'Hacked' adverts appear across London Underground explaining how to stop deportations

Katy Clifton19 December 2018

Hundreds of “hacked” Tube adverts have appeared across the London Underground telling passengers how they can stop people from being deported on flights.

Anti-deportation posters appeared on the Victoria, Piccadilly and Central lines on Tuesday morning, which urged passengers to make a stand against deportation.

Activist group Lesbian and Gays Support the Migrants said hundreds of the “See it, Say it, Stop it” posters had been put up across London.

The adverts suggest passengers should demand to speak to the pilot after spotting a migrant or refugee on an aeroplane with bodyguards, before preventing take-off by refusing to sit down.

The posters say: “Ask at check-in and look out for a person at the back of the plane with two guards. Talk to the person being deported. Demand to talk to the pilot. Stand up and refuse to sit down.”

To mark International Migrants Day on Tuesday, activists also handed out leaflets at Heathrow and major London stations.

A spokesperson for group wrote on Twitter: “Tens of thousands of people are deported every year from Europe. Some of these people lived in the UK since they were a child.

"Many have family and children here. Some are deported before their asylum application has been processed.

“Commercial deportation flights are when the government charters airlines, such as British Airways, to carry out the brutal removals for them. Recently we managed to get Virgin to agree to stop, time for others to follow suit.”

A spokesman for the Home Office told the Standard: “When someone has no legal right to remain in the UK they should return to their home country.

“We will always help people who wish to leave voluntarily, but when an individual refuses to return to their home country and we are confident that no other approaches will work, then we will seek to enforce their removal.”

Transport for London said the adverts "are not authorised" by itself or its advertising partner Exterion Media.

"It is fly posting, which we take extremely seriously," the spokesman added. "We have instructed our contractors to remove any of these posters found on our network.”

British Airways added: "It is a legal requirement for all airlines to deport people when asked to do so by the Home Office. Not fulfilling this obligation amounts to breaking the law.

"Airlines only have the right to refuse deportees on the basis that they feel there is a threat to the safety or security of the aircraft / its passengers or the individual.

"We are not given any personal information about the individual being deported, including their sexuality, or why they are being deported.

"The process we follow is a full risk assessment, with the Home Office, which considers the safety of the individual, our customers and crew on the flight.​"

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in