US deports Iranian pro-democracy activist to Africa, says lawyer

The United States has deported an Iranian pro-democracy activist to the Central African Republic, her lawyer said on Friday (12).
On Thursday (11), the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund (IALDF) reported that three Iranian women who fled persecution were at risk of deportation, including one who converted to Christianity. This Friday, the group's lawyer, Emily Trostle, said that one of them was deported to Africa and did not rule out the possibility of the other two having the same fate.
"They have absolutely no connection with this place. In all my petitions, I sent a huge amount of information about how this was super dangerous," Trostle told Reuters.
The NGO believes that the plane with the deportee would go to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, via Accra, capital of Ghana.
"These people are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no legal status, no connections and no support network. We fear that, ultimately, they will be forced to return to the countries from which they originally fled," the lawyer added.
Ghana and the Central African Republic signed agreements with the Trump administration to receive deportees of other nationalities who, in many cases, had guaranteed legal protections in American justice so as not to be repatriated.
Washington has used these agreements - including with the Central African Republic's neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is facing an Ebola outbreak - to deport people it cannot legally send back to their home countries.
The US Department of Homeland Security declared last week that all deportees would receive full due process. Washington says the agreements are legal, but human rights groups say the details of the agreements are murky and that many of those deported end up being forcibly repatriated.

Source: G1