OVER 400 protesters gathered at Sevilla airport and clamoured against deportations on Sunday afternoon, a day after passengers staged a mutiny on board a Vueling flight in support of a Senegalese man being returned to his home country in handcuffs.
The humanitarian pressure group Abriendo Fronteras ('Opening Borders') surrounded left-luggage stores and handed in multiple complaint forms to Iberia and low-cost carrier Vueling at the southern Spanish airport as part of a cross-national march to fight for the rights of migrants.
They had set off from Madrid the day before and were heading for the Spanish-owned city-province of Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast.
Abriendo Fronteras denounced the fact that 11 passengers who stood up for the Senegalese man were arrested, fined and threatened with being blacklisted from Vueling flights.
The group also condemns the 'lucrative business' aspect of deportations, pointing out that companies such as Barceló, Air Nostrum, Iberia, Air Europa and Swiftair make around €12 million in profits annually from migrants being thrown out of the country.
Last year alone, the demonstrators said, over 10,000 immigrants were deported – more than the number of foreigners who arrived in the country – representing a 'systematic violation of human rights'.
Abriendo Fronteras has called for a radical overhaul in immigration policies.
