Commercial airline companies have been profiting from European governments’ cruel efforts to deport more and more migrants and asylum seekers. But something amazing has been happening.
Ordinary people just like you are demanding that airlines stop helping governments with forced deportations and family separations. And airlines are listening. Virgin Atlantic, American, United and Frontier have all taken a stand against unjust immigration policies.
But there are still two huge carriers who haven’t budged yet: British Airways and Turkish Airlines.
They’re already under serious pressure from campaigners and the media. A huge, people-powered petition is just what we need to prove that thousands of regular people are watching too.
Tell BA and Turkish Airlines to stop carrying deportees now.
The world is finally waking up to the sheer injustice of deportations. This summer, a video of a student refusing to allow a Turkish Airlines flight to take off until an asylum seeker was safely removed went viral.
And in the UK, this year’s Pride season was full of protests drawing on the hypocrisy of British Airways’ sponsorship of the celebrations -- despite the fact that the airline continues to deport LGBT asylum seekers.
We know that given enough pressure, these airlines will stop cooperating. And we know exactly how to generate that pressure: by mobilizing the full force of the SumOfUs community. It worked this year, when we got two huge European pharmaceutical companies to cut ties with abusive horse blood farms in South America. We made sure they knew their reputation would suffer if they continued to be complicit in cruelty.
That’s exactly what we need to do with the airlines. But we need your help to achieve liftoff. Will you get on board and force British Airways and Turkish Airlines to take action?
Tell British Airways and Turkish Airlines: it's not your job to deport refugees and migrants!
More information
The Guardian. 26 July 2018.
The Guardian. 2 August 2018.