Afghan Protestors Continue Hunger Strike In Ireland
Joanna Wypior - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Dublin, Ireland (AHN) – Reports indicate that a group of over forty Afghan asylum seekers have vowed to starve themselves to death unless they are allowed to remain in Ireland despite Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s insistence that they cannot stay. According to Ireland’s RTE news, 33 Afghan men began the protest in a section of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin and they were joined by eight more men overnight. They insist they will die one by one unless they are granted political asylum. Spokesman for the protestors, Osman Hotok, 27, says the if the men were sent back to their native Afghanistan, they would find themselves being tortured. “There are reports of politically motivated or extra-judicial killings by the government or its agents,” Hotok tells Ireland Online. “For example, torture, official and punitive, poor prison conditions, abuse of authority by regional commanders, trafficking in persons and abuse of workers and children. “The refugee applications commissioner has not given full attention to us and unlawfully refused most of our asylum applications. “We will remain on hunger strike until somebody could come forward to guarantee us that we will get political asylum or we will die one by one.” The majority of the Afghans have been living in Ireland for two to three years. A |
