About 200 Zimbabweans held a demonstration outside the Zimbabwean embassy in central London Monday, to protest against the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe as well as the UK government’s plans to deport failed asylum seekers to the country despite the high levels of violence. 
In the past few months the ZANU PF terror machine, driven by violent youth militia and war vets, has been increasing its attacks on MDC supporters as well as ordinary people in both urban and rural areas. Zimbabwe’s partisan police have also been arresting MDC MPs on trumped-up charges, while numerous political activists have been thrown behind bars for alleged treason.  
Monday’s demonstration was organised by the MDC UK and Ireland, and was supported by other rights groups based in the diaspora, including the Zimbabwe Vigil, Restoration of Human Rights Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Association. 
The MDC UK’s Jeff Sango said: “We realise that the situation in Zimbabwe is not getting any better. We thought the government of national unity was going to change things, but we see an escalation where Mugabe and ZANU PF are very keen on not having a proper road map and free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.”
The exiles are also up in arms over a new immigration court ruling that has given the UK Home Office permission to deport thousands of failed asylum seekers back to Zimbabwe, saying the country is now safe. Last week Justice Blake from the UK Immigration and Asylum Chamber declared that Zimbabwe is now considered safe for failed asylum seekers to be returned to. His ruling comes six months after the UK’s Immigration Minister Damian Green announced the Home Office’s plans to resume deportations to Zimbabwe. In 2006 a court ruling had halted forced removals, saying the political violence in the country deemed it unsafe to deport failed asylum seekers. 
Sango said the ruling is flawed as it was based on a Home Office fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe in October last year and the situation has worsened since that time. “We met representatives from the Home Office today and gave them a petition saying we, the MDC, feel this is not the right time to deport Zimbabweans back because of the violence on the ground,” Sango said. 
The new ruling means up to 10,000 failed asylum seekers could be forcibly returned to Zimbabwe. Sango denied some accusations that the UK Zimbabweans were only demonstrating now, because of the immigration ruling. He insisted that they had planned to hold a demonstration against the increasing violence long before the immigration judgment was announced. 

By SW radio