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Events page.
Demonstration at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook
2006-04-08 -
London
Scotland International Day of Action
2006-04-08 -
Glasgow
Communications House Demonstration
2006-04-10 -
London
Demonstration and March in Manchester
2006-04-15 -
Manchester
Demonstration at Campsfield House
2006-04-29 -
Oxford
Convergence on Villawood Detention Centre
2006-04-14 -
Australia
Solidarity Vigil at Perth Detention Centre
2006-04-?? -
Australia
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...when you are in the minority yours will be a test of courage.
Many years ago when I was growing up my mother said to me: My son, when you are in the majority, yours is the test of tolerance-but beware, when you are in the minority yours will be a test of courage. It's only when I had given up on growing any further that the true implications of that wisdom came to my realisation.
I came to this country a few years ago still a teenager. My true testimony to you brothers and sisters is that I never set out to deceive, steal from the economy and I certainly never attempted to exploit the hospitality presented to me, never. Yet, like any other asylum seeker, I have found that to be the stigma attached to me. It is painful that I have become the subject of politicians' competition on who can hit me harder, who can teach me the most unforgettable lesson.
My friends this time two years ago I was in prison having committed no crime, just being an asylum seeker. I had spent a day in a police cell in Salford following an early morning raid by the police and immigration squad at my house. During the five days I was locked up at Manchester Airport I found that they were to take me to a place where they took people like me: Illegal Immigrants.
It was all gloomy as I was shackled under guard into a Wackenhutt security van heading to Harmondsworth detention centre just outside Heathrow. I was merely on transit there as the next day I was put into another security van to HMP Haslar. There I was greeted with tall walls, big gates and forceful prison guards. They ordered me to strip naked and did a complete body search on me. Then they gave me a prison toothbrush, a prison wash kit, prison boots and prison uniforms. They took photos of me, gave me a prison identity card and that was the way it was going to be - that was the place where they locked up people like me, as I was told two days earlier.
I believe the thinking of the authorities in detaining us asylum seekers is that:
- we become isolated from those who support us
- become hopeless
- assassinate our personalities
- teach us a lesson in a way that the fear of being detained acts as a deterrent to others in need of protection through the asylum system. The fact that I felt so humiliated during my detention and even after is not just a consequence but the primary aim of the policy.
Detention was for me the lowest point of my life. Those were the most difficult days of my life. The hardest thing about that existence is the repetitive cycle:
I woke up every morning behind the same bars, surrounded by the same tall walls that greeted me on my arrival there, ate the same food, and ended being locked up at the same time by the same indifferent prison guards. Everyday my stomach used to churn as fellow detainees were being removed and sent back, in most cases at a very short or no notice at all.
During my time in Haslar I witnessed a lot of fellow asylum seekers going clinically insane. In a confinement like that I can assure you that, like many other fellow asylum seekers, I found it easier to contemplate suicide than not to. And I did contemplate suicide, and I think I probably would have gone ahead with it if I hadn't lost my sister two months earlier. A few others went ahead with attempting it.
The day I arrived at Harmondsworth I was told that a detainee had committed suicide and was found hanging from the roof the day before. In Haslar an Egyptian asylum seeker attempted to take his own life after his asylum case was rejected. In both of these cases, and a lot others there was no inquiry, the detainees who had injured themselves were simply taken away with fellow detainees told nothing about their wellbeing or whereabouts.
Any sort of uprising against the system would be punished by sending the people responsible to harsher mainstream prisons.
I am trying to explain things that happened to me or around me in my detention days - but these are tales of two years ago experienced by one asylum seeker.
It is shocking that the approach of the government towards us asylum seekers has become more heavy-handed. The latest government White Paper on asylum and Immigration contains detention as the central policy. There will be more and more asylum seekers condemned into detention centres. There has also been an introduction of reporting centres run by the Enforcement Officers with security provided by likes of the notorious Wackenhutt, for example Dallas Court in Salford Quays where asylum seekers within 25 mile radius of Salford are required to report to at a specific time and date. I have no doubt that centres like these have been created as a facility for imminent detention and removal of asylum seekers. I am aware that there are plans to build a new such site at Great Dunmow near Stansted Airport with a holding capacity of 500 detainees.
I am also informed of the situation at Dungavel Asylum Prison in Scotland where one particular example highlights the monstrous attitude of the detention regime: A Roma family with 2 children under 5 years old - one child with badly deformed feet and the second is a double amputee. The parents have also been put in suicide watch. In the same prison a young man from Nigeria has been imprisoned, he is also on suicide watch and in isolation from other inmates.
