press release ; 5 demos across UK this weekend against
2 immigration detention deaths last week

Press release - 29th July 2004

Following the two deaths in Immigration Removal
Centres last week, there will be a series of
demonstrations this weekend across the UK to highlight
the treatment of immigration detainees.

This press release is on behalf of demonstrations
organised at HMP Liverpool on Saturday 31st July at
10am and HMP Forest Bank (Manchester) on Sunday 1st
August at 1pm. Other demonstrations highlighting
similar issues will be held on Saturday 31st at
Campsfield Removal Centre (near Oxford) at 12.00
midday and Dover Removal Centre also at 12.00 midday,
and on Sunday 1st August at Dungavel Removal Centre
(South Lanarkshire, Scotland) at 1pm. All details,
including contacts, can be found at the end of this
press release.

BACKGROUND
---------------------
A Ukrainian asylum seeker at Harmondsworth Removal
Centre was found hanged last Monday 19th July. There
was subsequently a significant disturbance at
Harmondsworth and detainees were transferred to other
Removal Centres and to main-stream prisons.

Days later on Friday 23rd July, a Vietnamese detainee
who had been moved from Harmondsworth to Dungavel
Removal Centre hung himself - he was taken to
Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, where he later
died. A fellow Dungavel detainee is reported to have
said that the Vietnamese man had been detained for
over a year and simply gave up hope of being released.

One of the main causes of frustration and tension
amongst the men, women, and children detained is that
they do not understand why they are detained as they
have not been accused of any crime. Immigration
detention is indefinite and there is no requirement
for it to be sanctioned by a court or be independently
reviewed. One Harmondsworth detainee was released a
few weeks ago after over a year - some others in the
past have been in detention for years before being
removed or released. One detainee moved out of
Harmondsworth after the disturbance says he has been
detained for 11 and never had a removal notice.
Detainees complain of little meaningful communication
with Immigration about their cases. Access to
competent and independent legal advise has become more
difficult and many detainees are unrepresented.

Many detainees are terrified of being sent back to
their country - places like Sudan, Somalia, Democratic
Republic of Congo and other countries in civil war and
with serious human rights abuses. Some detainees also
loose hope that they will be released from detention
here - there are suicide attempts and self-harming.

There have been many allegations of assaults on
detainees, mostly during the remove process - one firm
of solicitors alone, Birnberg Pierce & Partners, says
it is now receiving a new allegation of abuse every
day. The high number of allegations heighten fear
amongst detainees who also claim that when articles
about what's going on in detention centres appear in
newspapers, detention centre staff cut them out of the
newspapers in the detention centre library, which may
contribute to an atmosphere of paranoia.

Locking people up without good reason, little access
to legal help, a high level of assault claims, fear of
being sent back to a place where their life may be in
danger - it's a lethal cocktail of conditions so we
were not surprised by last week's deaths and
disturbance, and neither should the Home Office be.

Official reports on detention centre conditions seem
to have little impact - the last Prison's Inspector's
report on Harmondsworth mentioned that The centre's
suicide awareness team was unaware that there had been
11 incidents in the month before the inspection.

A few weeks ago, Home Secretary David Blunkett
visiting Dungavel and said he found conditions to be
"entirely satisfactory". A major fire and disturbance
at Yarl's Wood Removal Centre on February 14th 2002
was started after Group4 (the private profit making
detention centre operator) carried out Control &
Restraint on a 51 year old women trying to get to the
prayer room. David Blunkett said the next day that
Group4 had "acquitted themselves with dedication and
courage" and we later found out that Group4 had given
the order that detainees be locked into the burning
building that the Home Office had decided not to fit a
sprinkler system to. David Blunkett's blunders inspire
little confidence or comfort.

In addition to what they have already suffered, many
Harmondsworth detainees have been transferred to
prisons. A few years ago the Home Secretary said ".we
will remove the necessity and practice of anyone
claiming asylum being in prison . It is a scandal that
shouldn't have happened. It's time it was over". It's
never been over ; asylum seekers have continued to be
held in prisons. Of the prisons to which
Harmondsworth detainees were transferred to is HMP
Forest Bank, operated by UKDS (the same private profit
making company that operates Harmondsworth Removal
Centre).

