Handcuffing of Asylum Seekers held in Cardiff Prison Condemned

The Western Mail, May 5 2001

by Mike Jones

A prison holding asylum seekers may have broken the Human Rights Act by handcuffing them while in hospital.

The asylum seekers, held in Cardiff as part of a nationwide scheme to use prisons before dedicated detention centres are opened, were manacled before routine tuberculosis screening.

Some 20 people were handcuffed while inside the University Hospital, Cardiff, to prevent them from absconding.

The action has been described as a 'gross indecency and possible contravention of the Human Rights Act' by Conservative South Wales East Assembly member William Graham.

He said, 'It's not alleged that the asylum seekers are dangerous so why do they need to be manacled to go to hospital? There is no question of them committing a crime.

'Hospital staff were pretty surprised that 20 people were being brought in with handcuffs.

'This is not the way to treat people. The Convention on Human Rights says people must not be subject to degrading treatment.

'If the asylum seekers are seen by other people in handcuffs that is degrading.'

Solicitor Julian Phillips, who represents asylum seekers in Cardiff prison, said, 'Prison officers have no way of distinguishing the asylum seekers from other people on remand.

'They are seen as just another security risk.

'Handcuffing could well be contravening the Human Rights Act. Detention does not necessarily contra- vene the act, but when it is degrading it does.

'For asylum seekers to be seen in hospital in handcuffs when they haven't committed a criminal offence is degrading.'

Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe said the handcuffing was part of the overall problem of locking asylum seekers up in prisons rather than detention centres.

'There is a very big question mark over whether prisons are the right place to detain asylum seekers who have not committed crimes.

'If they're in prison then they're being treated in prison conditions and the rules are that if you travel from prison to anywhere, including hospital, you're handcuffed in transit,' Miss Widdecombe said.

She added, 'The whole thing stems from the fact they shouldn't actually be subject to prison rules in the first place.

'It isn't just that they're handcuffed when they leave prison, but if they leave prison in the first place they're being subject to prison conditions.

'Inside the prisons, they're being subject to lock-up in the same conditions as remand prisoners.'

A prison service spokesman defended the policy, saying it was routine.

He said, 'Twenty immigrant detainees have been routinely screened for tuberculosis at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

'They would have been cuffed while in the hospital itself as a precaution taken to prevent possible absconds or several absconders from custody.'

Soure: The Western Mail, May 5 2001