No to the Criminalisation of Asylum Seekers! No One Is Illegal!

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No to the Criminalisation of Asylum Seekers! No One Is Illegal!

Campsfield and Criminalisation: Who's Next?

For Your Reference:
What are Immigration Detention Centres?

After a week of protests at the beginning of August at the Campsfield House immigration detention centre in Oxfordshire, some 26 of the detainees escaped in desperation. The detained refugees fled after a fire in the centre’s makeshift kitchen. Over 150 of the people who have been locked up at Campsfield had gone on hunger strike in the previous week as a means of taking a stand against the inhuman conditions under which they were being detained.

Detainees at Campsfield House had released a statement which said:

"Detainees at Campsfield will be having a sit-out protest at 11.45 tonight [31 July 2007], followed by a hunger strike tomorrow.

"Newport immigration court, which is used for bail hearings and appeals involving Campsfield detainees, is very discriminatory compared to other courts in the UK: the bail application and appeal success rate there is less than 5%.

"Living conditions for detainees are appalling. Campsfield is a health hazard with 70% infection with flu. Paracetomol is the only medicine made available; two weeks ago even this ran out. Campsfield was rife with scabies, but only staff were issued with gloves.

"Although detainees are held civil detainees, not convicted prisoners or prisoners on remand, food, toilets and showers are a lot worse than in prisons.

"Some detainees are being held even though they have won an appeal against deportation. Others have clearly stated that they want to go back to their country of origin but have still been waiting in Campsfield for months."

Following news that nine detainees who escaped from Campsfield remained free, Campaign to Close Campsfield spokesperson Bill MacKeith said:

"We are sorry to hear some of the escaped detainees have been redetained. There is no one in Campsfield who should be detained.

"It remains the case that most people in Campsfield are people seeking asylum, as is their right under law, and for many their case has not been fully resolved.

"As regards the so-called ‘foreign criminals’: once a person, of whatever nationality has served a sentence, they should be freed. To try to deport people of non-UK nationality after they have served their sentence is a double punishment and therefore unacceptable. In any case, many of the so-called crimes for which people now in Campsfield have been convicted are ones created by the government in order to criminalise asylum seekers: to arrive in the UK with false papers, which is the only way to arrive for many people, has been turned into a ‘criminal offence’. Yet according the United Nations Convention on Refugees (1951) Article 31, people arriving with incorrect documentation should not be penalised."

On August 7, members of the Campaign to Close Campsfield held a very successful demonstration outside the immigrant prison, in an effort to redress the balance of reportage on the escapes that took place, and to show the detainees that not everyone goes along with the mood of hysteria. There were loud shouts of "freedom" and "thank you very much!" from the main accommodation block, which we addressed by megaphone across the prison's unused, weed-grown football pitch. Quite a few members of the local media turned up. The event was featured on regional BBC and ITV, and on local radio stations.

A demonstration also took place on August 7 at lunchtime outside Lindholme Detention Centre, near Doncaster, following the Campsfield breakouts. Protesters showed solidarity with the people detained inside for no other crime than entering Britain seeking asylum.

Members of the Campaign to Close Camspfield (Immigration Removal Centre near Kidlington) demonstrated outside the centre on Saturday 25 August at noon, as they have done every month for the past 13 years.

An Anti-Deportation march also took place in Manchester on Saturday August 11 in defence of all asylum seekers. The demands of the march were: No to deportations! Stop starving asylum seekers! No immigration controls! For the right to work, No to destitution! The demonstration was called by the North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG), No One is Illegal, Ethiopia Support Project, Sukula Family Must Stay Campaign, Samina Altaf Will Stay Campaign, the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees and Bolton NUT.

Since New Labour came to power it has created over 1,000 new crimes. These in particular criminalise the weakest members of society, especially migrants.

"A very high proportion" (say Asylum Welcome and Bail for Immigration Detainees) of the so-called criminals held in Campsfield have been jailed for the new "crime" of using false documents to enter the country. Making this a crime is unconscionable. And it blatantly violates Article 31 of the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees, which says governments must not penalise refugees who arrive on false papers.