Not so long ago disaster struck at Yarl's Wood. That was a tragic event but one that highlights the immoral dimension of detention as a policy. I want to particularly examine the reaction coming from those who hate us asylum seekers - a local MP, a Conservative, did his best to cause hysteria in the local community by telling residents to exercise caution as missing detainees were dangerous and capable of crime. The authorities ruled outright that the missing detainees had escaped without any investigation carried and while there was still a possibility that some may have died in the fire. But that is the sort of outlook we have been presented with as asylum seekers - with the authorities obsessed with appeasing the right wing and racist brigade by viewing and treating us with contempt and suspicion.
When I was released from prison after two and a half months there I was required to report at a police station every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 7 and 8 p.m. That was for a year. I am still reporting every Monday. In return for staying away from the cage I have so far made at least 200 visits to that shop - it looks like I still have a long way to go as they have no plans for internet shopping yet. Upon my release I was put on the voucher scheme receiving £28.00 a week in food vouchers with no cash at all. I was not allowed to work which I found rather ironical as I was allowed to work in prison - but there was a catch: I was cheap labour and they could pay me a maximum of £10 a week. Apart from the support I had from outside, the one thing that inspired me to get through the turmoil of those days in prison was the anger and hate I had towards the system around me. There was still a thing or two I could pick to rebel against-I refused to be cheap labour and so I never took employment in prison.
Friends and comrades I am very sure that if the authorities have their way they would lock up all asylum seekers in asylum prisons and detention centres. We have been called liars, scroungers, illegal immigrants etc. Severe consequences have followed as a result of those accusations. Some asylum seekers have survived the consequences, some have not - but a lot, like myself, continue to suffer through them. My mother's wisdom rings true- it is a test our courage.
My conscience is very clear, friends and comrades:
* The biggest scroungers this world has ever seen are the agents of colonialism and imperialism who were sent by the British Empire, they used force and deception to occupy and exploit our beautiful lands.
* Not I. Not my brother Bayo. Not my friend there-the illegal immigrants were those men and women sent to our lands by the British Empire who used trickery and assumed legitimacy to occupy and exploit our beautiful lands.
We asylum seekers cry for the imprisonment we are being subjected to. So friends and comrades I am inviting you to join us in, not necessarily crying with us, but helping us through our crying by opposing detention as a policy. I am inviting you to discuss ways in which we can oppose this hideous policy with a collective initiative.
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Read more |
Escape?
2003-01-26 -
A prisoner in HMP Bullingdon writes.
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Campsfield House is hell fire on Earth.
2003-01-26 -
The account that follows is from someone who was forced to flee from Nigeria. He is certain that if he returned his life would be in extreme danger. If he were to succeed in his request for asylum, he would enrich the UK with his many working skills. All he is asking for is a chance to work and get on with his life, while coming to terms with the trauma he has experienced. This trauma has been intensified by experience in detention.
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...something needs to be done...
2003-01-26 -
The following account was given at a conference to end detention in Europe, in September 2000 in Oxford. HK is a Ugandan refugee, who spent 17 months in Harmondsworth and Tinsley House. He is still waiting for refugee status.
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Appeal for Urgent Intervention
2003-01-29 -
Gabriel Nkwelle had been held in detention in six institutions in England since 2001. The accounts that follow are excerpts from his letters from Rochester, Haslar and Belmarsh. The full letters can be found on the website for the Close Campsfield Campaign at http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk. He has finally been granted refugee status.
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"I can't go back to my country and I'm asking for political asylum"
2003-01-29 -
This account describes arrival in the UK, experiences of the immigration service and detention in Campsfield. It comes from a man from a European country who, after two years of being subjected to immigration bail restrictions, has finally won his case on appeal. He has been recognised as a refugee under the 1931 Geneva Convention. Since his arrival in the UK he has helped numerous other asylum seekers including detainees.
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Campsfield Monitor 1998
2003-01-29 -
Highlights from the Campsfield Monitor 1998. Conditions are shown to be deteriorating.
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I have been five months in detention. I have had no antenatal care.
2003-01-29 -
This short piece is the only one from a woman who has been detained.
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...when you are in the minority yours will be a test of courage.
2003-01-29 -
A speech given at the Conference to Defend Asylum Seekers, held at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, Saturday March 23rd 2002.
Read more
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