The transfers have been chaotic and for those who have
solicitors, some of those solicitors did not know
where their clients were. When they find out, some
will be telling detainees that they can no longer
represent them at the new location. Some detainees say
they were not allowed to gather their possessions,
which could include vital immigration documents and
address books, and say that some of new locations
have not been to provide them with basics so they have
been washing their teeth with their fingers. One
detainee now at HMP Forest Bank managed to contact a
supporter and said he was provided with 70p for phone
calls to his solicitor, friends and family to tell
them where he is. It can be that detainees are lock
up, for up to 23 hours a day in prisons and their one
hour association might be outside business hours so
contacting their solicitor is difficult. In some
prisons, detainees have to put name and numbers of
people they want to ring on a list to go in the prison
computer and telephone system, and this process can
take many weeks. One prison Chaplin told me the
detainees were mixed in with convicted prisoners and
in the past detainees have been kept of the Lifers'
Wing.

Campaigners around the country are staging
demonstrations this weekend at Removal Centres and
main-stream prisons that detainees from Harmondsworth
were transferred to. We will be commemorating the
needless deaths, showing solidarity with detainees,
and demanding an end to the deadly policy of arbitrary
and indefinite detention.

Contact :  sady_campaign@yahoo.co.uk / 07786 517379)

*** HMP & YOI FOREST BANK - Sunday 1st August - 1 pm
------------------------------------------
Meeting point ; visitor's car park at the prison -
Agecroft Road, Pendlebury, Manchester, M27 8FB
Contact : Heather - 07903 184786 /
 simple_things@riseup.net or Emma - 07786 517370 /
 sady_campaign@yahoo.co.uk
Directions
www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/prisoninformation/locateaprison/prison.asp?id=375,15,2,15,371,0



*** HMP LIVERPOOL (Walton) - Sat. 31st July - 10.00 am
-----------------------------
Meeting point : at the prison - 68 Hornby Road,
Liverpool, L93 DF
Contact : Tom Bimpson - 0151 475 7448 /
 tbnw16268@blueyonder.co.uk or Margaret McAdam - 07974
309677 /  margaretacara@aol.com
Directions : opposite Walton train station - Liverpool
to Ormskirk rail-line (MerseyRail)


*** CAMPSFIELD REMOVAL CENTRE - Sat. 31st July - 12.00
midday
----------------------------------------------------
Meeting point : Campsfield gates - Langford Lane,
Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1RE
Contact : Bob Hughes - 07968 292499 /
 HughesBob@compuserve.com


*** DOVER REMOVAL CENTRE - Sat. 31st July - 12.00
midday
--------------------------------------------
Meeting point : MacDonalds Car Park, Whitfield
Roundabout on A2 just outside Dover, then move on to
Removal Centre, which is at The Citadel, Western
Heights, Dover, Kent, CT17 9DR
Contact : Kate Adams - 07792 187948 or 07731 774597 /
 cdas_kent@hotmail.com
Directions : Nearest station is Dover Priory Railway
Station.


*** DUNGAVEL REMOVAL CENTRE - Sunday 1st August - 1 pm
--------------------------------------------------
Meeting point : at Dungavel gates - Dungavel House
Removal Centre, Strathaven, ML10 6RF
Contact : Margaret - 07870 286632 /
 glascamref@hotmail.com / fax 0141 946 6111
Directions : very isolated location - supporters' bus
leaving George Square in central Glasgow at 12.00
midday prompt.


Organisations involved in the demonstrations .
* No One Is Illegal
* Campaign To Stop Arbitrary Detentions at Yarl's Wood
(SADY)
* Close Campsfield Campaign (CCC)
* Barbed Wire Britain (BWB)
* Merseyside Against Detention (MAD)
* Merseyside Socialist Alliance
* National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
(NCADC)
* Manchester Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers
(MCDAS)
* Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
* Positive Action in Housing
* Kent Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers