Since the beginning of April hundreds of asylum seekers in Glasgow have been forcibly moved out of safe accommodation and into cramped hotels where social distancing is impossible and prison like conditions are being enforced. Over 500 asylum seekers are reported to be currently detained in these Glasgow hotels, among them traumatised women, families and those with underlying health conditions. Some were given less than an hour’s notice to leave the flats they were being accommodated in by the Home Offices new sub-contractor, The MEARS Group, in a cost cutting exercise which could have deadly consequences. The company has been in charge of housing asylum seekers in Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of England (North East, Yorkshire and Humberside) since September 2019, having been awarded ten-year government contracts worth £1bn
Reports emerging from these hotels paint a grim and abusive picture: threatening behaviour from hotel staff, small rooms with windows that cannot be opened; harsh restrictions on the right to leave the hotel and access to basic goods and foods; enforced meal times, with no account taken of those observing Ramadan, in common areas with no means of social distancing or avoiding dirty surfaces, and on the basis of these meals the stopping of £35 per week financial support from Government making it impossible to maintain contact with lawyers.
Latest studies (see here) show that Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities in Britain are being hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, both in terms of health, fatalities and economically, reflecting wider societal inequalities and oppression. This means the Home Office and MEARS are consciously putting lives at risk.
The ‘SERCO’ style evictions which MEARS pledged not to undertake, after widespread public opposition during 2018 and in which Glasgow RCG played an active part (see here), have been carried out through the back door, mainly on new arrivals and those at various stages of the asylum system facing destitution. The racist state and its hired profiteers have flexed their muscles in the heart of our cities. From new resistance, a movement must be built which stands in solidarity with those who confront the racist state and its global imperialist system head on.
Join the Banner Drop called in solidarity with asylum seekers in Glasgow and all over Europe this Sunday 3 May, 3 – 4pm.
Facebook event here
For more details of this ‘hotel detention’ see the Ferret’s report here
End all evictions and detention!
Safe and decent housing and accommodation for all now!
