London NoBorders Press Release:
Forward Intelligence Team was not authorised to monitor NoBorders Meeting. Protestors acquitted in Crown Court.
London NoBorders welcomes the Crown Court decision to clear three activists of the charges of "obstructing the police". The Inner London Crown Court ruled that police surveillance of a public political meeting had not been proved to be lawful and that the police had failed to provide any evidence that they were pursuing a "legitimate aim".
Three activists were arrested at the meeting called by London NoBorders in June 2008 when they protested against the surveillance of the meeting by the Metropolitan Police's "Forward Intelligence Team."
The aim of the public meeting, which took place in a community centre in Southwark, London, was to discuss a demonstration which later took place at the UK Border Agency in Croydon in July 2008. The Metropolitan Police turned up at both public meetings in June 2008, taking photos and filming everybody who attended the meeting.
Thomas Haberg of London NoBorders said: "The fact that the police could not show that their surveillance was authorised in any way is worrying and shows that the Forward Intelligence Team appears to work outside the law. The purpose of the police presence was clearly to intimidate and keep people from organising around political issues. It also shows that it is important for the future to continue to challenge the Forward Intelligence Team wherever they turn up."
Therefore London NoBorders welcomes campaigns like FitWatch [1] . "We should not be watched, it is the activities of the police we should have an eye on", added Rosie Young from London NoBorders.
During the trial one witness involved in London NoBorders, who had been followed by police armed with cameras around the area before the meeting, was asked by the prosecution if "he did not think that he is exactly the kind of person the state should be watching?". It appears that the mere fact that London NoBorders disagrees with the UK immigration politics makes them and their supporters a target for close surveillance by the police. The prosecution also asked the witness, who stated that he felt intimidated by the police presence: "Why don't you stay at home when you are concerned about being filmed?"
London NoBorders believes that the issues of increasing surveillance in this society are connected to the militarisation of the national borders, and organised a demonstration around those issues titled "Life is too short to be controlled!" in January 2010. [2] Another demonstration with this title is planned for 30th October 2010.
London NoBorders is a group campaigning for freedom of movement and active in London for more then 6 years. We see ourselves as part of a transnational European wide network.
http://london.noborders.org.uk
contact: noborderslondon[-at]riseup.net
[1] http://fitwatch.org.uk/
[2] http://london.noborders.org.uk/lifestooshort
Monday, 26 July 2010
Friday, 23 July 2010
The Gutter Press
Even by the Daily Express' extremely low standards, the paper's response (the usual mixture of exaggeration, misrepresentation and down right lies, all exploited in the pursuit of its seemingly ever more reactionary editorial line) to Nick Clegg's announcement of the imminent closure of the family unit at Yarl's Wood has surely surpassed its previously vituperative worst, out 'knee-jerking' the competition on the way. 'We need many more detention centres like Yarl's Wood' blared the headline as it set about Clegg, the government and anyone and everyone who objects to its public baiting of asylum seekers or who has the audacity to question the UK's racist immigration policy.
The level of the stupidity and ignorance on display in this article is so staggering it is difficult to know where to start. So, start we will with the 'author' of this execrable diatribe, one Ross Clark, who bears the title (or is it merely a label?) political commentator. One can immediately tell where he stands by the tenor of his language: "But for the Government to say we are not going to hold children in immigrant (sic) detention centres at all is an abdication of its responsibility to deal with illegal immigration and all the misery that it entails."
"Immigrant children" indeed! What about those children born in this country who he wants ejected? And exactly whose misery is he referring to as well? You can bet your life it is not the misery of the children he so fervently wishes to see remaining in, what is by any measurement, good old fashioned internment.
Clegg and his error are quickly dismissed as "not a quarter as bad as the policy itself." He may "soothe liberal consciences and win plaudits from groups representing asylum-seekers" but it is "the closure [that] will further disarm the Government in its losing battle against illegal immigration." Dare we repeat it again, but the majority of the people in Yarl's Wood, and especially the family unit, have not entered the country illegally. Their applications for leave to remain (asylum) have been turned down because they do not meet the government's narrow criteria.
And even if they have entered the country, it is often for the very fact that ever more draconian restricts has made almost impossible to actually apply for asylum, never mind be granted protection under international law. Obviously the Express and its ilk may very well want to see all but a very small elite group of migrants classified as 'illegal' and and prevented from entering the country, but there are still opportunities for refugees to apply for asylum whether they like it or not.
The government comes in for further kicking: "The press release [clarifying Clegg’s announcement] gives away just how ill-thought out the closure of the family unit at Yarl’s Wood is. It concludes with the words: “We are currently working to find an alternative that protects the welfare of children without undermining our immigration laws.” In other words ministers have committed themselves to the closure but don’t yet have the faintest clue how they are going to enforce the removal of illegal immigrant families now that those families are not going to be taken into custody."
Of course they "have the faintest clue [about] how they are going to enforce the removal." All they've done is announce that at some time they will not be locking up families for their own administrative convenience. They will be removed in exactly the same way they are now - chained between a couple of G4S thugs and forced onto a flight to somewhere they don't wish to go. What he implies is that not locking families up will give them the opportunity to go underground, but there is absolutely no evidence for this.
Next up in his cross-hairs are 'campaigners'; people, unlike him, who actually care about the plight of the people involved, not the racial purity of their 'beloved England'. The stupidly "focused on the small number of children who are held at any one time in the family unit" and make "somewhat pernickety complaint[s]" about the lack of education opportunities in Yarl's Wood. Why "somewhat pernickety"? Well, because "children [only] spend an average of just two weeks" there. A somewhat pathetic argument really.
To quote the November 2009 Chief Inspector of Prisons report: "Some children and babies had been detained [between May and October 2009] for considerable periods – 68 for over a month and one, a baby, for 100 days – in some cases even after social workers had indicated concerns about their and their family’s welfare." [Main recommendation #2.]
His arguments then get downright stupid: "Much play was made of the refusal of Serco, the private company that manages the centre, to allow a clergyman dressed as Father Christmas to enter last December. The decision was made on the grounds of security. Presumably liberal consciences would have seen the decision very differently had it been made on the grounds that the sight of Father Christmas would have been offensive to Muslim inmates." Or should that be 'downright racist'?
"A lot of the protests have turned out to be spurious", just like the arguments he then proceeds to put forward. "This year a group of women at the centre said they were going on hunger strike in protest at “racist” treatment yet CCTV footage revealed no cases of racism." How can CCTV footage be used to disprove racism? Were lip readers used?
And what about this? After accepting Serco's evidence that the hunger strikers visited "the centre’s shop to stock up on food – in the middle of their supposed hunger strike", it then turns to the report by Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board that claimed that unrelated children at the centre were engaging in sexual activity. "[I]f immigrant children [there he goes again] are having sex with each other at Yarl’s Wood, it is surely a reflection on their background and upbringing and would have carried on undetected had they not been incarcerated." Talk about a crass and completely unfounded supposition.
So far, so stupid. But here he really shows he has absolutely no understanding of the situation. "It isn’t children who make the decision to stow away in a lorry or otherwise make a long and dangerous journey to Britain." Clearly he thinks that the children in question have spent months in the back of lorries being smuggled halfway round the world with their parent. Either that, or he thinks that single under age children are detained in Yarl's Wood rather than, as actually happens, are looked over by local social services and foster families.
Finally, he imagines the potential consequences of the decision: "If the UK Border Agency is not allowed to hold children it will have to release entire families on to the streets. The message will soon get through: if you are going to attempt to reach Britain illegally make sure you take a child with you." Complete and utter rubbish. How can anyone one think that this is a reasonable, never mind reasoned, argument?
Well close with another quote from the same Inspectorate report into Yarl's Wood: "The people held at Yarl’s Wood are not asylum seekers with live applications, they are those whose claims have been exposed as a sham and who are waiting to be removed from the country. Half the children detained in the previous six months had been temporarily released or bailed from Yarl’s Wood. None of the five families who had been held for 28 days or more and who were discussed during a conference call held during the inspection were removed and all were eventually released. These figures called into question the justification for detaining children, sometimes for a significant period, with the inevitable distress and disruption to their lives that this entailed." [Main recommendation #2.]
The level of the stupidity and ignorance on display in this article is so staggering it is difficult to know where to start. So, start we will with the 'author' of this execrable diatribe, one Ross Clark, who bears the title (or is it merely a label?) political commentator. One can immediately tell where he stands by the tenor of his language: "But for the Government to say we are not going to hold children in immigrant (sic) detention centres at all is an abdication of its responsibility to deal with illegal immigration and all the misery that it entails."
"Immigrant children" indeed! What about those children born in this country who he wants ejected? And exactly whose misery is he referring to as well? You can bet your life it is not the misery of the children he so fervently wishes to see remaining in, what is by any measurement, good old fashioned internment.
Clegg and his error are quickly dismissed as "not a quarter as bad as the policy itself." He may "soothe liberal consciences and win plaudits from groups representing asylum-seekers" but it is "the closure [that] will further disarm the Government in its losing battle against illegal immigration." Dare we repeat it again, but the majority of the people in Yarl's Wood, and especially the family unit, have not entered the country illegally. Their applications for leave to remain (asylum) have been turned down because they do not meet the government's narrow criteria.
And even if they have entered the country, it is often for the very fact that ever more draconian restricts has made almost impossible to actually apply for asylum, never mind be granted protection under international law. Obviously the Express and its ilk may very well want to see all but a very small elite group of migrants classified as 'illegal' and and prevented from entering the country, but there are still opportunities for refugees to apply for asylum whether they like it or not.
The government comes in for further kicking: "The press release [clarifying Clegg’s announcement] gives away just how ill-thought out the closure of the family unit at Yarl’s Wood is. It concludes with the words: “We are currently working to find an alternative that protects the welfare of children without undermining our immigration laws.” In other words ministers have committed themselves to the closure but don’t yet have the faintest clue how they are going to enforce the removal of illegal immigrant families now that those families are not going to be taken into custody."
Of course they "have the faintest clue [about] how they are going to enforce the removal." All they've done is announce that at some time they will not be locking up families for their own administrative convenience. They will be removed in exactly the same way they are now - chained between a couple of G4S thugs and forced onto a flight to somewhere they don't wish to go. What he implies is that not locking families up will give them the opportunity to go underground, but there is absolutely no evidence for this.
Next up in his cross-hairs are 'campaigners'; people, unlike him, who actually care about the plight of the people involved, not the racial purity of their 'beloved England'. The stupidly "focused on the small number of children who are held at any one time in the family unit" and make "somewhat pernickety complaint[s]" about the lack of education opportunities in Yarl's Wood. Why "somewhat pernickety"? Well, because "children [only] spend an average of just two weeks" there. A somewhat pathetic argument really.
To quote the November 2009 Chief Inspector of Prisons report: "Some children and babies had been detained [between May and October 2009] for considerable periods – 68 for over a month and one, a baby, for 100 days – in some cases even after social workers had indicated concerns about their and their family’s welfare." [Main recommendation #2.]
His arguments then get downright stupid: "Much play was made of the refusal of Serco, the private company that manages the centre, to allow a clergyman dressed as Father Christmas to enter last December. The decision was made on the grounds of security. Presumably liberal consciences would have seen the decision very differently had it been made on the grounds that the sight of Father Christmas would have been offensive to Muslim inmates." Or should that be 'downright racist'?
"A lot of the protests have turned out to be spurious", just like the arguments he then proceeds to put forward. "This year a group of women at the centre said they were going on hunger strike in protest at “racist” treatment yet CCTV footage revealed no cases of racism." How can CCTV footage be used to disprove racism? Were lip readers used?
And what about this? After accepting Serco's evidence that the hunger strikers visited "the centre’s shop to stock up on food – in the middle of their supposed hunger strike", it then turns to the report by Bedfordshire Local Safeguarding Children Board that claimed that unrelated children at the centre were engaging in sexual activity. "[I]f immigrant children [there he goes again] are having sex with each other at Yarl’s Wood, it is surely a reflection on their background and upbringing and would have carried on undetected had they not been incarcerated." Talk about a crass and completely unfounded supposition.
So far, so stupid. But here he really shows he has absolutely no understanding of the situation. "It isn’t children who make the decision to stow away in a lorry or otherwise make a long and dangerous journey to Britain." Clearly he thinks that the children in question have spent months in the back of lorries being smuggled halfway round the world with their parent. Either that, or he thinks that single under age children are detained in Yarl's Wood rather than, as actually happens, are looked over by local social services and foster families.
Finally, he imagines the potential consequences of the decision: "If the UK Border Agency is not allowed to hold children it will have to release entire families on to the streets. The message will soon get through: if you are going to attempt to reach Britain illegally make sure you take a child with you." Complete and utter rubbish. How can anyone one think that this is a reasonable, never mind reasoned, argument?
Well close with another quote from the same Inspectorate report into Yarl's Wood: "The people held at Yarl’s Wood are not asylum seekers with live applications, they are those whose claims have been exposed as a sham and who are waiting to be removed from the country. Half the children detained in the previous six months had been temporarily released or bailed from Yarl’s Wood. None of the five families who had been held for 28 days or more and who were discussed during a conference call held during the inspection were removed and all were eventually released. These figures called into question the justification for detaining children, sometimes for a significant period, with the inevitable distress and disruption to their lives that this entailed." [Main recommendation #2.]
Thursday, 22 July 2010
What About Tinsley House's Family Unit?
Despite Nick Clegg's gaffe yesterday when he claimed that the government would "close Yarl's Wood Detention Centre for good", later clarified by the Home Office as being only the family unit, everyone should welcome even that limited good news. However, the confusion goes further than just Calamity Clegg's faux pas.
We want to know when the Yarl's Wood family unit will close. What has happened to Damian 'the Omen' Green's review into the detention of children? Will the finding be published? What are the government going to do with the families and children that they would have locked up in these glorified internment camps? And what is going to happen to Tinsley House, the only other detention centre with a dedicated family unit not yet announced as being closed (after Dungavel and Yarl's Wood)?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to the Home Office press release clarifying Clegg's statement, "We are currently working to find an alternative that protects the welfare of children, without undermining our immigration laws." So the review has not been finished, and nor does it seem as if an actual date for the closure of the family unit has been set.
We want to know when the Yarl's Wood family unit will close. What has happened to Damian 'the Omen' Green's review into the detention of children? Will the finding be published? What are the government going to do with the families and children that they would have locked up in these glorified internment camps? And what is going to happen to Tinsley House, the only other detention centre with a dedicated family unit not yet announced as being closed (after Dungavel and Yarl's Wood)?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to the Home Office press release clarifying Clegg's statement, "We are currently working to find an alternative that protects the welfare of children, without undermining our immigration laws." So the review has not been finished, and nor does it seem as if an actual date for the closure of the family unit has been set.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
More Tabloid Mock Immigration Outrage
The rightwhinge tabloids are frothing at the mouth again (or at least their editors and journalists are pretending to) at the spectre of so-called 'foreign national prisoners' living "in luxury £1.6m detention centres" as the Express puts it. [1] This non-story about foreign national ex-prisoners who have been selected for deportation being transferred straight from prisons to detention centres where they languish (though that is clearly not the tabloids' view) stems from the Daily Mail picking up on [1] the latest Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) report on Lindholme IRC.
This 124 place detention centre is sited next to HMP Lindholme and is run for the UKBA by the Prison Service. It is not a "luxury detention centre" but, like the prison it shares a split site with, it consists of converted building of what was RAF Lindholme. The cells in the IRC side are very much like those in the HMP side. Yes, they have access to a library, an activities centre and fitness suite and, unlike the prison-side, do not have to pay for access to a TV. [3] However, the claim that each detainee has a key to his room and that rooms have a secure locker [4] contradicts the most recent Chief Inspector of Prison (HMIoP) findings:
"The accommodation was minimally decorated and little had been done to promote an IRC, rather than a prison, environment. The fabric of some rooms was in a poor condition. There were many worn and thin mattresses, with no system for checking and replacing them. Most shower facilities were adequate, but many toilets were dirty and some had no locks. Some rooms were hot and difficult to ventilate, particularly as many had broken window handles. Most detainees did not have access to lockable cabinets, although a delivery of keys arrived during the inspection. A number of televisions, Freeview boxes and aerial sockets were not in working order." [pg. 12]
"Living accommodation was functional but in need of maintenance, and the units were austere. Movement around the centre was restricted, with detainees spending substantial periods locked on their units. Toilets were dirty but shower facilities were appropriate and well maintained. Laundry arrangements were limited." [pg. 21]
"However, detainees’ own medicines were not secure in their rooms, as for many there was no facility for locking them away. In most cases, medicines were stored on the window sills of detainees’ rooms." [pg. 45]
Does that sound like the lap of luxury?
Now, we fully understand that this opportunity to indulge in a bout of simulated outrage was too good to pass up as it conflates two tabloid standbys, crime and immigration, so it is of no surprise for anyone who has bothered to read the IMB report itself to see that the Board's "concern at the numbers of ex-foreign national prisoners having served their sentences and now held as detainees in the Centre" are not the only issues highlighted. Also of 'concern' were the numbers of people held in excess of 6 months, not just the ex-FNPs highlighted in the tabloids; problems with healthcare provision by Serco, with no dedicated nurse for the IRC and staff shortages leading to nurses being redeployed on a priority basis to the prison-side; and general low staffing levels. Of course, these sort of problems don't generate the sort of juicy headlines that tabloid editors crave.
