Several activists and black celebrities, reportedly including model Naomi Campbell, are calling on the United Kingdom (UK) government to halt a deportation flight with up to 50 people to Jamaica that is scheduled for Wednesday, December 2.
The protesters have argued that if the deportation takes place, it would “separate families” and “compromise civil liberties”.
But according to UK media, the UK Home Office has pushed aside those calls and stated that it “make no apology for seeking to remove dangerous foreign criminals to keep the public safe”.
If the flight leaves as scheduled, this would be the second deportation flight to Jamaica in a year, following one such flight in February.
Despite those comments from the Home Office, campaigners in the UK remain undeterred in their fight to prevent the flight to Jamaica.
The group has been boosted with the reported infusion of support from “82 black British public figures”, including Campbell, historian David Olusoga, actresses Thandie Newton and Naomie Harris, and writer Bernardine Evaristo, who are said to be urging UK airlines to refuse to participate in the deportation flights which are chartered by the Home Office.
The hashtag “#stoptheplane” also trended on UK Twitter feeds last week, pumping more awareness and support into the campaign to halt the planned chartered flight to Jamaica.
Locally, there has been no comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Affairs nor the wider Government on the intended deportation to the island later this week.
There has also been no word on whether the deportees will be held in quarantine for 14 days, given the fact that the UK is a COVID-19 hotspot in Europe.
While the UK Home Office insists that the flight to Jamaica will consist of “convicted murderers and rapists”, a human rights lawyer and director for the Centre for Migration Advice and Research, Jacqueline Mckenzie, said this is not the reality.
“The majority of people on the list are on the list for drug offences,” she told Al Jazeera.
Under UK law, a foreign national who has been convicted of a criminal offence and received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more, can be eligible for deportation.
But McKenzie argued that “If you have been in the UK as a child, you shouldn’t be deported, irrespective of what your offence is. Whether you’ve got the right documentation or not, you’re culturally British, you’re part of this society,” she added.
Meanwhile, the civil liberties and migrant rights group, Movement for Justice, reported that eight of the men who are due to be deported have 31 children between them, aged from three to 18 years.
Zita Holbourne, the co-founder of the anti-racist Black Activists Against Rising Cuts organization, has also indicated that many of those detained for deportation are having challenges communicating with their attorneys and families who are not allowed to visit deportation centers.
She told Al Jazeera that at the Colnbrook detention centre in Middlesex, UK, for example, the computer room had been locked due to COVID-19 measures, resulting in detainees having no form of communication outside the facility.
A similar communication issue emerged back in February of this year when detainees who were scheduled to be sent to Jamaica on a chartered flight had difficulties access legal advice due to mobile phone outages.
Due largely to a last-minute court ruling, 25 people were granted a reprieve back then, while 17 others were deported to Jamaica.
Al Jazeera noted that “more than 6,400 ‘foreign national offenders’ have been removed since January 2019, according to the (UK) government.”
Enforced returns and deportations have involved more than 30 charter flights to countries, including Albania, France, Germany, Ghana, Lithuania, Nigeria, Poland and Spain since April of this year, it was reported.
