UNITED KINGDOM
A UK Government scheme that trains Iraqi Public Servants at British universities faces being axed after immigration officials rejected dozens of student visa applications.
Another project, funded by the Government to research gender-based displacement and violence in Iraqi Kurdistan, was hampered when six members of the project’s Iraq-based team were denied visas.
They had been invited to attend a conference in Bristol last month that was intended to be the culmination of the two-year study.
The organisers of both projects have accused the Home Office of compounding the failures of the war in Iraq by hindering attempts to deal with the conflict’s consequences.
The Public Service training scheme involved a £330,000 (A$586,000) contract between the General Company for the Ports of Iraq (GCPI) and Middle East Graduate (MEG), a Sheffield-based student recruitment agency.
All 12 candidates picked for specialist English courses run by Oxford International Schools have had multiple student visa applications turned down this year, according to Director of MEG, Tariq Abdullah.
In total, 48 applications were rejected, despite being accompanied by supporting letters from Iraq’s Ministry of Transport, which oversees the GCPI, and proof of tuition fee payments.
“Since February, all our applications for student visitor visas have been rejected by the British Embassy in Amman, where Iraqi applications are processed,” Mr Abdullah said.
He said that before this year MEG had helped secure English training in the UK for 36 Iraqi PS employees, all of whom have since returned to Iraq.
Mr Abdullah said rejections were issued for numerous petty reasons, while some applicants were told they had not exhausted opportunities available in Iraq.
“I find this particular comment ironic given the British role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, resulting in the destruction of the infrastructure of the country,” he said.
“The country needs to develop its human capacity to move forward but they cannot do this now due to the level of rejections.”
London, 9 January 2019
