European Court of Human Rights intevenes in deportation of Sudanese journalist

A Sudanese journalist who was due to be deported yesterday has had her deportation delayed after an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights.

Abeer Awooda's deportation was delayed under the interim Rule 39, which states that the court can request the government concerned to suspend a deportation order against the applicant.

The Home Office confirmed that the 26-year-old Sudanese journalist was released from Yarl's Wood detention centre today.

Awooda, who wrote for newspaper Al Ayaam in Sudan, arrived in the UK around six months ago. She claims she was imprisoned and tortured on numerous occasions between 2008 and 2010 in relation to her activism.

"We must do more to protect those like her in Sudan, where increasingly dissent is brutally repressed and women in particular face appalling basic freedoms and human rights abuses," Waging Peace director Sophie McCann, who arranged Awooda's legal representation, said in a statement.

"We have a duty to protect champions of free speech and civil rights and should certainly not be delivering brave journalists like Ms Awooda back into the security service’s hands when we have seen before that they are very willing to promptly re-arrest and even execute deported Sudanese asylum seekers."

The UK Home Office has not yet responded to a request for comment.

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