Court rules Afghanistan now safe for return

LONDON - Hundreds of Afghans living in Britain face being deported after immigration judges ruled that their home country's bloody conflict did not make the region an unsafe place to return failed asylum-seekers.

The test ruling opens the way for deportation flights to southern parts of the war-torn country where thousands of civilians have lost their lives since the toppling of the Taleban in 2001.

Three judges of the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal ruled yesterday that the level of "indiscriminate violence" was not enough to permit Afghans to claim general humanitarian protection in Britain.

Hundreds of asylum-seekers a year are returned to Afghanistan if they have not convinced a court they are in fear of persecution or that their lives are in danger. The latest ruling prevents them from arguing that the country is a dangerous place.

Refugee campaigners said yesterday the situation was much more dangerous than it was being represented by the British Government and the courts.

A spokesman for the charity Refugee and Migrant Justice said the decision was a serious setback for asylum-seekers: "It is now going to be very difficult for people from Afghanistan seeking asylum in Britain to win their claim by arguing that Afghanistan is a dangerous country. This really does take us back to square one."

Peter Kessler, the United Nations Refugee Agency's senior external affairs officer in Britain, said: "We are in disagreement with the conclusion that there can be returns during the winter months.

The UNHCR has consistently advised that returns should not take place over the winter months (mid-October to March 31), and only individuals from Kabul with family or other support structures may be returned."

The judges said: "Nobody is suggesting that the situation in Afghanistan is anything but a very long way short of ideal but ... the numbers of civilians killed by indiscriminate violence turns out to be a great deal less than might otherwise have been expected."

Turning down an asylum claim by a Afghan man, 20, from Nangarhar, the court ruled that civilian casualty figures were not high enough to warrant protection under European law.

The judgment also made it clear that asylum-seekers had to show why it was not possible to be relocated to another part of Afghanistan if they had succeeded in proving that they faced persecution in their own region.

The Home Office had argued that fighting military had "yielded results".

Last year 3800 Afghans, of whom 1185 were asylum-seekers, were returned from Britain to Afghanistan.

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