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Urgent call to the UN to investigate plight of asylum-seekers
and migrants in UK detention centres
Children, pregnant women, the seriously
ill, torture survivors and the mentally ill are among thousands of asylum-seekers
and migrants each year who are detained indefinitely and arbitrarily in
the United Kingdom, a report published today (Thursday) announces.
In a
*submission to a United Nations group
charged with considering situations of arbitrary detention, specialist
charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) has called for an urgent
investigation in to the plight of immigration detainees.
The Government were warned that they
must only use immigration detention in line with internationally recognised
standards when the **UN
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention came
to the UK in 1998 .
Yet four years on, almost all the recommendations made
to the UK in 1998 have been ignored and the situation for detainees is
worsening.
"There are no safeguards to stop prolonged periods
of administrative detention," says Tim Baster, Coordinator of BID.
"People are detained indefinitely on the instruction of an immigration
officer. Immigration officers refuse to give reasons for detention. The
Legal Service's Commission hamper access to the courts and the Government
is repealing legislation that promised automatic bail applications. The
result is arbitrary detention."
BID's submission shows the ways that rights are violated
throughout the entire process of detention, from the initial detention
decision to the flawed and inadequate access to independent scrutiny.
Attention is also drawn to the impact that new Government
policies will have on detainees. Plans to double the capacity of the detention
estate and to allow the detention of children for indefinite periods will
compound the effect of the repeal of automatic bail hearings . The Government
introduced this provision in 1999 legislation , in order to meet obligations
under the European Convention on Human Rights, but it was never implemented.
"The Government have gone as far as to change the name
to removal centres, even though significant numbers of detainees still
have rights of appeal and may go on to get full refugee status," says
Tim Baster. "The way in which this Government is deliberately choosing
not to implement safeguards forces us to conclude that the arbitrary use
of detention is designed to make detention a deterrent to people seeking
asylum here."
Smart cards and other initiatives announced by the Government
reduce the need to employ expensive and traumatic detention policies.
There is no empirical evidence to show that detention is necessary to
achieve immigration control, yet its use is growing. The Home Secretary
himself acknowledges that "The smart card and the reporting centres
will enable us to get a grip on where people are at any time, and what
they are doing... People who apply for asylum want permanent status in
this country. That is why they do not come here and disappear illegally."
BID's report recommends an immediate end to the detention
of children, the mentally and physically ill and those who have been tortured.
In order for detention not to be arbitrary, BID also calls for a statutory
maximum length of detention and provision for all those detained to have
prompt and automatic access to a court to consider lawfulness and necessity
of detention in the particular circumstances of the case.
Inquiries, further information contact:
Sarah Cutler, BID Policy and Research Officer
bailforimmigrationdetainees@yahoo.co.uk
020 7247 3590 / 07870 643373
*The submission and a summary of
recommendations can be downloaded from BID's website at http://www.biduk.org/info.htm
**Report on the visit of the
UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to the United Kingdom on the
issue of immigrants and asylum seekers
In 1998 New Labour invited the Commission On Human Rights
(COHR) to visit the UK to inspect and assess the UK detention estate.
A Working Group On Arbitrary Detention visited the UK
from 21st to 25th September 1998.
The Group visited both detention centres and prisons.
Among the detention centres the Group visited were Campsfield House Detention
Centre, Oxfordshire; Harmondsworth Detention Centre, Middlesex; Haslar
Holding Centre (HOHC) in Hampshire and Tinsley House (near Gatwick airport).
The prisons visited were the prisons at Rochester, Kent, and Wormwood
Scrubs in London. The Group visited Heathrow airport, met with the Assistant
Director, Mr. Alan Craig, and familiarized itself with the primary and
secondary control areas, the asylum casework section, the holding area
and other operations at Heathrow.
Their conclusions were published on 18 December 1998.
They raised eight matters of concern, five
of the matters of concern have been completely ignored and three only
partly addressed.
They made fifteen recommendations, twelve of
the recommendations have been completely ignored and three only partly
addressed.
A copy of the report, can be downloaded from:
http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/more/resource.html
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