Skip Navigation | HOME | UK Indymedia | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

manchester Indymedia

Overview and update on hunger strikes in asylum detention

heather | 30.04.2006 23:43 | April 2006 No Borders Days of Action | Migration

Mainstream press and the home office say the hungerstrikes of asylum seekers in detention are over. I heard today they are not. This is a time that continuing demonstrations and other shows of solidarity with people in detention makes a real difference. I wrote the article below to explain what has been happening. Please keep the pressure up.

Throughout April detainees in detention centres throughout the UK have been on hungerstrike in protest at their continued imprisonment. Linda (currently detained at Colnbrook) says “We wanted the hunger at Colnbrook to go ahead until we are dead because to deport us to our countries is like killing us. So we decided to die”. Other detainees protested by packing their bags and demanding to be released at reception. At Haslar Removal Centre, two dozen detainees refused to go back inside until riot officers were brought in to disperse the protest and remove the men back to their dormitories. Detainees have been on hungerstrike before but hungerstrikes have been centred on individual needs. This time the struggle is collective, against the use of detention as immigration control.

The protests began when detainees were not allowed to go outside during a demonstration at Colnbrook and Harmondsworth detention centres. John Turkson, also in detention at Colnbrook said “Even though we were not allowed to go out for fresh air, we could at least hear your voices, we could feel your presence around”. As detainees were kept away from the windows, unrest inside the detention centre grew. 120 detainees began refusing food, quickly followed in solidarity by detainees at Haslar near Portsmouth and finally Long Lartin in Worchester. Initially the Home Office denied the scale of unrest saying that incidents were isolated and well contained but as unrest spread from centre to centre, the administration became increasingly more paranoid. Emma Ginn from the National coaltion of anti-deportation campaigns says, “For the first time, all visitors were asked if they were press. Almost all visits were refused. Two of the protesters were in isolation, including the Pastor who had spoken via mobile phone to the demonstration. A visitor, concerned about the use of isolation as punishment, managed to enter the detention centre but halfway through the visit was made to leave on suspicion of being press. The situation inside Colnbrook is depressing. One guy says he just wants to die there. He won't let us try to get him admitted into hospital.”

As interest grew in the mainstream media, the response of the guards was swift and brutal. The protester who had spoken to the Guardian was stripped naked and beaten unconscious. He woke up in the van being moved to another detention centre. He now has removal directions from the Home Office.

Despite the official denial that the protests at Colnbrook and Haslar were connected, detainees communicated by phone. Following a further mass refusal of food the next day, the Home Office finally started talking to the inmates. Behind the scenes, protesting detainees were shifted to other removal centres to try and contain the uprising. On Friday 21st April, a delegation of detainees, met again with a home office official who promised to consider all their cases, particularly those of people who have been detained for a long time. The Home Office continued to see the problem as that of individuals rather than the collective issue of the use of detention. On the promise of the Home Office to meet again to consider the wider issue of the use of detention, people ended their hunger strike. By Sunday 23rd April the official statement is that the hunger strike is over.

This uprising of detainees was sparked by the demonstration outside Colnbrook detention centre as part of international protest against the use of detention. Solidarity actions have taken place in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and other cities. We need to continue to expose what is really happening in the immigration system. While the Guardian focused on Colnbrook, detainees at Long Lartin in Worchester believe they are the forgotten protest. A detainee said, “We have been locked up for as long as five years. We know that we face torture in our country of origin, but some of us have come to the decision that a quick death is preferable to the slow death we are enduring here. We have watched some of our members go mad under the strain; we have watched our families suffer and some of us believe that the only thing that we can do is to go forward into the fire, even though we believe we will be burnt.

We believe that the Home Office prefers to keep us here as a particular form of hostage, for political purposes, and to continue to inflict cruelty upon us, until, they hope, all of us will feel compelled to go. We have tried to tell the media but the phone box closed down so we could no longer phone the presenter of the programme. We know the population at large in this country, knows nothing of what has happened to us. Help us break the silence. We are all on hunger strike and have been so now for a week”. The Long Lartin hunger strikers never made it to the front page. By then, the media had also decided its over.

Within detention centres there have been individual acts of resistance such as the detainee who wired the mains up to the door handle of his cell to stop the guards coming to beat him again. In the past, there have been individual hunger strikes. This uprising is for the first time a collective struggle. Organising a demonstration and showing further solidarity through visiting people in detention, phone calls, emails, now is important. The government has made it clear that they intend to continue to detain increasing numbers of people. The latest news is that the Home Office did not meet the protesters as promised and that the hunger strikes are restarting. We need to sustain the campaign against detention centres, the private profit making companies that run them and the Home Office from whom their contracts are issued; to support those inside, to draw attention to their existence, and to call for every detention centre to be shut down.

heather
- e-mail: simple_things@riseup.net
- Homepage: http://ncadc@org.uk

Download this article in pdf format >>

Email this article to someone >>

Submit an addition or make a quick comment on this article >>

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. website address — heather
  2. more info please — lily
  3. hi lily — heather

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Manchester Topics

Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Manchester Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Manchester Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Manchester Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Manchester Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Manchester Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Manchester Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Manchester Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Manchester Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Languages

english

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech