Burnham backs bid to save Afghan interpreters

ANDY Burnham yesterday backed calls for the Government to do more to help Afghan interpreters ‘abandoned’ to the Taliban.

The Labour leadership contender said he believed there was a case for heroic translators who fought alongside British servicemen to be granted refuge in the UK.

His comments came as Amnesty International said the plight of Afghan interpreters was a ‘ serious human rights concern’ and called for Prime Minister David Cameron to do more to help those at risk of being murdered.

Mr Burnham became the first Labour leadership candidate to speak about the issue following the Daily Mail’s Betrayal Of The Brave campaign, highlighting how the Taliban is targeting translators who worked with British forces.

Asked if those who risked their lives to help the Armed Forces should be allowed to live in Britain, the shadow health secretary said at the Royal United Services Institute in London yesterday: ‘I believe there will be a case. People who have served our country in whatever capacity and supported our forces need to be respected. We haven’t fully honoured our obligations coming out of Afghanistan.’

Meanwhile, Steve Symonds, Amnesty International’s programme director for refugee and migrant rights, has also voiced concerns about the British Government’s treatment of Afghan interpreters.

He said: ‘Those who have worked for British forces as interpreters are among those at serious risk from reprisals, and those risks include threats, violence and murder. There is, therefore, more the UK Government could and should do by way of providing a place of safety to individual Afghans and their families.

‘The service these people have given emphasises the duties owed by this country to them.’

Despite the human rights group’s ‘serious’ concerns, the British Government claims there is no evidence of intimidation where the threat is such that translators need to be relocated to the UK to make them feel safe. The Ministry of Defence has described claims that interpreters face intimidation and the Government has effectively abandoned them as ‘completely erroneous’.

This is despite the Mail revealing how they have been shot at, their wives beaten, their family members killed and how one was executed on his door step. One translator, known as Popal, who served with the British for three years, was killed several months ago while attempting to flee the country after being refused asylum in the UK.

Not one of 200 ex-translators who say they face intimidation and death threats has been granted sanctuary in the UK.

More than 155,000 ex soldiers, politicians and members of the public have signed a Daily Mail-backed petition calling for interpreters to be allowed to seek refuge in the UK. Their signatures come after Lord Dannatt, head of the Army when British troops served in Afghanistan, called on former servicemen to add their support. He said the UK ‘could not have done the job’ without translators and had a ‘moral obligation’ to help.

Those who have signed in recent days include Greg Dunnings, from Preston, who wrote on the petition’s site: ‘I served in Afghan and an interpreter’s information saved my life.’

Captain Philip Hanson, from Hungerford, added: ‘ I’ve served in Afghanistan and I know the job they do and the risks that they take.’

To sign the petition, log on to: change.org/protectafghaninterpreters

BETRAYAL OF THE BRAVE