2,675

of 5,000 signatures

To Friedrich Joussen, CEO of TUI Group

Open letter

Dear Friedrich Joussen,

We, the undersigned, call for the immediate stop to your collaboration with the UK Home Office in running chartered deportation flights as part of the UK Home Office’s Hostile Environment policy.

TUI INVOLVEMENT IN DEPORTATIONS:

Between June and December 2020, you were the primary airline operating deportations as part of ‘Operation Sillath’, a pre-Brexit initiative launched by the UK home office to deport people who have entered the UK via perilous channel crossings. Your actions come as part of the increasing normalisation of such violent practices, from the high-profile and legally dubious* deportation of the “Jamaica 50,” to the many deportation flights and immigration raids happening every month, which go mostly unnoticed by the general public. We do not forget those who have died as a result of the UK’s violent immigration system.

Part of this system is the racist and brutal Hostile Environment policy, which aims to compound the violence of an already violent system by aiming, as Theresa May put it in 2012 interview, to create a ‘really hostile environment’** for migrants in the UK via the implementation of citizen on citizen immigration checks. Almost 10 years down the line, we know that this policy has caused unbearable trauma and suffering in the lives of those it targets.

With your actions, you are supporting a system that is widely condemned, and employs increasingly rampant and open surveillance, racist violence and disregard of human rights legislation. Since 2012, The Hostile Environment policy has meant the slow creep of a ‘papers, please’** approach in an ever-widening number of environments- from hospitals to schools, workplaces to housing. Those on the sharp end of these injustices are denied access to public services, made to pay sky-high bills for essential healthcare, denied the right to work, the right to rent- the right to exist. Many are then snatched in the middle of the night and detained, later to be forced on to deportation flights.

OUR DEMANDS FOR TUI:

We, the undersigned, are calling on TUI to act in the interests of justice, and discontinue your collaboration with the UK Home Office. Stop upholding this system. Stop the planes.

There is a long history of individual consumers choosing to boycott and divest from corporations that uphold oppressive regimes, from the international BDS movement to the Boycott Turkey campaign.
In calling on TUI to end their collaboration with the Home Office, we make clear that we will refuse to stand by as long as corporations continue to quietly profit from such abhorrent practices.

We cannot continue to support TUI financially, in the knowledge that the flipside to their family-friendly image is a corporation that has, and continues to, value profit margins above the lives of those seeking refuge in the UK- often who have fled war, conflict, and other forms of violence, only to face further violence on our shores.

ACTION IS NEEDED:

It is not too late to make the decision to stop flying these planes, and stop forcibly removing people from the UK. We, the undersigned, will commit to a boycott of TUI until this demand is met.

Signed:

References:
*https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jamaica-deportation-flight-uk-home-office-government-black-british-citizens-a9328616.html
**https://www.freemovement.org.uk/briefing-what-is-the-hostile-environment-where-does-it-come-from-who-does-it-affect/

Sign the open letter

Signers list

Zoe
Dave Barnes
A Connell
Alison Elizabeth Scouller
Áine
Alison Denham
Karolina Kolec
Deborah Wilbee
Oliver Hayhurst
Louie Johnson
James Goodman
Corinna Del Debbio
Jude Smith
Sidra Fostee
Róisín Shaw
Claire Fahy
Danny C
Julie Moran
Ehsan
Lucy Sheen
Michael Head
Michael Shaw
Alex Newell
Nicolette Irving
Aidan Baker
Lilly Ali
John Devaney
Shane Morgan
Patrick Hand
Mary Kennedy
Carol
Chiara Lauvergnac
Sandra Nicolas
Aisha Gooding
Jenny Putman
Elizabeth Gill
Clara Collingwood
Sally Duns
Kiran Nahal
Desnie Riley
Kate Larkman
Jessica Mevel
David Kersey
Ellen Graubart
Steven Jackson
Barbara Hulme
Irram
Gerard
Beth Conlin
D V

Open Letter: TUI Drop Deportations

Next step - spread the word

You're signing this as

Not you? Click here

Open Letter: TUI Drop Deportations

Will you chip in?

I'm chipping in £0

Secure lock symbol

Your donation is

One off Monthly

Choose your contribution amount

£200

Thanks, we just need a few more details to set up your direct debit.

Change your contribution amount

First name
Last name
Your email
Address (line 1)
Town
Your postcode
Account name
Account number
Sort code
Thank you for your donation. Please hold on while we process your details securely.