
Phil Miller was a student in university when he first heard the name ‘Keenie Meenie Services’.
“It was about 2010, 2011,” he told the Tamil Guardian in London. “I was involved in visiting asylum seekers in immigration detention centres.” Miller had spoken to Tamils who fled Sri Lanka, but faced an uphill battle in the United Kingdom, where British authorities were still attempting to deport them. “The Home Office was saying it was safe to send Tamils back,” says Miller. “And after the first few deportations, reports emerged that Tamils were being arrested upon arrival and tortured.”
“So that got me thinking - why is the UK government sending people to be tortured when supposedly we are a country that respects human rights and opposes torture?” From conversations that Miller had with activists and asylum seekers themselves, the name ‘Keenie Meenie Services’ or KMS began to crop up.