Responding to comments from UK Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt, saying that the UK would continue to remove refused Iraqi asylum seekers to Baghdad, Amnesty International UK Refugee Programme Director Jan Shaw said:

“The UK should listen to the European Court of Human Rights and, like the Dutch authorities, suspend removals to Baghdad until it’s safe.

“The authorities are, of course, entitled to remove people if they don’t need international protection and it’s safe to return them. But Iraq is still incredibly dangerous.

“Amnesty is opposed to all forcible removals to central and southern Iraq until the security situation improves considerably.

“The UK government knows full well that anyone applying to the European Court under ‘Rule 39’ will have their removal suspended. So effectively they are just trying to catch out anyone who doesn’t know about this ruling, or who doesn’t have decent legal representation. Sadly this still includes far too many people.”

• Call on the UK government to end forcible removals to Iraq