These outrageous detention centres are a profound indictment of the government and those in authority who advocate and organise them. They are prisons in all but name, and in fact in so many respects are worse than prisons, both in their conditions, in their treatment of those detained and in the injustice of their very conception. They criminalise what is not and never can be criminal, they presume "guilt" from the outset, they are an affront against human dignity, and they have the effect of destroying the mental health and very lives of many who are incarcerated there, not to mention the wrenching apart of families and the denigration of the human personality (or the suffering of whole families when the subject is the target of a control order, or house arrest). They demonstrate the deep racism, chauvinism and inhumanity of those in authority for whom "foreign" and "criminal" are almost synonymous, and who create such hysteria and a hue and cry that all foreign nationals who have the misfortune to serve a penal sentence should then be automatically deported. As the Institute of Race Relations points out, no section of our society is more vulnerable than asylum seekers and undocumented migrants: "Forced by circumstances beyond their control to seek a life outside their home countries, prevented by our laws from entering legally and from working, denied a fair hearing by the asylum system, excluded from health and safety protection at work, kept from social care and welfare, unhoused and destitute, vilified by the media and therefore dehumanised in the popular imagination, their hopes of another life are finally extinguished."

It has been remarked that these conditions are reminiscent of the darkest days of apartheid in South Africa. And like those days too, the whole of concerned humanity finds them repugnant. We salute those who have heroically taken a stand against their conditions of incarceration, and also those who have staged protests month after month and all who are upholding the principle that No One Is Illegal and are fighting for its implementation.

No to the Culture of Fear!

No to Criminalisation of Asylum Seekers!

No One Is Illegal!

Defend the Rights of All!

(Main source for information in article: Campaign to Close Campsfield, http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk)

Bob Hughes, Campaign to Close Campsfield, August 8, 2007

This week, perhaps for the first time ever, we have seen a full-blown national manhunt launched after the criminals have been arrested, tried, and completed their sentences! And nobody seems to find this in any way odd or surprising!

This government has often been accused of creating criminals (over 1,000 new crimes created since 1997). This week, we have been shown just how effective the label "criminal" is, at turning people into indefensible pariahs.

Below is a letter I sent to the Oxford Mail on Wednesday, correcting an error in Tuesday's report ... and commenting on Wednesday's revelation that four of the escapees had served sentences for drug offences:

TO THE EDITOR, Oxford Mail.

Can I correct a mistake in Matt Wilkinson's otherwise very informative article about the Campsfield breakout? ("Three down but 11 to go", 8/8/07)

I am quoted as saying "As far as we are aware about 50 per cent of the people in Campsfield are there for smaller crimes like passport offences rather than being axe murderers."

That is not quite right. As far as we know about 50 per cent of the people in Campsfield are not criminals at all, but asylum seekers and "overstayers" (who have nonetheless been increasingly criminalised by our government just for being here).

For the rest, the new influx of "foreign national prisoners" (FNPs in Home Office jargon), we still lack full official information on who was guilty of what. Today, after 4 days, we learn that four of those who escaped had previously been punished for dealing in drugs (incidentally: the first time in British history that criminals have been the subjects of full-blown manhunts after emerging from prison). What of the rest? As far as we know, the vast majority of Campsfield's FNPs have been imprisoned for very minor and sometimes very new offences – including one that, under international law, should not be an offence at all: arriving in this country with false travel documents (in nearly all of the countries from which people flee it is impossible for refugees to get the correct travel documents). Detainee-support groups like Asylum Welcome and Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) have met a great many people who have been turned into "criminals" in this way and been jailed for it.

Another big category seems to be people imprisoned for relatively minor (e.g. motoring) offences, which would not normally carry a custodial sentence – let alone the extreme and unusual added punishment of deportation.

There is a double problem here – and not just for foreign-born residents: first a Government policy of creating new crimes (over 1,000 new ones since 1997); second, assumption by the Government of powers to inflict extra punishments on selected groups of people, ostensibly "by popular demand", over and above the punishments handed out by the courts, which are more and more marginalised. And this is happening without any challenge worthy of the name.

The Government has assumed the power to criminalise, and then to punish, selectively, at will. Today, it is people born overseas; tomorrow it could be any other vulnerable or unpopular group, or any group that becomes unpopular.

Yours faithfully,

Bob Hughes
- Member of the Campaign to Close Campsfield

Source: http://www.politics.co.uk

Immigration Detention Centres are holding centres for foreign nationals waiting decisions on their asylum claims or waiting deportation following a failed application.

