'BBC has acted like the Taliban'

MIGRANTS waiting to cross the Channel to Britain yesterday thanked Gary Lineker for opposing Rishi Sunak's immigration bill.

- PATRICK HILL

And Ahmad Harris, 17, one of an estimated 1,200 migrants camped in squalid conditions on the French coast, compared the BBC's move to silence him to the tactics of the Taliban.

Ahmad, who fled Kabul six months ago and has family in the UK, told us: "Gary Lineker is a good man and a hero to us for speaking.

"The BBC are not good trying shut him up. Freedom to speak is needed. It sounds like life in Afghanistan where there is no freedom of speech."

Ali Malekzay, also 17, from Nangarhar, Afghanistan, added: "When I get to England I'd like to hug him." 

PM Rishi Sunak pledged to detain and swiftly remove all Channel migrants "within weeks" in his announcement earlier this week.