The British Home Office is seeking urgently to deport a leading Zimbabwean human rights activist, despite claims from members of parliament (MPs) that the move will place his life in danger.
Luka Phiri, a former aide to the vice-president of the Movement for Democratic Change, Thokozani Khupe, was detained last week and is being held at Colnbrook Immigration Centre, west of London.
He was scheduled to be deported on Wednesday, but the move was blocked at the eleventh hour following intervention from Phiri’s MP, Labor Minister Stephen Timms and a number of other politicians, including MP Kate Hoey, chair of the parliamentary group on Zimbabwe.
PHOTO: EPA
Although the government has pledged not to deport Zimbabweans, two immigration judges have approved Phiri’s removal on the grounds that he entered the country on a Malawian passport.
Phiri, who grew up in Zimbabwe, said he acquired a Malawian passport when he fled his native country after being tortured by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s supporters.
Malawian immigration officials told journalists that Phiri would be arrested if he entered the country and prosecuted for obtaining a passport fraudulently.
Meanwhile, a British photographer said yesterday he had been beaten up and punched repeatedly by Mugabe’s wife as he was trying to snap photos of her in Hong Kong.
Grace Mugabe, 43, flew into a rage when she saw photographer Richard Jones waiting outside as she left the five-star Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel with a female friend and a bodyguard on Thursday.
Jones was about 6m away when she told her bodyguard to attack him, said Michael Sheridan, the Sunday Times correspondent who joined the photographer seconds after the assault.
“The bodyguard grabbed Mr Jones, wrestled with him, attempted to take his camera. He then held him while Mrs Mugabe struck him in the face repeatedly,” Sheridan said.
“She was completely deranged, absolutely raging with anger,” Jones, chief photographer of Hong Kong-based Sinopix photo agency said.
Jones said he went to see a doctor afterwards and was suffering from numerous bruises, cuts and abrasions to his head and face.
“The cuts and bruises allegedly caused by the first lady ... were due to the diamond rings on her fingers,” he said.
Police were later called to the scene and took a statement from Jones.
Sheridan said he understood that the police would study CCTV footage taken by the center, which is believed to have captured the entire assault.
He said they had planned to cover Grace Mugabe’s stay in Hong Kong to show the “obvious contrast between her extravagant lifestyle and the plight of people in Zimbabwe.”
The Sunday Times said Grace Mugabe’s trip to Hong Kong was part of a Far East holiday with her family.
She had been in Singapore with her husband before flying to Hong Kong on Jan. 9, the newspaper reported.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS