Fact Sheet

Emirates Airlines Deporting to danger

Since October 2004, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) has escalated its campaign of forcible deportation of asylum seekers. Often, they have been sent to unsafe countries, like Iran and Sudan, with appalling human rights records.

Last October, the Edmund Rice Centre released Deported to Danger (www.erc.org.au). Researchers investigated the cases of forty people forcibly removed from Australia, and found that thirty seven had been deported to situations of grave danger (another two escaped threatened deportation to danger and applied for asylum elsewhere).

A number of Iranians deported recently were converts to Christianity who had sought asylum in Australia on religious grounds. The US State Department lists Iran as a country in which converting to Christianity (apostasy) is an offence punishable by death. On 20 December 2004 the UN General Assembly censured Iran for human rights violations, noting Tehran restricts free speech, uses torture, and persecutes dissenters.

There have been a number of deaths in Europe as a result of forced deportation procedures. The medical profession and international human rights bodies have condemned the use of chemical restraints in deportations, a practice which we know has been used in Australia.

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Sharan Burrow has requested that union members in Australian airports refuse to assist with the deportation of asylum seekers.

EMIRATES Airlines has been actively complicit in a number of deportations. It is informed in advance by DIMIA of proposed deportations, and its 'Group Security' office in Dubai provides clearance for them. EMIRATES has refused to respond to repeated requests for information about its deportation policy or practices. In January 2005 refugee groups called for a boycott of EMIRATES Airlines and a national day of action against the airline for Tuesday 1 February 2005

The secrecy which surrounds deportations makes it very difficult to obtain accurate and reliable information about particular cases. RAC (Vic) believes EMIRATES has been involved in numerous deportations, including the following:

Deportation to Iran
14 October 2004. A 36 year-old Iranian Christian was flown by charter plane from Whyalla to Perth before being placed on EMIRATES flight EK421 to Dubai. On 21 October he telephoned a friend in Canberra. He said he had been interrogated for more than 24 hours after arriving in Iran. His family's house has since been searched and his family interrogated. He has now been charged with leaving Iran without the appropriate permits, and has also been told he will be required to appear before a revolutionary court to answer charges of converting to Christianity.

Deportation to Sudan
11 January 2005.Abdul Khogali, a Sudanese asylum seeker who had been in detention for seven years, was removed with an Iranian Christian asylum seeker, GB, from Villawood detention centre. Villawood detainees report that Abdul was beaten by officers, who arrived without warning to take him away. It is believed that Abdul and GB were forcibly sedated intravenously before being placed on board a small plane which flew them (along with the 8 guards who were escorting them, and 12 other passengers) from Sydney airport to Dubai. We have not been able to obtain information concerning the company which flew this plane, but Abdul has relatives in Australia who have confirmed that he was placed on board an EMIRATES flight from Dubai to Khartoum. Abdul was sedated a second time in Dubai, this time with pills. He was arrested upon arrival in Khartoum, and imprisoned for six days.

Abdul was a police officer in Sudan and fled after he refused to enforce Islamic sharia law, which includes the amputation of limbs and public execution. Other members of his family have been recognised as refugees and live in Perth.