Campaign to stop UK deportation of Zim activist

By Fortune Tazvida

Zimbabwean campaign groups were on Thursday frantically trying to block the deportation of Charles Ndelemani, a Zimbabwean national whose claim for asylum was rejected by the United Kingdom Home Office.

Ndelemani (Home Office reference number N1081650) is described as a ‘national of Zimbabwe and resident of Leicester, currently detained in Oakington Immigration Removal Centre.’ He is due to be forcibly removed from the UK on Sunday 11th April @ 18.23 hrs on Air Zimbabwe Flight UM723 to Harare, then Johannesburg and onwards to Malawi.

The 43 year old came into the UK on the 13th of September 2003 from Zimbabwe using a Malawian Passport. Fellow activists describe him as ‘a Zimbabwean national’ who has ‘worked tirelessly for the freedom of Zimbabwe through the MDC, vigils, Zimbabwe Association (ZA), ROHR and community work.

‘Ndelemani has lived in Leicester most of his time and has even worked as the bodyguard to most of the MDC politicians who came into this country this includes President Morgan Tsvangirai,’ one anti-deportation e-mail read. He is said to have renounced all the Malawian documents he used when he came into the UK.

A letter addressed to the Home Office Secretary of State Alan Johnson says Zimbabwe, ‘is still a country raven with violence, poverty and disease, where his (Ndelemani’s) life may well be in grave danger due to his imputed political opinion, if he is forced to return. His flight has the most dangerous itinerary as it is going to Zimbabwe, the country that he fears.’

Although there is a temporary halt on the deportation of failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe due to a series of long drawn out legal challenges, those who used fake passports to enter the UK from other countries are no covered by the temporary exemption. The UK Home Office has made the ‘technical’ decision to consider the nationality of the passport used to enter the country. Nehanda Radio

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