RT investigates reports of hunger strikes at various immigrant detention centers in the UK. Asylum seekers have reached out to journalists, lawyers and rights champions complaining of drastic conditions at prison-like facilities and indefinite detention.
19 March 2015
An asylum seeker who is being held at Colnbrook detention center, Abimbola Olanweju, told RT that it is almost impossible to successfully claim asylum.
“The way the immigration system is set up in my opinion and in opinion of other people in this detention center and everyone else outside, it’s set up to fail. Because when you come in you are immediately put on what’s called the Detained Fast Track asylum claim and within it you can have a six-to-eight hour asylum interview. And within 24 hours your asylum claim is denied and you are immediately put on the next available flight out of the country.”
The formality so called ASYLUM which would be briefly studied and refused with stupid reasons in a week and we're inside for more than year
— Detained Voices (@detainedvoices) March 18, 2015
Several dozen asylum seekers have reportedly been sent back to Pakistan, despite facing death threats at home. While the UK Home Office refuses to give any information on deportation flights, one inmate told RT’s Laura Smith that there was a charter flight which left for Pakistan with some 50 men on board from Harmondsworth facility.
18 March 2015
The general-secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), Graham Smith, has sent a letter to the manager of Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), and another to Home Secretary Theresa May, asking for permission to visit those detainees at the facility “who we understand have been refusing food in the prison in protest at their treatment.”
Smith wants the delegation to not only include representatives of the trade union body, but also those of Scottish churches and the Scottish Refugee Council.
“The STUC and other Scottish civil society organisations we have contacted are very concerned at reports of large numbers of detainees refusing food at the Dungavel detention centre,” Smith said in a statement.
“It is unclear whether this is a response to conditions in the centre, or wider issues relating to the asylum system, or both. But what is clear is that the decision to refuse food reflects a level of desperation which must be investigated - the mark of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable.”
In a detention centre near you. Detainees at #Dungavel on hunger strike http://t.co/vI9FWV27w9pic.twitter.com/1SPG3OSOOU
— Veronika Tudhope (@VoteVeronika) March 18, 2015
Tamara Smillie, a public law caseworker at Duncan Lewis is among those who are trying to prevent deportations. She is worried for those who are forced to return to countries, from which they tried to flee.
“We at Duncan Lewis stopped 19 removals to Afghanistan, the other 25 who were removed – we are looking into evidence as to what has happened to them now. I heard reports that lots of them are without any family, are homeless and on the street in Kabul living under bridges with no support,” Smillie said.
More than 120 striking for the continual abuse and persecution and we are in hunger strike and the others units are striking all Colnbrook
— Detained Voices (@detainedvoices) March 18, 2015
The government is turning a blind eye to reports of hungers strikes at immigration removal centers, says Phil Miller, investigative journalist of Corporate Watch.
“We have not seen any Home Office investigators go in,” Miller told RT. “And I don’t feel they are taking the situation seriously. Britain is deporting people to Sri Lanka, to Afghanistan, countries where torture and extrajudicial killings are widespread. A lot of these people are very much afraid of persecution and it’s just not being taken seriously.”
RT’s Harry Fear witnessed two buses with people inside leave Harmondsworth immigrant removal center overnight. Earlier, inmates from the center said they would be “forcefully” put on a charter flight to Pakistan, despite their fears of facing persecution there.
One of the inmates, 43-year old Abbas Haider, a Christian who believes he will be persecuted in Pakistan for his faith, spoke to RT by phone.
“If my life was not in danger I would never ever come here,” Haider said. “Everything I have seen in the detention center is totally unjust and unfair. My life is in danger. I have to face the society where I will now face radicalism. But I’ll try to make myself safe there. I think this is my last phone call to you and my last words. All I want to say is that I came to this country for justice and to save my life.”
17 March 2015
Expecting dozens of #DetainedVoices to be deported to Pakistan tonight. pic.twitter.com/z0U8IbtArE
— Harry Fear (@harryfear) March 17, 2015
More than a hundred detainees are expected to leave the Harmondsworth immigrant removal center on Tuesday and board a charter flight to Pakistan, detainee Abbas told RT in a phone conversation.
