Detainees at Campsfield House Detention Centre, in Kidlington, are on hunger strike in protest at the proposed deportation of a Zimbabwean opposition leader.

Hundreds of Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK have joined the protest after the Government's decision to send them back to the African state, despite widespread concern about abuse of human rights there.

Scores of refugees have been removed in the past month at a time when the United Nations has ordered an investigation into Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's drive to demolish shanty towns around the country's cities, believed to have made up to a million people homeless.

Human rights' groups are demanding that the Home Office stops the deportations and are urging Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the plight of the refugees at next month's G8 world leaders' summit in Scotland.

The hunger strike was launched after Crespen Kulingi, 32, was told he would be deported today. It was announced last night that his flight had been postponed. Mr Kulingi, 32, who is a close aide of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement of Democratic Change, is in a wheelchair after suffering crippling injuries in detention in Zimbabwe.

Mr Kulingi told The Times: "I'm frightened I will be killed if I'm sent back to Zimbabwe. I don't understand why Mr Blair and his ministers condemn Mr Mugabe as a cruel dictator to his people and yet Britain sends us back to face his wrath."

Teresa Hayter, of the Campaign to Close Campsfield House, said: "We are aware of the hunger strike and believe it would be outrageous to deport Mr Kulingi.

"It is wrong for the Government to make public attacks on the repression in Zimbabwe and at the same time deport victims of the regime."

She said 79 Zimbabweans were on hunger strike in UK asylum detention centres.

Protesters were planning a demonstration outside Campsfield House today.

Immigration Service officials have ruled that Mr Kulingi is a bogus asylum seeker. The Government ended a two-year ban on enforced removals in November after ministers argued that it was being abused.

The Home Office ruled that it was safe for failed asylum seekers to return to Harare, despite the condemnation by British ministers of human rights abuses there.

Liz Alsop, a spokesman for GSL, which runs Campsfield House for the Home Office, said five Zimbabweans at Campsfield were refusing lunch, dinner and breakfast due to immigration issues."