Harmondsworth Immigration Removal (detention) Centre -
Asylum seekers in detention in the United Kingdom are on strike. They object to being treated as trash. The action began last Friday at Harmondsworth IRC, Immigration Removal Centre. Over 300 prisoners staged a sit-down protest and hunger strike. They are protesting the fast-track deportation program; the toxic health care system; the lack of access to legal representation, and more: “They’re not running detention. It’s like prison over here.”
http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=13941
On Tuesday, 20 prisoners in Brook House IRC staged an all-night protest in the exercise yard. They all refused to return to their cells. Over 50 prisoners at Colnbrook IRC have also engaged in a collective action. Yesterday, at Campsfield IRC, near Oxford, about 50 prisoners started a hunger strike. In each instance, the prison’s response has been to take the bulk of prisoners and dump them into solitary. That’s what you do with defective parts.
At 615 prisoners, Harmondsworth IRC is one of Europe’s largest detention centers. It has always been an abomination. The conditions have always been inhumane. Last year, a surprise visit by the Chief Inspector of Prisons found mismanagement and worse: “A number of security procedures lacked proportionality. Separation was being used excessively and was not in line with the Detention Centre Rules. Disturbingly, a lack of intelligent individual risk assessment had meant that most detainees were handcuffed on escort and on at least two occasions, elderly, vulnerable and incapacitated detainees, one of whom was terminally ill, were needlessly handcuffed in an excessive and unacceptable manner. These men were so ill that one died shortly after his handcuffs were removed and the other, an 84 year-old-man, died while still in restraints. These are shocking cases where a sense of humanity was lost.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/women ... stmas.html Yarl's Wood has a reputation for being the UK's worst immigration removal centre. Radhika Sanghani goes inside and finds women struggling to gain access to medicine, counselling and basic privacy
“I did not see a single face or hear the voice of another detainee. I was locked up for 38 hours with no exercise - every hour seemed like a year,” she says. “I started to challenge my mind to find the difference between a criminal and an asylum seeker. That day l felt like a criminal offender. As an asylum seeker we seek sanctuary but here in the UK we are treated as the outcast and the same way as the prisoners are treated.”
Shona was taken to Yarl’s Wood where she has been for over a month. This is because she was never officially given legal status in the UK. It is one of the UK’s 13 immigration removal centres, but is commonly known as the ‘worst’ after its endless reports of sexual abuse, hunger strikes and shocking healthcare. The centre is mainly for women – there are a few men in a separate unit – and children are no longer allowed to be held there, after an investigation suggested they were being badly treated.
Children aren't allowed there. I guess they either separate the children from the parent, or they go to a facility for parents with children together. Or, what? I guess it's possible that having a child in this circumstance means being released when one otherwise would be held -- but a Brit will have to set out the process for that.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/shinealig ... emote-uk-i
Sounds like Nazi Germany over there. I mean, this is like Boer and Kikuyu Concentration Camps all over again! That would be no exaggeration at all. This is an outrage. I mean, the tears should be flowing on the nightly news over this.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar