The trial of four men who were in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre at the time of the protest on 28 November 2006 opened on Monday 14 January 2008 at Southwark Crown Court. As FRFI goes to press it has been underway for two weeks and is expected to last at least until the end of February.
The court has been hearing from prosecution witnesses, mainly detention custody officers (DCOs). They have described how, on the night of the protest, tensions were running high. Detainees were distressed about the news of the publication of the Chief Inspector of Prisons’ report into Harmondsworth and angry at their treatment in general. Earlier in the day a detainee had been ‘restrained’. Whilst their testimony is, of course, focused on the damage done and the mayhem in the centre during the protest, it is peppered with references to detainees loudly demanding freedom, justice and an end to immigration detention, and complaining about their human rights being abused and about being ‘treated like animals’. During the uprising, over a hundred detainees were forced out into the prison yard because parts of the centre were on fire. Some refused to go out because it was so cold, but once there, according to one DCO, they refused to come back inside unless Tony Blair was brought to the centre to speak to them. The detention centre staff then called in a prison riot squad to end the protest by force.
Before the trial opened, two of the defendants, Alexey and Andrey, wrote to FRFI about how they are being made scapegoats for the racist immigration system: ‘During the time which we spent in this country as immigrants we have felt ourselves all those injustice and discrimination from the government and Home Off ice. Even in prison we constantly clash with it. The government… wishes to blame us and to persuade the public that we’re potentially dangerous people. They don’t want to talk about the main reasons of that riot in there like treatment, discrimination and racism.’
The 2006 Harmondsworth protest is not an isolated incident. In 1998 the trial of nine asylum seekers charged with riot and violent disorder at Campsfield House in August 1997 collapsed after it was clear the prosecution witnesses were inventing their evidence. In 2002 the newly-opened Yarls Wood detention centre was wrecked and half the centre burned to the ground. In 2004 there was a protest at Harmondsworth, following the death of detainee Sergey Baranyuk, and in 2005 a mass hunger strike at Yarls Wood. In 2007 there were repeated revolts and protests at Campsfield, the most recent on 17 December. In addition there have been many small-scale protests and hunger strikes. Asylum seekers and immigrants are resisting the British state’s attacks on them and deserve maximum solidarity from all anti-racists.
The Support the Harmondsworth 4 campaign is supported by All African Women’s Group, Barbed-Wire Britain, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, Iraq Solidarity Campaign, London Anarchist Black Cross, London No Borders, National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group and Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike. The campaign is monitoring the trial every day and demonstrating outside the court each Monday morning 9-10.30am. For further in formation contact; [email protected]
Nicki Jameson
FRFI 201 February 2008 / March 2008
