A ‘funeral procession’, led by a drummer, made its way through Stroud on Saturday morning in protest at the passing of the Safety of Rwanda bill last Monday, which enables to government to deport asylum seekers to the African nation. Protestors carried placards bearing the words ‘No to Rwanda deportations’ and ‘Refugees and asylum seekers welcome here’.
Organised by Stroud District Together with Refugees, and Community Solidarity, the protest centred around a coffin which marked ‘the death of compassion’. Some protestors wore dark clothes and funerial attire and carried the coffin, loaned by Family Tree Funeral Company in Stroud, to the top of the High Street where brief speeches were heard.
The final speaker at the protest was a man who had fled his native Syria and had been granted asylum and now lives in Stroud: “The reason people are fleeing Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine – they are fleeing torture and arrest. Even if you put a gun against my head and told me ‘you are forced to go back to Syria’, I would gladly take your bullet. I would choose the chance of survival on a death boat, in a storm in the middle of the sea, I would choose that gladly over any chances I might have in the cells of torture of the Assad prison.”
Organisers plan further protests if the deportation flights leave the UK for Rwanda.