In addition to four separate laws exclusively applying to immigrants, the racist British Labour government has created three types of detention centres: – ‘reception’, ‘accommodation’ and ‘removal’ centres. These are euphemisms for concentration camps for foreigners. Asylum seekers are subjected to extreme violence, especially during attempts to remove ‘failed’ refugees, including those fleeing rape and torture in Africa. The injuries sustained reveal a systematic pattern of torture including sexual assault. A report from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture documents the medical evidence of torture of 14 Africans including two women, held at Tinsley House, Yarl’s Wood, Campsfield House and Harmondsworth removal centres between April and July 2004. This is only the tip of an iceberg of brutality. CHARLES CHINWEIZU reports.
Catalogue of brutality
Detainees revealed being ‘dragged along the ground, being kicked, kneed, punched – including to the head and face, slapped, elbowed, having the thumb forcibly bent back, being repeatedly sat on (thorax and abdomen) – until they almost suffocated, and assault to the genitals including squeezing, pulling, punching and kicking’. Most of the assaults occurred after the removal attempt had been aborted; while the refugees were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs, out of sight in the back of escort vans. One was threatened with being injected with drugs. Not only were they assaulted whilst handcuffed – one woman was dragged up the aircraft stairs by the handcuffs, one was held in a head lock, pushed and kneed, another kicked in the abdomen, chest, legs and mouth, and another had her head banged against a fire extinguisher – the handcuffs were also twisted and pulled apart to cause further deliberate injury to people whose only crime was to succeed in escaping poverty and despotic regimes armed and propped up by Britain. Additionally, the detainees were subjected to racist and verbal abuse: they were called ‘dirty’, ‘you black bitch’, ‘black bastard’, etc. In one incident, an escort officer told fellow passengers a detainee was being deported ‘because he has been selling weapons to children’. Medical treatment for the victims of this torture was routinely denied. (Harm on Removal, Medical Foundation, October 2004).
Another report into the state of four holding centres for asylum seekers, all run by Global Solutions Ltd (GSL), revealed there were no fire or health and safety policies or procedures, no child protection policies, inadequate training in self-harm and suicide prevention, little for detainees to do or read, no supervision or regular monitoring of the centres and a deliberate policy of denial of access to telephones to inform relatives, lawyers, etc. of their whereabouts. At Dallas Court, Manchester, a young woman who had miscarried was ignored and ‘had not eaten for three days’ (Athwal, Institute of Race Relations, 31 March 2005).
Racism rampant
Britain’s treatment of asylum seekers is completely racist and inhuman, and the inhumanity is to be ratcheted up in the coming months. This was confirmed by a BBC documentary in March 2005, Detention Undercover, which secretly recorded staff at Oakington Immigration Removal Centre, near Cambridge and at Heathrow prison camp, both run by GSL (formerly Group 4), who are also responsible for transporting detainees around the country. Asylum seekers were daily, systematically racially, verbally and physically abused by staff who boasted about their exploits.
In a now antiquated PR exercise, an HM Prison Inspectorate report spoke, in June 2004, of the ‘very good staff-detainee relations’ and the ‘caring approach of staff’ at Oakington. In reality, staff admitted smashing a detainee’s head onto a concrete floor, sexual assault and molestation of vulnerable female detainees. One advised, ‘as long as you can’t see any cameras, hit ‘em’. Damage-limitation followed the broadcast, as 15 staff were suspended ‘from frontline duties’, ie not suspended at all, and the usual twaddle about a ‘minority’ being racist was spewed out. Des Browne, immigration minister was ‘committed to ensuring… effective immigration controls’ were carried out with ‘dignity and humanity’. He would consider what action to take once he was in possession of all the facts. Don’t hold your breath.
Meanwhile, the Labour government has announced it is to ‘fast-track’ 30% of asylum applications by December and up to 40% by end 2006. ‘Super fast-tracking’, as applied in Harmondsworth camp, means cases are taken from application to appeal in 10 days or less. On the list of 56 ‘fast-track countries’, 31 are African; the others are Latin American, east European and Middle Eastern. All are nations oppressed by centuries of colonialism and imperialism, including the ‘safe’ Iraq, Afghanistan and Cameroon where torture is endemic. 3.8 million people have died in Congo’s profitable civil war since 1998, but that didn’t stop Labour deporting 65 people to Congo in 2004 (many are raped and tortured on return), 105 to Zimbabwe, 150 to Somalia, 760 to Iraq (yes, Iraq) and 795 to ‘democratic’ Afghanistan.
Fightback
Some detainees are not just waiting patiently for the government to investigate the racism in detention centres or to be forcibly removed. At Colnbrook Removal Centre 16 detainees refused to return to their cells on May Day in protest at a detainee being beaten and their being prevented from contacting the national press. On 6 May at Yarl’s Wood, 19 Chinese detainees refused food, barricaded themselves into their rooms and smashed the windows. On 10 May at Harmondsworth detainees refused food in protest against conditions at the centre.