He added that most of them don’t want to leave and are “forced” to do so. If someone resists a lot than they give “injections” after which the body is “paralyzed,” he said.
“I’m very scared about the treatment, as I have seen [that] there is [an] absolute lack of healthcare inside,” Abbas said calling the situation inside “desperate.”
The 43-year-old Pakistani national has been detained in the immigrant removal center near London since January 26.
RT spoke to one of the detainees from Mortan Hall who asked not to be named. He said that he has been in Morton Hall for one year. Contemplating the hunger strike, he said that the number of strikers is currently between 10 and 20 people.
“There is a thick veil of secrecy surrounding these facilities,” RT’s Anastasia Churkina reported from the site. RT is trying to investigate the unconfirmed reports which are coming out from several immigrant detention centers in the UK.
Replying to an RT inquiry the Home Office wrote that “detention and removal are essential parts of the effective immigration controls” and that “it is vital these are carried out with dignity and respect.”
Me at #Dungavel yesterday showing solidarity with 60 hunger strikers. Due media ignorance, not enough ppl aware of it pic.twitter.com/zHKcDfhSGb
— Fuad A. (@fuadragon) March 16, 2015
“Locking people up for a year or more in what is virtually a prison camp is not the way to treat anyone who is escaping persecution in another country,” Sandra White, Scottish National Party’s MSP told RT. She added that the UK is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have a cap on how long you can detain people.
This is like a high security #prison. We are in a #detention centre.
— Detained Voices (@detainedvoices) March 17, 2015
Good bye. We will be moved to our home country today forcefully. Thanks for your support and everything. #charterflight
— Detained Voices (@detainedvoices) March 17, 2015
Liam O'Hare, a journalist with Scottish news service Common Space, tweeted this while investigating reports of a hunger strike at Dungavel immigration removal centre.
Guards at Dungavel got agitated when they saw I had a notepad. They demanded to read it before I exited. I refused.
— Liam O'Hare (@Liam_O_Hare) March 16, 2015
Lisa Doyle, Head of Advocacy at the Refugee Council, told RT:
“It’s hardly surprising that people imprisoned inside Britain’s detention estate are protesting.
“It’s extremely distressing for asylum seekers to be locked up when they haven’t done anything wrong with no release date in sight.”
RT has learned from the Home Office that a chartered deportation flight to Pakistan is scheduled to depart at 10.30pm on Tuesday.
According to detainees, the flight will transport around 20 asylum seekers from Harmondsworth immigration removal center and 30 from Brook House.
Tamara Smillie, a public law caseworker at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, has updated RT with news regarding the hunger strikes in three immigration removal centers.
According to messages she is receiving from clients, the hunger strike in Dover and Harmondsworth is "subsiding."
She also reports an ongoing hunger strike at Yarlswood appears to be a "one off" rather than a "mass" or "solidarity" strike.
I'm at Dungavel detention centre. There is currently a hunger strike going on inside from 70 detainees. pic.twitter.com/MZvoXMIzQg
— Liam O'Hare (@Liam_O_Hare) March 16, 2015
In one wing of #Colnbrook IRC, 100 detainees are on hunger strike. #DetainedVoices
— Harry Fear (@harryfear) March 16, 2015
16 March 2015
There are approximately 70 detainees on hunger strike in Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre, Jasmine Sallis, an activist from Glasgow-based asylum support group, Unity Centre, told RT.
Standoff Films have released the audio of a conversation, with one of the Harmondsworth detainees, who said that the hunger strike continues, despite cover up attempts by the UK Home Office.
“Since Sunday, I have not eaten. As far as I’m concerned...the hunger strike continues,” he said.
“I wish the people on top, the people that is [sic] ruling this country, would understand that people are dying here,” the detainee, who remained anonymous for safety reasons, added.
From Harmondsworth IRC: the silence and noise around the hunger strike from Standoff Films on Vimeo.
The hunger strike is continuing at several immigrant removal centers across the UK, Standoff Films, an independent documentary film company covering the protest, told RT.
“I can confirm that the hunger strike is continuing in Harmondsworth and as far as I know there a hunger strike is still going on in Dover. There are all also protests in Dungavel,” a Standoff Films spokesman said in a letter.
