Letting Them Die

The Government's huge gratitude towards selected Iraqi employees seems to be filtering down to the client group, to no very beneficial effect. Dan Hardie has been in touch with three people who claim to have worked for the British army, two of whom have been vouched for by a Times journalist and the third of whom has sent copies of his British Army identification and photographs of himself with soldiers.

Employee One is stuck in Basra. The British Government has announced that he can apply for help if he can transport himself to the British base outside Basra, or to the Embassies in Syria or Jordan. The British Government apparently does not see travelling as a particularly difficult pastime when one lives in a war zone. However, the man told Dan Hardie:

Of course, we cannot travel to BIA (Basra International Airbase) due to the militia keep watched all the ways to BIA and they got their own fake check points there although, we claimed for asylum through the internet (we sent our application to the claim office at BIA) . But we afraid that the British are going to take a long time to process our claims also we are very worried if they will offer just some money instead of asylum, please sir inform all the British people that we looking for asylum and just the asylum will save our lives, also we can't travel to Syria anymore to claim for asylum there as the Syrian government issued new conditions for Iraqis who want to travel to their country.

In 2006 I have threatened by militia that hated me because I work and help coalition forces in Iraq, I told my bosses about that but they said we can't do anything for you because we have nothing to do with civilian and we don't have any army rules or orders to help you, then I continued my daily work with British army, few days later the militia attacked my house trying to catch me but I was at the work at that time, they beaten my family and told them: we want your son or we will kill all of you.

Employee Two is in Syria. He meets the arbitrary conditions laid down by the British Government for entitlement to help, in that he worked for the British for twelve months after 1 January 2005 and, what is more, he can prove it. Unfortunately, his visa has expired, so I suppose he counts as a failed asylum seeker; and in a country with a Ba'athist government, to boot. He has to get the forms for asylum or resettlement aid, not from British embassy staff, but from the embassy's Syrian security guards; and he says he knows four others who are worse off than he is because they worked for less than a year.

Employee Three worked for the army in 2003, which of course doesn't count as far as the British Government is concerned. He will get no assistance at all.

David Miliband apparently does not consider this issue to be urgent; possibly he shares more values with the Saudi Arabian monarchy than he would care to acknowledge. The Government's conditions for aiding Iraqi collaborators have resulted in the abandonment of several hundred people who worked for the British between 2003 and 2005, or who worked for less than a year; many will have left their jobs at the end of a battalion's six-month tour of duty. The Government should be helping people on the basis of the risk they face, not on that of an arbitrary time stipulation.

Even those who meet the Government's criteria are not being properly helped. Iraqis in Basra cannot apply for help via Basra International Airbase, since the airbase is surrounded by militia checkpoints. Iraqis in Syria are being screened by the Syrian police and delayed by British bureaucracy, and thus may face deportation back to Iraq as a result of overstaying their visas.

Please write to your MP, informing them of these facts and requesting them to alert ministers to the situation. Inform them also that Dan Hardie is in direct contact with a number of Iraqi employees and is willing to brief MPs by email (at danhardie.blog@gmail.com) or by phone. As always, be polite. You might just save a life.