Basque prisoners protest for political status
On 16 March, all 720 Basque political prisoners began a hunger strike in an effort to win political status. There are currently more Basque political prisoners than at any time since the Franco dictatorship, and they are spread over 82 different prisons, the majority in Spain, but some in France and elsewhere. This repression is aimed at crushing the resistance of those who fight for Basque self-determination.
The Basque nationalist coalition Batasuna was banned by the Spanish state in August 2002 – all Batasuna activity is proscribed and members face prosecution as ‘supporters of terrorism’. This campaign of state repression involves the dispersal of prisoners across Spain and France far away from their home and relatives.
The hunger strike was launched by the Basque Political Prisoners’ Group (EPPK), and followed a series of protests since the turn of the year. In January prisoners associated with the EPPK began holding a series of sit-in protests. Following the increasingly repressive response by the prison authorities to these protests, the Basque political prisoners initiated their hunger strike to highlight their conditions.
The hunger strike ended after 12 days on 27 March with the prisoners stating that their struggle had moved into a new phase. The hunger strike itself endured severe media censorship here in Britain and internationally with few news agencies covering any information on the prisoners’ struggle.
Iñigo Makazaga was among those prisoners who took part in the hunger strike; he is the only Basque political prisoner in Britain and has been incarcerated in Belmarsh prison for over four years often in solitary confinement, pending extradition to Spain on fabricated evidence. His solicitor has warned that if extradited he would be likely to face torture in Spanish prisons. Iñigo’s ‘crime’ has been his support of the Basque right to self-determination as an activist in the Basque student movement and a member of Batasuna.
Write to Iñigo Makazaga, FF7630, HMP Belmarsh, Western Way, Thamesmead London SE28 0EB.
Protest at Iñigo’s continued detention and mistreatment to Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Home Secretary, Peel Building, Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF
Paul Mallon
Rye Hill
Just what is going on in Rye Hill Prison? Two prisoners have died there in the last three months; six custody officers are currently suspended, one of whom has been arrested on suspicion of being involved in the supply of controlled drugs, and prisoners who have
spoken to the police about the two deaths claim they are being victimised by staff.
On 24 March, Michael Bailey, 33, was found hanged in his cell in the segregation unit at Rye Hill, which is privately operated by Global Solution Ltd, formerly Group 4. Reports from prisoners at Rye Hill stated that Michael had been in good spirits when he was first segregated, but that he later became frightened.
Soon after that death, two custody officers at the prison were suspended. Global Solutions issued a statement saying that the suspensions were for ‘irregularities in paperwork’ and not connected with the death of Michael Bailey.
On 13 April, Wayne Reid, a 44-year-old prisoner at Rye Hill, died after suffering chest wounds. Three men were later arrested and charged with his murder. Wayne Reid was from Birmingham, was serving a seven-year sentence and had been due to be released in a matter of days. Following his death, 36 Rye Hill prisoners were transferred to other gaols.
On 19 April, the homicide and major crime team from Northamptonshire police arrested a custody officer at Rye Hill. He was questioned in connection with the supply of controlled drugs and later released on bail. It was later reported that a further four members of staff at Rye Hill had been suspended, bringing the total number of suspensions to six.
Aside from these dramatic incidents, prisoners at Rye Hill complain of general problems with the regime. Rules appear to be invented on a whim, there are difficulties with healthcare and immense obstacles are put in front of prisoners who want to move on to lower security category prisons. Getting decategorised to Category C, let alone Category D (open prison), seems to be immeasurably difficult, particularly for black prisoners, even when they have been well-behaved and completed all the offending behaviour courses available to them.
Quite clearly, something is amiss at this prison. Therefore, I am appealing to anyone who has anything to say about the regime at Rye Hill, to get in touch with me through this newspaper, so we can highlight the situation further.
Eric Allison
Censorship in Belmarsh
At least two prisoners at Belmarsh high security prison in south London were stopped from receiving the last issue of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
Initially, the prison prevented the papers from being given to our subscribers on the ridiculous grounds that FRFI is a racist publication. Iñigo Makazaga (see article on Basque prisoners) and Kevin Nevers, were handed empty envelopes, with the words ‘racial paper, needs to be returned to sender or destroyed under 10 day rule’.
When Larkin Publications and the prisoners’ legal advisers wrote and protested, the grounds for withholding the paper suddenly changed to some equally spurious nonsense about the paper infringing the prison’s ‘Incentive and Earned Privileges Scheme’ (IEPS), as it came from the publishers rather than being purchased through the prison canteen. This did not explain why the papers were marked ‘racial paper and not for issue’ and doesn’t make sense in any case, as the IEPS refers to purchases made by prisoners and we send FRFI free of charge as an act of solidarity.
We always oppose any attempt to prevent prisoners from receiving FRFI, and are therefore asking readers to write and protest against this censorship. Please send letters to the governor Chris Hughes at HMP Belmarsh, Western Way Thamesmead LONDON SE28 0EB.
FRFI 185 June / July 2005
