Sri Lanka: Information on forced repatriation of Sri Lankans who were living in England in 1988
| Publisher | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |
| Author | Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada |
| Publication Date | 1 December 1989 |
| Citation / Document Symbol | LKA2944 |
| Cite as | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Sri Lanka: Information on forced repatriation of Sri Lankans who were living in England in 1988, 1 December 1989, LKA2944, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aabb88.html [accessed 3 June 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
The IRBDC has information on six Tamil Sri Lankan refugee claimants who were deported to Sri Lanka from England in 1988.
According to Exile, the newsletter of the British Refugee Council, in five of the cases the deportations were ruled illegal by an immigration adjudicator, who "accepted that all five had undergone more persecution, including beatings, imprisonment and torture, since they were returned to Sri Lanka." The same source says that the Home Secretary has successfully applied for a judicial review of the ruling. [British Refugee Council. Exile, June 1989, No. 30, p. 2.] An article subsequently published in The Guardian indicates that the judicial review upheld the adjudicator and ordered the Home Secretary to allow the Sri Lankans to return to Britain as soon as possible. [Carvel, John. "Tamil' Asylum Right Upheld", in The Guardian, 28 July 1989. ] According to a later article in the same newspaper, the five claimants finally arrived back in Britain on 4 October 1989 and were granted exceptional leave to remain. [Carvel, John. "Deported Tamils Return to Britain", in The Guardian, 05 October 1989.] A copy of the articles in Exile and The Guardian is enclosed, as is a copy of an Amnesty International report providing evidence that several of rejected refugee claimants were tortured following their return to Sri Lanka. [Amnesty International. "Sri Lanka - Torture of Returned Asylum Seekers". AI Index: ASA 37/06/89. June 1989.]
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