Category: Indefinite detention

– Shareholders handed an alternative annual report detailing violation
– G4S contracts with Israeli Prison Service condemned as three Palestinian prisoners enter 81st day of hunger strike
– Company accused of hiring establishment figures to escape censure for track record of abuse in UK immigration and prison system Continue reading “Protest at G4S AGM accuses company of violating human rights”

Quaker statement on immigration detention

by Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN)

That which is morally wrong cannot be politically right.

1822 Quaker faith & practice 23.26

We urgently call for the ending of indefinite detention, which is fundamentally unjust and causes much suffering to its victims.

As Quakers we believe that there is that of God in everyone. We see the Testimony to Equality as clearly relevant to our concerns about those migrants and asylum seekers who are kept in detention. They are treated much worse than those born British.

The right to liberty is a fundamental right enjoyed by all people in the United Kingdom, whether British citizens or subject to immigration control. It is a right established in common law as well as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Recent anti-terror legislation that allows for terror suspects to be locked up without being charged has been controversial. There has justifiably been an outcry about it and the time limit has now been reduced to 14 days. However, thousands of people are kept every year in detention by the UK Borders Agency with no date set for their release, yet there is no public outrage about this.

The Immigration Act 1971 first included the power to detain immigrants; later legislation has extended or amended that power. People can be detained on arrival in the UK as immigrants or when seeking asylum, if considered likely to abscond, or when they have already been refused the right to remain and deportation is expected to be imminent.

The decision to detain is made by immigration officers without reference to a court. In theory each detainee has the right to apply for bail after 7 days, but many people are unaware of this procedure and find it difficult to access legal advice. The immigration court ‘judges’ do not have to be trained or experienced to the level of senior judiciary, inadequate records are kept, and in many cases the Home Office view that the applicant is likely to abscond is accepted without evidence.

In theory it is Government policy not to detain survivors of torture or those with serious medical conditions or mental health problems, but in practice even proven survivors of rape and torture, pregnant women, and those with severe mental and physical health problems are often found in detention. Many innocent men, women and children who have been locked up in immigration detention centres have suffered severe mental health problems, with detention in many cases adding to trauma already suffered in their home country.

16 May 2012

A number of cases of former BID clients, which had been referred for unlawful detention claims in the Administrative Court reached judgment.  In all three cases summarised here, their detention was ruled unlawful.

In October 2011, the High Court found that the detention of Mounir Raki, a client of BID’s, for over four years was ‘self-evidently unreasonable’. BID referred Mounir to Leigh Day & Co Solicitors, who represented him in this case. The Judge found that there was medical evidence that Mounir’s mental health was deteriorating because of his detention and he was seriously self-harming. The case was covered in the Guardian. Continue reading “BID: unlawful detention cases”

On Human Rights day 10 December 2011: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Day2011/Pages/HRD2011.aspx

As Quakers we believe that there is that of God in everyone. We see the Testimony to Equality as clearly relevant to our concerns about those migrants and asylum seekers who are kept in detention. They are treated much worse than those born British. Continue reading “QARN: Statement on Indefinite Detention of migrants and people seeking asylum”