Outcry at cameras filming asylum-seekers' deportation

A decision by Home Office ministers to invite television crews to film the deportation of illegal immigrants, including children, was condemned by asylum-seekers' groups and opposition MPs last night as "macabre" and "verging on the obscene".

Journalists were invited to Stansted airport, Essex, to witness the removal of 48 Czechs, including 21 children, by the Immigration Service.

Some of the deportees, including a girl aged about nine, hid their faces from the cameras as they climbed the stairs to board the BAe 146-200 jet bound for Prague. The group included a child of about two, who was carried on to the aircraft by a young woman.

Media organisations invited to Stansted had to agree to obscure the faces of the escort staff and deportees, as well as the logo of the carrier being used for the flight. The operation involved about 20 officials and escort guards from a private security firm.

The idea of a high-profile initiative was rejected by the former home secretary Jack Straw on human rights grounds. When the plan for televised removals was leaked earlier this year, opponents described it as a "game show of deportation" and a "Big Brother gimmick".

After a week of damaging publicity over the Government's asylum policies, the Stansted exercise was intended to demonstrate ministers' determination to return illegal immigrants to their native lands. But the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Simon Hughes, said: "It is verging on the obscene for the Home Office to stage photo opportunities as we send back from Britain those asylumseekers whose applications for asylum have not succeeded.''

Alan Gibson, of the Committee to Defend Asylum-Seekers, said: "I think it's macabre. This is a very, very nasty policy and just makes deportation into a circus."

Between April and June this year, 595 Czechs applied for asylum in Britain, the 10th largest group. In the same period, immigration officials decided 280 applications from Czechs and all were refused.