1] The Express also claims that this fact (i.e. "Foreign criminals who should be deported are being sent to luxury detention centres costing taxpayers millions of pounds") "emerged last night." This is utter rubbish. This situation has been going on ever since Nu Labour decided that deporting ex-FNPs was the politically expedient this to do. Even the Mail did not make such a stupid claim as it looks better to highlight that, "Concerns about the situation have been raised in two [annual] reports by the Independent Monitoring Board." Missed a trick there Jeeves.
2] One of the tabloids tricks is to monitor IMB and HMIoP reports for nice juicy bits of information to exploit for their own anti-foreigner ends.
3] Where did the idea that detainees have access to radios come from? It's not in the IMB report.
4] Repeated word for word from the introductions of reports going all the way back to 2006-07 (reports before then no longer available), so it appears that the actuality of this had not been checked by the IMB, unlike the HMIoP.
This 124 place detention centre is sited next to HMP Lindholme and is run for the UKBA by the Prison Service. It is not a "luxury detention centre" but, like the prison it shares a split site with, it consists of converted building of what was RAF Lindholme. The cells in the IRC side are very much like those in the HMP side. Yes, they have access to a library, an activities centre and fitness suite and, unlike the prison-side, do not have to pay for access to a TV. [3] However, the claim that each detainee has a key to his room and that rooms have a secure locker [4] contradicts the most recent Chief Inspector of Prison (HMIoP) findings:
"The accommodation was minimally decorated and little had been done to promote an IRC, rather than a prison, environment. The fabric of some rooms was in a poor condition. There were many worn and thin mattresses, with no system for checking and replacing them. Most shower facilities were adequate, but many toilets were dirty and some had no locks. Some rooms were hot and difficult to ventilate, particularly as many had broken window handles. Most detainees did not have access to lockable cabinets, although a delivery of keys arrived during the inspection. A number of televisions, Freeview boxes and aerial sockets were not in working order." [pg. 12]
"Living accommodation was functional but in need of maintenance, and the units were austere. Movement around the centre was restricted, with detainees spending substantial periods locked on their units. Toilets were dirty but shower facilities were appropriate and well maintained. Laundry arrangements were limited." [pg. 21]
"However, detainees’ own medicines were not secure in their rooms, as for many there was no facility for locking them away. In most cases, medicines were stored on the window sills of detainees’ rooms." [pg. 45]
Does that sound like the lap of luxury?
Now, we fully understand that this opportunity to indulge in a bout of simulated outrage was too good to pass up as it conflates two tabloid standbys, crime and immigration, so it is of no surprise for anyone who has bothered to read the IMB report itself to see that the Board's "concern at the numbers of ex-foreign national prisoners having served their sentences and now held as detainees in the Centre" are not the only issues highlighted. Also of 'concern' were the numbers of people held in excess of 6 months, not just the ex-FNPs highlighted in the tabloids; problems with healthcare provision by Serco, with no dedicated nurse for the IRC and staff shortages leading to nurses being redeployed on a priority basis to the prison-side; and general low staffing levels. Of course, these sort of problems don't generate the sort of juicy headlines that tabloid editors crave.
1] The Express also claims that this fact (i.e. "Foreign criminals who should be deported are being sent to luxury detention centres costing taxpayers millions of pounds") "emerged last night." This is utter rubbish. This situation has been going on ever since Nu Labour decided that deporting ex-FNPs was the politically expedient this to do. Even the Mail did not make such a stupid claim as it looks better to highlight that, "Concerns about the situation have been raised in two [annual] reports by the Independent Monitoring Board." Missed a trick there Jeeves.
2] One of the tabloids tricks is to monitor IMB and HMIoP reports for nice juicy bits of information to exploit for their own anti-foreigner ends.
3] Where did the idea that detainees have access to radios come from? It's not in the IMB report.
4] Repeated word for word from the introductions of reports going all the way back to 2006-07 (reports before then no longer available), so it appears that the actuality of this had not been checked by the IMB, unlike the HMIoP.
