18/11/2008

A Welsh action group is calling called on people nationwide to take part in a day of action against BMI Airlines, in protest against their part in the forced removal of migrants from the UK.

Thursday November 20th will be the second of such days of action, which are planned to take place on the same date each month, until airlines stops carrying migrants who are being deported against their will.

No Borders South Wales - a group campaigning for freedom of movement for all and against controls on migration. - have called for the action to coincide with the date that Cardiff based artist and activist Babi Badalov was deported.

NBSW says he was forcibly removed on September 20 this year on a BMI Airlines flight, despite hundreds of telephone calls, emails and faxes to BMI raising objections to the removal.

They say BMI employees told those ringing on the day that they could not refuse to carry people being removed and it was out of their control.

However, other airlines have refused to carry out deportations in the past. XL Airways announced in 2007 that they would no longer carry refused asylum-seekers
who were being forcibly removed from the UK.

In an email following the deportation, BMI CEO Nigel Turner said: "I do not have the time or resources to investigate each case myself nor do BMI�.

People being deported are often handcuffed on the flight and there have been numerous reports of physical assaults on people being deported by the security personnel who escort them, says NBSW.

Group activist Rhiannon Spence said: “In the UK and around the world migrants are criminalised for doing what humans have done for thousands of years: moving in search of a better life.

"Airline companies are a key link in the deportation industry and are profiting from the suffering of individuals and families who are forced to return to poverty, persecution, torture and the violence of war�.

No Borders South Wales says it wants people people to ring, fax and e-mail the company as much as possible on 20th November and on this date every month thereafter until BMI no longer take part in "this cruel practice."