Asylum seekers in Britain’s immigration detention centres face daily racism, constant moves and physical ill-treatment ranging from cuts and bruises to fractures, sexual abuse and serious head injuries. These are people who have committed no crime. Sick of endless detention (some asylum seekers have been held for five years) and empty promises to investigate the brutality, resistance has intensified. In April, a hunger strike in Colnbrook near Heathrow Airport spread to at least three other detention centres. This solidarity frightened the racist Labour government and its media allies who moved quickly to repress, isolate and censor the protests. Charles Chinweizu reports.
On 8 April 2006, a No Borders demonstration took place outside Harmondsworth and Colnbrook. In a vain attempt to prevent detainees from witnessing this display of solidarity, they were not allowed to go near the windows, denied access to the exercise area and, when they refused to comply, were locked in their cells and beaten up. A hunger strike ensued with 120 refugees initially refusing food and some refusing water. That night after lock-up 15 guards removed one detainee, Pastor Etim, who was accused of leading the hunger strike, to an isolation cell after stripping him naked, then moved him to Harmondsworth. Less than 24 hours later, there were over 150 hunger strikers across all four wings of Colnbrook, yet the Home Office claimed to The Guardian that only two detainees were on hunger strike.
Ninety-seven detainees signed a statement challenging the legality of their detention, and set up a campaign ‘Cry Freedom’ to protest against the lack of automatic bail reviews and to challenge the reasons given for their detention and the quota-driven attitude of the Home Office. They said they were prepared to die rather than be deported. Sanctions were immediately placed on the hunger strikers, denying them access to the chapel, IT room, library or shop. Those who spoke to journalists were beaten up. In desperation at the resolve of the protesters, Home Office officials met with Colnbrook detainees, promised to look at all their cases individually, and convinced some to quit the strike, whilst others were being forced to eat.
On 17 April, 125 immigration prisoners, including some as young as 15 at Haslar Removal Centre, Portsmouth, began a hunger strike in solidarity with the Colnbrook protests and against conditions at Haslar. They staged a peaceful sit-in in the exercise yard and refused to go inside. Staff locked them out and called in a specialist Prison Service riot squad to search them and lock them up. During the night 40 detainees were removed from Haslar to Colnbrook. Detained asylum seekers condemned the length of time they spent in custody, in a centre that was dirty and unheated, with no doors on cubicles. ‘We have no privacy and people steal our belongings…this place is not fit for dogs.’
The Home Office was forced to admit the hunger strike was taking place but said it was not linked to those at other detention centres. On 17 April, Nigerian asylum seeker Amos Onokare Alijaibo was brutally beaten by guards at Haslar for speaking to The Guardian, leaving severe swelling on his hands, knees and behind his right ear, a tender larynx and nerve damage to his hands. He was punched, pushed to the floor, choked and kicked unconscious by three custody officers. He was then transferred to Colnbrook while unconscious and denied access to a doctor for 10 days (The Guardian, 1 May 2006).
On 18 April, over 300 detainees in Harmondsworth detention centre, next to Colnbrook, held a mass one-day food refusal in solidarity with the protests in Colnbrook and Haslar. On 20 April, around 20 Kurdish detainees facing deportation to Turkey began a hunger strike in Harmondsworth. By 23 April, the Colnbrook detainees had ended their 15-day hunger strike, following hollow promises of a meeting with a Home Office minister. Four days later, after the official didn’t show up, 50 of them resumed the hunger strike and continued until 12 May 2006.
FRFI 191 June / July 2006
