The Manchester and Salford NUJ Branch have called for support for a political journalist threatened with deportation next week.

Iraqi newspaper journalist Rzhwan Amin (Jaf), who has sought asylum in the UK and has been based in Greater Manchester since June 2010, fled Iraq after receiving threats to his life.

Rzhwan, who is 32 and a member of the NUJ, wrote political reports for newspapers in Baghdad and Kirkuk, an area that is the centre of disputes between Arabic and Kurdish groups over its control and is home to some of the country’s largest oil fields. Bomb blasts in Kirkuk city, on 17^th January this year caused around 21 deaths and 170 injuries according to an Associated Press report.

Rzhwan was detained on the 8^th January when he went to report to the Dallas Court Home Office Reporting Centre in Salford after the UK Border Agency refused his…