UK stops deporting failed Zimbabwe asylum seekers

[Ebusitanus]

In the meanwhile lets accept everybody.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15204510.htm

LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - Britain has stopped deporting failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe after two judges appealed for a halt, the Home Office said on Friday.

But the Home Office said the suspension was temporary and the issue would be resolved by early August when test cases on the legality of sending people back to the former British colony of Rhodesia were due to be concluded.

"Out of respect and courtesy for the fact that two judges have commented on this issue, we feel it is appropriate not to enforce the return of failed asylum seekers prior to the court hearing on 4 August when we hope the issue can be fully resolved," it said in a statement.

The government has come under pressure from human rights groups to stop deporting failed asylum seekers after the government of President Robert Mugabe embarked on the systematic destruction of thousands of homes it said were illegal.

The appeals over the past two weeks for a suspension came from two judges sitting on separate asylum appeal cases.

Opponents of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party -- in power since independence from Britain in 1980 -- say they are victimised and their lives would be in danger if they were forced to return.

Last month several failed asylum seekers being held in detention in Britain went on hunger strike to highlight their plight.

But the Home Office said on Friday no Zimbabweans in detention were still refusing food.

RISING POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Britain suspended deportations to Zimbabwe for two years because of the rising political violence there, but quietly resumed the practice in November 2004 despite protests from rights groups that the situation had not improved.

ZANU-PF won elections in March that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and some outside observers said were rigged.

Immediately afterwards the government embarked on the wholesale destruction of thousands of homes in the suburbs around Harare, making some 300,000 people homeless.

Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube, an outspoken critic of Mugabe's government, accused the government of a policy of "peasantification" similar to that carried out in Cambodia by Pol Pot.

The government claimed they were illegal settlements, but opponents said they were retribution against people who voted against Mugabe