By Will DaviesHENLEY MP Boris Johnson has come to the defence of asylum-seeker Mark Coleman, who is facing enforced deportation to Zimbabwe.
In a debate secured in the Commons, Mr. Johnson attacked the legality of the Home Office’s threats to deport his constituent.
He said: “There is nothing left for Mr. Coleman in Zimbabwe. There is clear evidence that when Zimbabweans return to Harare airport, they face intimidation, abuse and even torture and jail.
“It is quite rightly against British law to send them back in such circumstances.”
Mr. Coleman is of British ancestry. He has four British grandparents, yet he cannot claim an ancestral visa because all four grandparents were born in what was the British Empire — three in India and one in South Africa.
Mr. Johnson added: “I think it is extraordinary that we are telling the descendents of people who were driven out of their farms that they must now go back to Zimbabwe, when those farms have been ruined and stolen.”
In October, 2005, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal found that enforced deportation of asylum seekers like Mr. Coleman, would expose them to a risk of ill-treatment at the hands of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) — Mugabe’s secret police.
The Government, who initially stopped forcible repatriation, have now contested the ruling and are appealing against the tribunal’s ruling.
Mr. Coleman is now awaiting the outcome of this, which is expected within weeks.
Mr. Johnson said: “Mr. Coleman has a much more organic claim to British citizenship than many people who are here legally or illegally.
“I wonder whether the Government can find some means of granting Mr. Coleman the ancestral visa that he surely deserves, so that he can settle in this country and work and be part of the economy, which is all that he desires to be.”
But the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Joan Ryan, said: “The Government’s position is about operating a robust and fair immigration system for the UK.
“We categorically condemn the appalling human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. However, I am satisfied that the rules are appropriate and should stand.”
