The Home Office faces a series of legal challenges over its decision to allow Zimbabwean government officials to interview people from the country who are seeking asylum in the UK. The government was criticised earlier this year for working with the Zimbabwean state to accelerate the removal of asylum seekers after Robert Mugabe was forced from power, despite continuing human rights abuses in the country. Earlier this year, the high court granted permission for judicial review in a case of another asylum seeker, AG, who challenged the Home Office practice of interviewing asylum seekers whose claims had been rejected, and sharing their information with Zimbabwean government officials. “The Home Office practice of highlighting the presence of these persons, and even allowing them to be interviewed by Zimbabwean officials, seriously and somewhat obviously undermines this. “Zimbabwean failed asylum seekers are being required to meet their persecutors in face-to-face re-documentation interviews, thereby exposing them to real risk on return for inability to demonstrate loyalty to a brutal Zimbabwean regime,” she said.

Source: The Guardian January 05, 2020 17:07 UTC