CHARLES CLARKE is coming under mounting pressure from MPs of all parties to halt the return of Zimbabwean nationals to the crisis-torn African country.

More than 100 failed asylum seekers are due to be returned and many are now on hunger strike. Last night one leading Labour MEP said that the government needed to take “urgent action”.

Officially the home secretary insists that it is safe to return failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe. However, the authorities in Zimbabwe have been repeatedly condemned for arbitrary arrests and their torture of political opponents.

Richard Howitt, a Labour MEP who is vice-chairman of the European parliament’s human rights committee, said: “I don’t think we can have any real confidence that those returned will be safe.”

Zimbabwe had one of the highest torture rates in Africa and state violence was endemic, he said: “This is a crisis and I am looking for urgent action from the government.”

Howitt’s comments came after Crespen Kulingi, a Zimbabwean opposition leader facing deportation, won a last-minute reprieve from the Home Office.

Kate Hoey, the Labour MP who has been fighting for Kulingi to stay in Britain, said: “The political situation has to change and deportations have to stop.”

There are about 116 Zimbabweans awaiting deportation to their homeland, all of them being held in detention centres across Britain. About 104 of the detainees have been on hunger strike since Thursday.

Kulingi, weakened and exhausted from being on hunger strike since Wednesday, has demanded that the government free him. He said in a statement: “The British government must realise the danger of sending people back to Zimbabwe, especially from the UK, with its hostile relationship to Mugabe.

“Mugabe has ruled that seeking asylum is illegal, since according to him there is no war in the country — so anyone returning from seeking political asylum will be punished.”

Liam Fox, the shadow foreign secretary, believes that the prime minister should push African leaders to condemn the rule of Mugabe. “We now have Tony Blair as the leader of the G8, but he needs to impress on Africa that there is a real problem in Zimbabwe,” he said.

“He needs to say, ‘We are giving you aid and writing off debt, but you have got to stop viewing Mugabe as some sort of colonial liberator’.”

Among the detainees facing deportation is a 28-year-old woman who is a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. She was raped by Mugabe supporters because her father had distributed political leaflets and put up posters.

The women, who asked not to be identified, said: “If they send me back home, I’ll be killed. I don’t know why the government is doing this.”

A spokesman for the Zimbabwean Community Association said: “We are really angry about the way the government is behaving. On the one hand they are forcing people to go home and face danger, and on the other hand they are saying what a dangerous place Zimbabwe is.

“The hunger strikers have told us that they will fast till death until the government changes its mind.”

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