The Hindu : Anger, fear among U.K. Iraqis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 03, 2003

International

International

Anger, fear among U.K. Iraqis

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON FEB. 2. With the war momentum picking up after the Blair-Bush summit in Washington, there is fear among Britain's 60,000-strong Iraqi community of a replay of the 1991 Gulf War when a large number of innocent Iraqis were rounded up and some even deported on suspicion that they were a security risk.

Though the Government has said that there are no plans for a crackdown, fears persist because of the prevailing hysteria over asylum-seekers fuelled by intelligence warnings that potential terrorists posing as Iraqi refugees might try to enter Britain ahead of a war.

An estimated 3,000 Iraqis arrive in Britain every month in search of asylum and the number is expected to shoot up once the war breaks out.

Memories of the 1991 mass round-ups of Iraqis are still fresh and human rights groups say they would oppose attempts to harass any particular community on the pretext of security. The Iraqi Community Association, which has taken up the issue, said it was apprehensive about the current `propaganda' demonising all refugees as potential terrorists. Its members criticised the Government for not doing anything to check the `smear' campaign.

``On the one hand they claim that the war is aimed at liberating the Iraqi people and on the other hand innocent Iraqis are treated as potential terrorists,'' an angry Iraqi youth said denouncing the climate of prejudice.

Abbas Shiblak, a 58-year-old Palestinian researcher at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford, who was arrested in 1991 and jailed in what the police later admitted was a case of mistaken identity told The Times that he feared "similar mistakes'' could be made again : "We can see the same climate as in 1991...There is a lot of concern, not only among Iraqis, but many refugee communities. The current atmosphere is creating a real sense of panic.''

Meanwhile, as domestic opposition to war grew, the Labour Party veteran, Tony Benn, flew to Baghdad to talk peace with the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, and Britain's largest trade union, the TUC, urged the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the U.S. President, George W. Bush, to avoid a military confrontation with Iraq. The appeal, endorsed by the TUC's American counterpart, said many people both in Britain and America had "strong reservations'' about a war. "On behalf of our two Labour movements...we urge you to continue to lead the global fight against totalitarianism, and terror through the U.N., to ensure this fight is carried out by the broadest possible coalition, with the strongest international legitimacy,'' it said.

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