Sherzad's Story
There is an interview on the BBC News website with one of the Iraqi detainees forcibly deported back to Baghdad on 16 June that briefly hit the news because of the violence meted out by G4S staff.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Libyan Update
The precarious situation that the 400 or so Eritrean migrants currently stranded in Libya has taken a number of convoluted turns since the mass forced movements we wrote about on 1 July. Having been threatened with mass forced deportation if they did not fill out bio-data forms provided by the Eritrean embassy, which they refused to do will put their families in Eritrea at risk and clear the way for their deportation back to Eritrea. Of the 140 detainees who have signed the forms, many claim they were either tricked or were pressured into doing so.
The removal of the 205 Eritrean detainees transferred to Sabha, and who eventually ended up in the al-Biraq detention centre, was part of the authorities attempts to pressure them into signing the bio-data forms. Sources indicate that 10 of the al-Biraq were taken out and beaten as an example to try and force the Eritreans to cooperate. Of those who remained in Misrata, it is claimed that a group including 31 men, 13 women and 7 children were beaten on 7 July when they again refused to fill in forms.
International condemnation followed with Green Party MEPs publicly condemning the conditions the refugees were being held in. The European Council on Refugees and Exile called upon Italy to return the 250 Eritreans they had previously expelled back to Libya and Human Rights Watch said that all victims of the Italian-Libyan 'push back' policy should be allowed to proceed to Italy and claim asylum.
Whilst international pressure was building, the Italian and Libyan governments were in talks trying to find a compromise position. The Italians claim that they had managed to broker a deal for the release of the Eritrean detainees to do "socially useful" work in Libya at the direction of Libyan authorities. This would involve the issue of temporary documentation allowing the Eritreans to stay in Libya for 3 months. However, after the permits run out they will be back in the same situation all other undocumented people in Libya are subject to, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and ultimately forced deportation.
So, on the evening on the 15th, the Sabha detainees were release onto the street with, as they claim "no food, water or documentation to allow free movement", despite promises of the temporary permits. The subsequently put out an international appeal for help. The other detained Eritreans across Libya were also released but it now appears that it was merely an attempt by the two governments to “lower the tension” and little has changed.
Given Italian intransigence on fulfilling its international obligations towards refugees, the total lack of any system for claiming asylum in Libya itself, the appalling state of Libyan prisons and the burning desire of the Eritrean government to get its hand on those who have fled the country, it appears inevitable that at some point there will be mass deportation of the Libyan Eritreans back to Samara, where they will face persecution, prison, forced labour and, for some, death.
Blogs: 1, 2, 3
The removal of the 205 Eritrean detainees transferred to Sabha, and who eventually ended up in the al-Biraq detention centre, was part of the authorities attempts to pressure them into signing the bio-data forms. Sources indicate that 10 of the al-Biraq were taken out and beaten as an example to try and force the Eritreans to cooperate. Of those who remained in Misrata, it is claimed that a group including 31 men, 13 women and 7 children were beaten on 7 July when they again refused to fill in forms.
International condemnation followed with Green Party MEPs publicly condemning the conditions the refugees were being held in. The European Council on Refugees and Exile called upon Italy to return the 250 Eritreans they had previously expelled back to Libya and Human Rights Watch said that all victims of the Italian-Libyan 'push back' policy should be allowed to proceed to Italy and claim asylum.
Whilst international pressure was building, the Italian and Libyan governments were in talks trying to find a compromise position. The Italians claim that they had managed to broker a deal for the release of the Eritrean detainees to do "socially useful" work in Libya at the direction of Libyan authorities. This would involve the issue of temporary documentation allowing the Eritreans to stay in Libya for 3 months. However, after the permits run out they will be back in the same situation all other undocumented people in Libya are subject to, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and ultimately forced deportation.
So, on the evening on the 15th, the Sabha detainees were release onto the street with, as they claim "no food, water or documentation to allow free movement", despite promises of the temporary permits. The subsequently put out an international appeal for help. The other detained Eritreans across Libya were also released but it now appears that it was merely an attempt by the two governments to “lower the tension” and little has changed.
Given Italian intransigence on fulfilling its international obligations towards refugees, the total lack of any system for claiming asylum in Libya itself, the appalling state of Libyan prisons and the burning desire of the Eritrean government to get its hand on those who have fled the country, it appears inevitable that at some point there will be mass deportation of the Libyan Eritreans back to Samara, where they will face persecution, prison, forced labour and, for some, death.
