In June, The Scotsman revealed the harrowing story of black Canadian Corellie Bonhomme. While boarding a ferry from Belfast to Scotland, she was pinned down by immigration officials and her two-year-old daughter snatched and placed in care, before being detained in Dungavel. The lack of solicitors and the unyielding bureaucracy inside the IRC left her feeling suicidal. Her case caused widespread consternation. A spokesman for the Catholic Church stated that ‘it is almost unconceivable that [such] conditions…can exist in 21st-century democratic Scotland. They display an alarming disregard of any consideration for human dignity.’
Such terrible stories have dripped out of Dungavel and other detention centres for years. However, what is increasingly difficult for the British government to deny is the systematic nature of the immigration system’s violence. In July, Birnberg Peirce solicitors, Medical Justice and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns published Outsourcing Abuse: the use and misuse of state-sanctioned force during the detention and removal of asylum seekers. The report reveals systemic abuse by private security within the immigration removal process, including physical beatings, psychological and emotional abuse and racist attacks, the detaining of babies, children and torture victims and the denial of emergency medical treatment.
Cases of abuse at Dungavel include:
• a Malawian man dragged from his bed and severely kicked and beaten while pinned to the ground; his head then smashed against a coffee table by seven guards, in full view of an IRC manager.
• a Cameroonian woman transported three times to Hairmyres Hospital to have a lump on her breast examined, handcuffed and under constant guard.
The 300-plus cases of abuse documented are ‘just the tip of the iceberg.’ The corporate website of GS4, the private company that runs Dungavel, and which also supplies mercenaries to Iraq and Kazakhstan, states ‘we pride ourselves on ensuring that all of our detainees are cared for in a safe and secure environment where they are treated with dignity and respect at all times.’
The hellish Kafkaesque reality facing failed asylum seekers was further revealed in a Sunday Herald article ‘Life inside Dungavel’ (6 August 2008), which described 150% overcrowding, persistent staff shortages leaving inadequate cover for suicide watch and the fascistic practice of ‘ghosting’.
‘They are like ghosts, moved without warning or explanation in the dead of night, transported in unmarked vans. A silent cargo, often handcuffed, frozen by fear and unable to make a call or let their family know what is happening to them.’
In the words of one Dungavel employee:
‘I would estimate that they move around 70-80% of detainees at night time. I have seen families arrive who are totally physically exhausted and devastated…Sometimes they are transported long distances in the police cells in the van. These are basically cages inside the vans. They are sometimes handcuffed.
‘But the main reason why they transport so many at night is that, the detainees are often hammering on the sides and shouting and if it was daytime, imagine the outcry if a van like that pulled up at the traffic lights.’
And this is precisely the point. The entire system is organised to artificially separate asylum seekers from the mass of the British working class and prevent solidarity. The brutality of Britain’s treatment of immigrants is hidden, while racist lies and manipulation are employed to ensure they are seen as a problem rather than as victims.
S
cottish liberals have continually called for an end to the detention of children at Dungavel and the Scottish government, which has no direct say on immigration policy, has stated its opposition to dawn raids and detention. However, the Scottish National Party has yet to take any meaningful action to back up its stated position. In contrast, Scottish people have taken to the streets to protest against the removal of families like the Vucaj family, with demonstrations on housing estates, direct action against dawn raids and protests at Dungavel.
Close down Dungavel! Close down the detention centres!
Joseph Eskovitchl
FRFI 205 October / November 2008
