Latest news with #TalibanReprisals
France 24
4 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Thousands of Afghans win UK asylum after huge data breach
Defence Minister John Healey unveiled the scheme to parliament after the UK High Court on Tuesday lifted a super-gag order banning any reports of the events. In February 2022, a spreadsheet containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked to be relocated to Britain was accidentally leaked by a UK official just six months after Taliban fighters seized Kabul, Healey said. "This was a serious departmental error," Healey said, adding: "Lives may have been at stake." The previous Conservative government put in place a secret programme in April 2024 to help those "judged to be at the highest risk of reprisals by the Taliban", he said. Some 900 Afghans and 3,600 family members have now been brought to Britain or are in transit under the programme known as the Afghan Response Route, at a cost of around £400 million ($535 million), Healey said. Applications from 600 more people have also been accepted, bringing the estimated total cost of the scheme to £850 million. They are among some 36,000 Afghans who have been accepted by Britain under different schemes since the August 2021 fall of Kabul. As Labour's opposition defence spokesman, Healey was briefed on the scheme in December 2023 but the Conservative government asked a court to impose a "super-injunction" banning any mention of it in parliament or by the press. When Labour came to power in July 2024, the scheme was in full swing but Healey said he had been "deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting" to parliament. "Ministers decided not to tell parliamentarians at an earlier stage about the data incident, as the widespread publicity would increase the risk of the Taliban obtaining the dataset," he explained. 'No retribution' Healey set up a review of the scheme when he became defence minister in the new Labour government. This concluded there was "very little evidence of intent by the Taliban to conduct a campaign of retribution". The Afghan Response Route has now been closed, the minister said, apologising for the data breach which "should never have happened". He estimated the total cost of relocating people from Afghanistan to Britain at between £5.5 billion to £6 billion. Conservative party defence spokesman James Cartlidge also apologised for the leak which happened under the previous Tory government. But he defended the decision to keep it secret, saying the aim had been to avoid "an error by an official of the British state leading to torture or even murder of persons in the dataset at the hands of what remains a brutal Taliban regime". Healey said all those brought to the UK from Afghanistan had been accounted for in the country's immigration figures. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to cut the number of migrants arriving in Britain. In 2023, the UK defence ministry was fined £350,000 by a data watchdog for disclosing personal information of 265 Afghans seeking to flee Taliban fighters in the chaotic fall of Kabul two years earlier. Britain's Afghanistan evacuation plan was widely criticised, with the government accused by MPs of "systemic failures of leadership, planning and preparation". Hundreds of Afghans eligible for relocation were left behind, many with their lives potentially at risk after details of staff and job applicants were left at the abandoned British embassy in Kabul.
Al Jazeera
4 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Thousands of Afghans brought to UK under secret programme after data leak
The United Kingdom set up a secret plan to resettle thousands of Afghan people in Britain after an official accidentally disclosed the personal details of more than 33,000 people, putting them at risk of reprisals from the Taliban, court documents showed. A judge at London's High Court said in a May 2024 judgement made public on Tuesday that about 20,000 people may have to be offered relocation to Britain, a move that would likely cost 'several billion pounds'. Britain's current Defence Minister John Healey told Parliament that around 4,500 affected people 'are in Britain or in transit … at a cost of around 400 million pounds [$540m]' under the programme known as the Afghan Response Route. The government is also facing lawsuits from those affected by the data breach. A Ministry of Defence-commissioned review of the data breach, a summary of which was also published on Tuesday, said more than 16,000 people affected by it had been relocated to the UK as of May this year. The breach revealed the names of Afghans who had helped British forces in Afghanistan before they withdrew from the country in chaotic circumstances in 2021. The details emerged after a legal ruling known as a superinjunction was lifted. The injunction had been granted in 2023 after the Ministry of Defence argued that a public disclosure of the breach could put people at risk of extra-judicial killing or serious violence by the Taliban. The data set contained personal information of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to be relocated to Britain and their families. It was released in error in early 2022, before the Defence Ministry spotted the breach in August 2023, when part of the data set was published on Facebook. The former Conservative government obtained the injunction the following month. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's centre-left government, which was elected last July, launched a review into the injunction, the breach and the relocation scheme, which found that although Afghanistan remains dangerous, there was little evidence of intent by the Taliban to conduct a campaign of retribution. Healey said the Afghan Response Route has now been closed and apologised for the data breach, which 'should never have happened'. About 36,000 more Afghans have been relocated to the UK under other resettlement routes. British troops were sent to Afghanistan as part of a deployment of the United States-led so-called 'War on Terror' against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. At the peak of the operation, there were almost 10,000 British troops in the country.
France 24
4 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Thousands of Afghans and families brought to UK after data breach: minister
Defence Minister John Healey unveiled the scheme to parliament after the UK High Court on Tuesday lifted a super-gag order banning reports of the events. In February 2022 a spreadsheet containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked to be relocated to Britain was accidentally leaked by a UK official just six months after the Taliban seized Kabul, Healey said. "This was a serious departmental error," Healey said, adding "lives may have been at stake". The previous Conservative government put in place a secret programme to help those "judged to be at the highest risk of reprisals by the Taliban", he said. Some 900 Afghans and 3,600 family members have now been brought to Britain or are in transit under the programme known as the Afghan Response Route at a cost of around £400 million, Healey said. They are among some 36,000 Afghans who have been accepted by Britain under different schemes since the August 2021 fall of Kabul. As Labour's opposition defence spokesman Healey was briefed on the scheme in December 2023, but the Conservative government asked a court to impose a "super-injunction" banning any mention of it in parliament or by the press. When Labour came to power in July 2024, the scheme was in full swing, but Healey said he had been "deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting to this House". "Ministers decided not to tell parliamentarians at an earlier stage about the data incident, as the widespread publicity would increase the risk of the Taliban obtaining the dataset," he added. Healey set up a review of the scheme on becoming defence minister in the new Labour government. This concluded there was "very little intent by the Taliban to conduct a campaign of retribution". © 2025 AFP