Blogs: 1, 2, 3
Friday, 16 July 2010
Brook House: An Alternative View
The following article was offered to the Guardian 'Comment Is Free' strand last week. We assume they were not interested as no response was forthcoming.
The Chief Inspector of Prison's Report on the full announced inspection of
Brook House Immigration Removal Centre in March certain makes for depressing reading:
"one of the least safe immigration detention facilities we have inspected";
"deeply frustrated detainees and demoralised staff";
"[We found] a degree of despair amongst detainees about safety...which we have rarely encountered. Bullying and violence were serious problems and – unusually for the immigration detention estate - drugs were a serious problem. Many detainees were ex-prisoners and a number compared their experience in Brook House negatively to that in prison";
"Use of force was high, separation was often used as a punishment, contrary to the Detention Centre Rules, and freedom of movement had been restricted in an attempt to combat violence."
But should we be in any way surprised by the Inspectorate's finding?
As the report itself acknowledges, Brook House was originally designed for holding 426 detainees "for only a short time before removal or release", and here lies one of the two cornerstones of its myriad of problems.
It was never meant to hold, for example, the numbers of detainees that the Inspector found had been there, for example, for 4 or more months (40%). These were not just the inevitable victims of the mission creep languishing in the system that typifies 'temporary administrative detention' (17% of BH detainees detained for 6 months or more, three for more than 3 years), they are the very 'foreign national prisoners' slated for deportation that the Category B prison-style facility was built to process.
The creation of this special category of prisoner was a typical piece of ill thought out vindictive New Labour policy, pandering to Mr and Mrs Daily Mail reader. Not only patently racist, punishing someone for being a foreigner as well as for committing a crime, it has clogged up the detention estate with ex-prisoners who it is unable to remove from the country.
Good publicity in theory, bad policy in practice.
The other wellspring of Brook House's problems is the way in which it is run and, more specifically, the way G4S operates what are now recognised as the 3 worst run English detention centres. G4S, like all large outsourcing companies, maximises its profits by paying its staff lower wages, giving them less training and operating at lower staff ratios than exist in the public sector. This inevitably leads to a high rate of turnover amongst an inexperienced staff that, according to the report, was exacerbated by last June's disturbance.
The inevitable results are an embattled and pressurised staff who "lacked the confidence to manage bad behaviour", consistently responded to incidents with a "high level of spontaneous use of force" and "were bullied by more difficult detainees." And it was not just the guards that felt unsafe, 68% of detainees surveyed said that they had felt unsafe at some point during their time in Brook House, against 42% for the IRC comparator. The most recent figure for Colnbrook IRC, run by Serco and the only other Category B standard detention centre, was 61% (against a comparator of 48% in 2007).
Another factor highlighted in the report that throws light onto how the centre operates is what the Inspector calls "a significant drugs problem"; though how significant is open to debate. Whilst there had been a massive increase in staff security incident report about drugs in the IRC's first 9 months of operation, seizures were very few and the Inspectorate's own survey of detainees only found 35% of respondents labelling drug availability as being a safety concern, the same as the last inspection of Colnbrook in 2008.
That said, it is not surprising that there is a drugs problem given the pressures created by the poor design of the prison; the lack of activities; the long lengths of detention; with many detainees facing uncertain futures, removed from their UK families; isolated and facing violence inside Brook House; not to mention those suffering PTSD.
Interestingly, like most prisons, the main route in for drugs has been identified as visits. Though, given the recent Policy Exchange report's suggestion that the majority of drugs in prison involve corrupt prison officers, and the low staff wages, they might look elsewhere.
Now, given that announced inspections usually mean everybody, including the prisoners, are on their best behaviour, the picture the Inspectorate gets is often skewed. One group, however, other than the detainees themselves, who do get a regular unvarnished view of how an admittedly small area of the detention centre operates, are the visitors. And it is this group who have had to bear the brunt of the management's growing paranoia over drugs, as well as the standard problems resulting from poor design and staff shortages.
Not only do they have to put up with a cramped visiting room with a limited number of visiting slots and no access to toilet facilities but, since the increased drugs-related security, the length of time it takes to get into visit has significantly increased, eating into valuable visiting time. That, plus staff shortages, has resulted in daily visiting hours being split into two separate sessions and increasingly petty rules, like where one can and cannot sit when one finally does get inside.
All have led to increased tension and regular angry disruptions of visiting times by visitors. Yet G4S’ own ‘satisfaction’ figures posted in the same room claim that 80% of visitors are treated with respect and dignity (the Inspectorate’s figure was 53%).
