STAND UP TO DETENTION

AND BE COUNTED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST UK IMMIGRATION POLICY

On Wednesday, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith opened the latest addition to UK plc’s capacity for locking people up, Brook House - the largest immigration detention centre yet - with space for 426 prisoners. 2,500 people are currently locked up in 13 British immigration prisons and the government want to be able lock up another 1,500. Next up is a ‘mega-detention centre’ near Bullington in Oxfordshire and one in Bedfordshire.

Last Friday, immigration minister Phil Woolas was treated to a dose of his own detention when two dozen local residents occupied his Oldham and Saddleworth constituency office. The group of migrant rights advocates and anarchists took over for 30 minutes to demand the abolition of all immigration prisons, and specifically Pennine House at Manchester Airport. Opened earlier this year by the Wool-ass, Pennine House can hold 32 detainees for up to a week, until they are either deported or transferred to other detention centres.

Previously, Manchester No Borders had pied Woolas at a debate and targeted council leader Richard Leese over the same issues. They dumped 100 jumpers in front of the panellists of an event entitled ‘The Right to the City’ in a protest against the Pennine House prison.

Early morning raids by the Immigration Police (See SchNEWS 615) continue to target families fleeing persecution, with some groups being targeted for deportation despite the well-documented political violence in their home countries. Such places as Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraqi Kurdistan are classed as ‘safe’ to deport asylum seekers to, yet the foreign office simultaneously advises against all but essential travel to these areas for everyone else. Over 350 people have been deported by charter flights to Iraqi Kurdistan in the last six months. Recent deportees have committed suicide, been kidnapped or killed in car bombs.

50 Iraqi Kurds were recently rounded up and held at Gatwick’s Tinsley House detention centre. A special deportation charter flight was scheduled from Stansted to Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, last Tuesday.

Determined to stop this collective expulsion, campaigners blockaded the Tinsley House gate on Tuesday morning. Six people locked themselves together and then super-glued their hands to the gates. After six hours they were forcibly removed and arrested, along with three others, for aggravated trespass. Shortly after, a coach carrying between 8 and 12 Iraqi refugees due for deportation left for Stansted. Others were reportedly taken from Campsfield and Dover detention centres, although some had outstanding appeals and judicial reviews. The charter flight landed in Sulaimaniyya, northern Iraq, with approximately 60 people on board. At least two people had won High Court injunctions and were taken off the flight.

One of the deportees, whose name cannot be used for his own security in Iraq, said earlier on the phone: “I’ve been in the UK for nine years. I have a partner and an 18-month-old son. If I am deported, all this will be gone. I’ve made a life for myself here, living as everyone else does in this country, but I’m now being treated like I’m a criminal, imprisoned then deported.” He added: “I left Iraq originally because my life was threatened by a radical Islamic group. That same group is now more powerful than they were before. I won’t be safe, I won’t be safe.”

Another Iraqi refugee, deported last month, said: “I don’t know when I’ll see my partner or my daughter again. I speak to them in tears on the phone every night. I am still in shock after being sent back. I have had to change my name so I’m not targeted by the same people who threatened to kill me before. My entire world has caved in.”

Deportation flights to Iraq have been chartered from Czech Airlines and Hamburg International and the coaches transporting the detainees in UK are operated by WH Tours and Woodcock Coaches. The main corporate profiteers of this detention and deportation misery are Global Solutions Limited (GSL), owners of Group 4 Securicor (G4S), who run three detention centres, including Brook House, and provide detainee ‘escorting services.’ Other detention centres are operated by Serco, Sodexo and GEO.

GSL has been repeatedly criticised by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons over their running of the detention centres. In her 2008 inspection report, Anne Owers expressed “concerns over provision for children” held at Tinsley House, and considered that conditions for the much-reduced number of single women were “unacceptable.’’

In 2006, Owers said Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow “had been allowed to slip into a culture and approach which was wholly at odds with its stated purpose” following the suicide of two detainees in 2004 and 2006. This week the Court of Appeal ruled that the government was wrong not to order an independent inquiry into allegations of mistreatment at Harmondsworth in 2006. Detainees had been denied food and drink, forced to urinate and defecate in front of each other, and strip searched in front of several officers.

One of the latest victims of the deportation regime is Hussein Khedri, a young Iranian detained last week and facing deportation to Greece, despite an independent medical report confirming him to be a minor. Hussein is the youngest member of the Tuesday Night Project at The Square Centre in Nottingham and is widely liked by all who attend.

Adam Osman Mohammed was forced to flee to the UK when his village, in Darfur, was repeatedly attacked in 2005. He was refused asylum, and took ‘voluntary return’ before being forced back anyway. A few days after he arrived in Darfur he was shot dead in front of his family, by government security forces. The Home Office now want to restart deportations to Darfur.

This Saturday (21st) sees a national day of action against detention centres. A protest march will go 11.30am from Bedford town centre to Yarls Wood detention centre, a demo in Manchester will target Pennine House and in Edinburgh campaigners will picket G4S.

* See www.noborders.org.uk for more details.