What Happened To The Moral Foreign Policy asks Euro-MP

2.58.20pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 27th Jun 2005

All deportations to Zimbabwe must be suspended according to a member of the European Parliaments Human Rights Committee.

Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Liz Lynne, is today urging the Home Office, not to send people back to Zimbabwe until the Government can guarantee their safety.

"It is clear to everyone in the EU except the UK Home Office that it is not safe for Asylum Seekers from Zimbabwe to be sent back there. All people who supported the opposition are being targeted by the Mugabe regime, and by definition those seeking asylum in the UK are not Mugabe supporters, therefore their life must be in danger if they were sent back.

"I also urge the South African Government to condemn Mugabe's terrorising tactics. They have influence over him and as a country that in the recent past freed itself from a repressive regime, surely they have an obligation to help the people of Zimbabwe.

"The UK Government were quick to launch in to Iraq, now telling us they were saving the Iraqis from a evil dictator. Yet even today they are willing to send innocent Zimbabweans to certain death by returning them to their home country. It seems the moral foreign policy has turned in to a hypocritical self interested foreign policy."

ENDS