The Chief Inspector of Prison's Report on the full announced inspection of
Brook House Immigration Removal Centre in March certain makes for depressing reading:
"one of the least safe immigration detention facilities we have inspected";
"deeply frustrated detainees and demoralised staff";
"[We found] a degree of despair amongst detainees about safety...which we have rarely encountered. Bullying and violence were serious problems and – unusually for the immigration detention estate - drugs were a serious problem. Many detainees were ex-prisoners and a number compared their experience in Brook House negatively to that in prison";
"Use of force was high, separation was often used as a punishment, contrary to the Detention Centre Rules, and freedom of movement had been restricted in an attempt to combat violence."
But should we be in any way surprised by the Inspectorate's finding?
As the report itself acknowledges, Brook House was originally designed for holding 426 detainees "for only a short time before removal or release", and here lies one of the two cornerstones of its myriad of problems.
It was never meant to hold, for example, the numbers of detainees that the Inspector found had been there, for example, for 4 or more months (40%). These were not just the inevitable victims of the mission creep languishing in the system that typifies 'temporary administrative detention' (17% of BH detainees detained for 6 months or more, three for more than 3 years), they are the very 'foreign national prisoners' slated for deportation that the Category B prison-style facility was built to process.
The creation of this special category of prisoner was a typical piece of ill thought out vindictive New Labour policy, pandering to Mr and Mrs Daily Mail reader. Not only patently racist, punishing someone for being a foreigner as well as for committing a crime, it has clogged up the detention estate with ex-prisoners who it is unable to remove from the country.
Good publicity in theory, bad policy in practice.
The other wellspring of Brook House's problems is the way in which it is run and, more specifically, the way G4S operates what are now recognised as the 3 worst run English detention centres. G4S, like all large outsourcing companies, maximises its profits by paying its staff lower wages, giving them less training and operating at lower staff ratios than exist in the public sector. This inevitably leads to a high rate of turnover amongst an inexperienced staff that, according to the report, was exacerbated by last June's disturbance.
The inevitable results are an embattled and pressurised staff who "lacked the confidence to manage bad behaviour", consistently responded to incidents with a "high level of spontaneous use of force" and "were bullied by more difficult detainees." And it was not just the guards that felt unsafe, 68% of detainees surveyed said that they had felt unsafe at some point during their time in Brook House, against 42% for the IRC comparator. The most recent figure for Colnbrook IRC, run by Serco and the only other Category B standard detention centre, was 61% (against a comparator of 48% in 2007).
Another factor highlighted in the report that throws light onto how the centre operates is what the Inspector calls "a significant drugs problem"; though how significant is open to debate. Whilst there had been a massive increase in staff security incident report about drugs in the IRC's first 9 months of operation, seizures were very few and the Inspectorate's own survey of detainees only found 35% of respondents labelling drug availability as being a safety concern, the same as the last inspection of Colnbrook in 2008.
That said, it is not surprising that there is a drugs problem given the pressures created by the poor design of the prison; the lack of activities; the long lengths of detention; with many detainees facing uncertain futures, removed from their UK families; isolated and facing violence inside Brook House; not to mention those suffering PTSD.
Interestingly, like most prisons, the main route in for drugs has been identified as visits. Though, given the recent Policy Exchange report's suggestion that the majority of drugs in prison involve corrupt prison officers, and the low staff wages, they might look elsewhere.
Now, given that announced inspections usually mean everybody, including the prisoners, are on their best behaviour, the picture the Inspectorate gets is often skewed. One group, however, other than the detainees themselves, who do get a regular unvarnished view of how an admittedly small area of the detention centre operates, are the visitors. And it is this group who have had to bear the brunt of the management's growing paranoia over drugs, as well as the standard problems resulting from poor design and staff shortages.
Not only do they have to put up with a cramped visiting room with a limited number of visiting slots and no access to toilet facilities but, since the increased drugs-related security, the length of time it takes to get into visit has significantly increased, eating into valuable visiting time. That, plus staff shortages, has resulted in daily visiting hours being split into two separate sessions and increasingly petty rules, like where one can and cannot sit when one finally does get inside.
All have led to increased tension and regular angry disruptions of visiting times by visitors. Yet G4S’ own ‘satisfaction’ figures posted in the same room claim that 80% of visitors are treated with respect and dignity (the Inspectorate’s figure was 53%).
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