and dangerous place. It isn't possible under these circumstances to guarantee the safety of anyone returned there." She added: "Many Iraqis are keen to return to Iraq and will do so as soon as it is safe."

Presumably hoping to placate such bleeding hearts, Ministers have suggested that there may in fact be "security problems" in parts of Iraq, but "do not accept this applies to all areas". One can take it that Kurdistan, whence these refugees originate is one of these areas without security problems. Just in case, "they have decided not to send back women or children or break up family groups for the present." Their humanity truly knows no bounds.

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.