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Anti-detention campaigners have written to the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations calling for the closure of the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire.

In a petition sent to the ECHR and copied to the United Nations, they are demanding an independent investigation into the grim conditions in which inmates are forced to live and the lack of attention given to their asylum claims.

tortured

The inmates said they are "mentally and physically tortured under the merciless hands of a cruel Home Office, whose only interest is the amount of people they will send out from their country, without considering why we left our countries and do not care what will happen when we are taken back."

"We are requesting for an independent body to investigate and listen to our grievances and put into consideration our request and give us justice," they said.

The centre, located in Clapham, Bedford, is home to roughly 400 single females and families with children. Accusations of widespread torture, rape and other abuse have been levelled at guards at the centre.

Detainees listed a catalogue of problems they experience, including racism, the absence of interpreters, the arbitrary refusal of bail and legal aid solicitors demanding money.

Emma Ginn, co-ordinator at the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC), said allegations of abuse have been "frequent and sustained" since the centre was opened nearly six years ago.

She said: "It costs £1,230 to detain an individual per week. People have been held for months and years on end, yet about 40 per cent of those that get detained are later released, which begs the question why were they ever detained."

"I back any campaign to shut down these centres. I have questions about their value because there seems to be an industrial scale of machinery to detain and deport people," she said.

Questions

Cristel Amiss, project co-ordinator of Black Women's Rape Action Project, an affiliate to Cross Roads Women's Centre said the petition to the ECHR is one of many protests taking place at Yarl's Wood, and that the inmates" demand for an independent investigation is long overdue.

"We have always questioned the existence of them (detention centres), and we would love to see them closed down," Amiss said. "These people are absolutely terrified of being sent back to possible death in the countries from which they fled, and the protests take place because of the suffering and brutality inmates continue to suffer despite the attempts to uncover what is happening."

Taking their appeal outside the UK is a good strategy, said Barbed Wire Britain spokesman, Bill MacKeith, arguing that the government has created laws where "it is legal to discriminate on racial grounds when it comes to matters of immigration."

Over the years, the centre has been embroiled in controversy. Soon after the facility was opened in November 2001, half of the building was burnt down following a protest by the detainees. This was triggered after a 55-year-old woman was physically restrained by staff.

strikes

The centre has also been the scene of numerous hunger strikes, including one in December 2001 with five Roma detainees refusing to eat. In May this year, women detainees, many of them single mothers, began a hunger strike in response to new measures introduced by Serco who took over the running of the facility the previous month, under an £87 million contract.

In November last year, a group of detainees also rioted after being refused permission to watch a news report criticising conditions at the centre.

Published: 29 October 2007
Issue: 1293

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