Prior to 2002 there were two types of detention centre: the Removal Centre and the Removal Prison. These were much like prison facilities, with the aim being to impose restrictions on the movement of the detainees, so that the government can monitor their whereabouts whilst their claims are being processed. Indeed, some asylum seekers are actually held in prisons.

Since 2002, the government has been able to set up another type of centre for asylum seekers – the Accommodation or Reception Centre. These new centres will provide educative, health and leisure facilities and have advisory bodies to review their conditions.

The Reception Centres aim to improve the management of the asylum system and to socialise and prepare immigrants for acceptance into the wider community.

Background

The power to detain immigrants was first provided by the Immigration Act 1971, which allowed the detention of asylum seekers in Detention Centres or even prisons. There are currently nine Detention Centres in England and Wales.

Reception Centres were introduced under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, and were part of a raft of measures introduced to reform the asylum system in the UK. To date, only one Reception Centre is in operation, at Oakington near Cambridge.

Prior to the 2002 Act, asylum seeking and illegal immigration had been increasing. There were long backlogs of asylum applications and applicants were "disappearing" while their claim was being processed, resulting in accusations that the system was unable to cope.

The 2002 Act allows individuals to be supported in Reception Centres for a maximum period of six months, in general. The Immigration Act 1971 provides no time limit for maximum detention. Under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, non-British citizens suspected of terrorist links can be subject to indefinite detention. However, in December 2004 the House of Lords ruled this in breach of human rights law.

Part of the justification of the Reception Centre approach, described by the Home Office in 2001, was the need to improve dispersal of asylum seekers across the country, to take pressure off the South East and London, and to "help with the process of acceptance".

Controversies

The increased use of detention came about in response to public concern about the government's ability to handle the rising numbers of applications for asylum since the late 1990s.

The use of detention is controversial because opponents argue that it is wrong to imprison or restrict the movements of people who have committed no crime, and in many cases, people who have come to the UK to escape persecution. Those detained and their advocates have frequently complained about the conditions inside Detention Centres and the treatment of detainees by staff.

In February 2002, violence broke out at the Yarl's Wood centre in Bedfordshire. It was alleged that the violence erupted because the firm running the facility, Group 4, refused medical treatment to a detainee, but this is denied by the company. The rioting resulted in a break-out and a fire that destroyed half of the £100 million centre. It was subsequently revealed that none of the UK's Removals Centres have sprinklers for putting out fires.

There has also been publicity about overcrowding and poor conditions in Detention Centres. In 2003 the Harmondsworth centre in west London was found to have increasing levels of disorder: a report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons found there were seven assaults a week and some detainees had been starting fires. The report also revealed that the centre was originally expected to process 3,000 people a year who were due to be deported, but was in fact handling 12,000.

Statistics

In December 2005, 1,950 people were being held in immigration detention or reception centres, of whom 1,450 were asylum seekers, 190 were held in prisons, 15 in short-term holding facilities and 1,745 in removal centres.

In September 2006, the Immigration Detention Estate comprised the following centres. Removal Centres: Campsfield (198); Colnbrook (303); Dungavel (194); Harmondsworth (501); Queens Buildings (15); Tinsley House (146); Yarl's Wood (405). Short-term holding facilities: Dover Harbour (20); Harwich (12); Manchester Airport (16). Removal Prisons: Dover (316); Lindholme (112); Haslar (160 – to be increased to 300); Reception Centres: Oakington (265)

It costs on average £1,247 per week to keep a single refugee in Oakington detention centre, according to figures from the first half of 2002

Statistic 1: (Source: Home Office, 2006); Statistic 2: (Source: National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, 2006); Statistic 4: (Source: Hansard, January 2003)

Quotes

"'Detention centre' means a place which is used solely for the detention of detained persons but which is not a short-term holding facility, a prison or part of a prison."

Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

"The security devices being installed at Yarl's Wood include microwave detection units and pan-and-tilt dome cameras, of the kind normally found only in highest-security prisons. The centre will be ringed by chain-link fence two and a half metres high topped by three lines of barbed wire. According to the Government, this prison is not a prison."

Arun Kundnani, Institute of Race Relations, February 2002