Britain: Asylum-seekers detained under prison-like conditions

[Aidoneus]

Britain: Asylum-seekers detained under prison-like conditions
By Niall Green
7 August 2003

The Blair government’s asylum and immigration policies have led to the incarceration of entire families in a network of detention centres across the country. Hundreds of men, women and children are held in prison- like conditions, having been forcibly removed from the communities in which they had settled. Estimates suggest that over 50 children are held at any one time, usually for several months.

Asylum-seekers, classified as “failed” or “high-risk” by the Home Office, are sent to these centres for indefinite periods, usually prior to deportation. In most cases, claims for asylum are rejected because of minor technicalities such as the immigrant not having applied promptly enough upon entering the country.

Asylum-seekers pulled in by Immigration Service officials are often separated from their families and bundled off to detention centres with little explanation of what is happening to them. Handcuffed or in cages, people convicted of no crime are transported to and from these centres in high-security vehicles. Once at their place of detention, the asylum application process itself becomes far more difficult as the centres are often hundreds of miles from lawyers or support services.

The Labour government has faced particular criticism for holding entire families in these facilities, even those with young children. Families of up to five are made to share one room, while single men live in dormitories. There is little in the way of education and recreation, even for children removed from school. Tauhid Pasha, legal and policy director of the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants, said, “We hear that children do not get enough play time, the level of education is inadequate, they do not get enough access to the outside world or the chance to interact with their peers. Detaining asylum-seekers is questionable but detaining children who have done no crime and whole families is unconscionable.”

Home Secretary David Blunkett blandly described the detention of children as “regrettable.” Blunkett cynically claimed that the current detention policy was driven by concern for child welfare: “Where it is necessary to detain individuals with children, we believe it is better that the children remain with their parents rather than split up the family.”

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/asyl-a07.shtml

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Blair's been getting tips from Howard...

Describing the detention of children as 'regrettable' is exactly the same language that's used here by the powers-that-be. Britain still hasn't stooped to the level we have, and as far as I know, we're still the only Western nation that has a policy of detaining allasylum seekers until their claims for asylum have been processed, which means some children have been in detention for up to five years. Even if their claims are approved, which doesn't happen often, they're only given a temporary visa which has a long list of restrictions to things like Medicare and benefits. Of course our PM claims he's unhappy with having to detain children, but the excuse is he does it only because he has to. Sweden's policy on asylum seekers is one that should be used by nations like Australia and Britain. Sweden gets about double the number of asylum seekers per capita compared to Australia and switched in 1997 to only initially detaining asylum seekers for a short period of time (children is 3 days and adults is two weeks) while they go through a screening process. And the reason Sweden switched to this was because there'd been a series of riots, hunger strikes etc in detention centres up to that point....

The British detention centres look like a 5 star hotel compared to the ones here when it comes to remoteness and accomodation. The management of ours are contracted out to an American company which runs prisons in the US...

Photos of Port Hedland detention centre...

http://www.chilout.org/gallery/port_hedland.html

National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission...

http://www.hreoc.gov.au/human_rights/children_detention/index.html

Violet...