Sarah Ludford on Chagossians' rights

8.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 3rd Nov 2007

Sarah Ludford is pictured with some of the officers – including Deputy Secretary Hengride Permal – and members of the UK Chagos Support Association at their AGM.

Sarah has signed a joint letter to The Times urging Gordon Brown to stop ignoring the rights of Chagossians to return to Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is a a British overseas territory which the Government has allowed as a site for CIA activities.

Speaking from Brussels about Diego Garcia, Sarah said:

"The Government has missed a chance to remedy 40 years of shame on Britain and betrayal of the Chagos islanders by a graceful acceptance of legal rulings in their favour. To continue with a stubborn and perverse insistence on defying the rule of law and the dictates of morality is strikingly at odds with the Prime Minister's recent paean of praise to freedom and constitutional propriety".

Full text of the letter:

Sir,

We urge the Prime Minister to follow his speech "On Liberty" (Oct 25) by accepting the right of the Chagossians to return to their islands. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has lost three times in the courts on this issue. The law lords have now given a deadline of November 6, and told the FCO that it would have to meet all the costs of a further appeal, whatever the outcome.

After losing in the High Court in 2000, the FCO accepted the Chagossians' right to return. Then in 2004 it used two Orders in Council to remove that right. The unanimous judgment of the Appeal Court on May 23 was that this was illegal: "the two Orders in Council negate one of the most fundamental liberties known to human beings, the freedom to return to one's homeland..

For the FCO to proceed with a further appeal would waste more public funds, delay justice for the Chagossians and expose the Prime Minister's words as hollow. Can we please have a return to good sense, justice and British liberties?

David Borrow, MP

John Bercow, MP

Dr Vincent Cable, MP

Nick Clegg, MP

Jeremy Corbyn, MP

Andrew George, MP

Glenys Kinnock, MEP

Baroness Ludford, MEP

Lord Ramsbotham

Lord Steel of Aikwood