Security has been stepped in Harmondsworth ahead of a deportation flight to Pakistan scheduled for Tuesday, March 17, according to a detainee in the facility.
Chowdery, who uses an alias, told RT detainees had been "locked up" for "a very long time" prior to the departure of the flight. He called on authorities to treat asylum seekers like human beings.
According to Chowdery, a detainee in Harmondsworth immigrant immigration removal center, detainees are calling for the cancellation of a deportation flight to Pakistan scheduled to depart on Tuesday, March 17.
Abbas Haider, another source in Harmondsworth, told RT that 100 asylum seekers are due to be deported on the flight.
Heaven Crawley - Chair in International Migration Center for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University joins RT
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‘Let me out, I don’t want to die here’ – #Harmondsworth detainee #DetainedVoiceshttps://t.co/pddzVnO0gB@harryfear
— RT (@RT_com) March 16, 2015
According to testimonies RT has received from detention center inmates, protestors have issued a list of demands.
These demands include:
- The implementation of a 28-day detention limit, as recommended by a Parliamentary inquiry earlier this month.
- An end to ‘Detained Fast Track’ (DFT), a system by which the Home Office is able to determine an asylum seeker’s case within two weeks.
- Release of all those currently on DFT.
- The immediate release of detainees who are disabled, elderly, pregnant, mentally unwell, and those who are victims of torture and trafficking.
Shocking #Harmondsworth visit: met tortured Afghan & gay Nigerian, fearing deportation, persecution. #DetainedVoicespic.twitter.com/TYyRch32Po
— Harry Fear (@harryfear) March 15, 2015
Protests within immigration removal centers (IRC) have spread across the UK, according to a detainee who chose to be called Chowdery.
He claims demonstrations are taking place in: Harmondsworth (Heathrow airport), Brook House (Gatwick airport), Pennine House (Manchester), Dover, The Verne, Dungavel (South Lanarkshire), Oxford and Morton Hall (Lincolnshire).
14 March 2015
Filming in UK immigrant removal centers is banned because otherwise the government would be humiliated by evidence of poor living conditions there. At least that’s what an employee at Harmondsworth center told an investigator from the Corporate Watch group, who snuck a camera into the facility.
“Say you’re in government and you have an illegal immigrant detention center which is this, detention center, yeah. And they (detainees) all have their phones with them, right, and a fight kicks off or, like, there’s bad conditions, which [in] this center there’s bad conditions, right,” an unidentified Harmondsworth staff member said.
Detainees chant: ‘freedom!’, ‘no more detention!’ #DetainedVoices#Harmondsworthhttps://t.co/8NI2hMAhRJ
— Harry Fear (@harryfear) March 14, 2015
13 March 2015
Immigrants denied entry and set to be returned to their home countries may spend months in detention before they are actually put on a plane, Guy Davison, a barrister specializing in Immigration Law, told RT.
“I think on bail applications where people are just simply waiting for those travel documents to come through and the application is simple, they say: ‘I’ve been in detention for 4, 5, 6, 8 months just waiting for this to happen. It is getting unreasonable. I should be now out on bail whilst that takes place.’”
The practice of keeping mothers with small children locked in detention centers is “obscene in a modern civilized society,” human rights activist Keith Best, former chief executive of Freedom from Torture, told RT.
12 March 2015
About half of some 600 detainees of the Harmondsworth immigrant removal center, near London’s Heathrow Airport, have been on hunger strike since Monday. They are protesting what they call inhuman conditions at the facility, including a lack of proper health care, abuse and lack of fair consideration of their asylum bids.
Responding to the protests, the Home Office promised an independent inquiry into the allegations, saying that the “take the welfare of our detainees very seriously.”
11 March 2015
Serious self-harm soars at #Harmondsworth quadruples since 2012 - watch @darshnasonihttp://t.co/8sLCHRlIgO#c4newspic.twitter.com/1D9r4ci4pJ
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) March 10, 2015
04 March 2015
A former detainee of Yarl’s Wood immigration removal center told RT she was one of many detainees attempting suicide at the facility due to horrific conditions there.
“Those who go in there without mental health issues end up with mental health issues,”explained Juliet Nantambi, 35, who is an Ugandan asylum seeker fleeing persecution for being a lesbian in her home country.