HMP Forest Bank, Agecroft Rd, Salford Saturday 23rd Oct. 1pm

1. Emma 07786 517379 / sady_campaign@yahoo.co.uk, Heather 07903 184786 / simple_things@riseup.net HMP Forest Bank Demo HMP Forest Bank, Agecroft Rd, Salford Saturday 23rd Oct. 1pm David Blunkett visited Dungavel Removal Centre and said he found the conditions “entirely satisfactory” A few weeks later on July 21st 2004, an immigration detainee was found hanged at Harmondsworth Removal Centre. Four days after that, a detainee was found hanged at Dungavel. Was Blunkett entirely satisfied then ? Seemingly not : after a major disturbance at Harmondsworth following the death, over 100 detainees were moved to prisons, including HMP Forest Bank. The Home Office say those detainees have been moved out of prisons now. We have little faith : in 2001 David Blunkett said “…we will remove the necessity and practice of anyone claiming asylum being in prison … It is a scandal that shouldn't have happened. It's time it was over”. It’s never been over ; asylum seekers have continued to be held in prisons. And asylum seekers criminalised by the Home Office, made destitute & homeless, have been forced to work illegally in order to survive - some have been caught, convicted and jailed at HMP Forest Bank. 17 detainees arrested but it’s the Home Office that should be prosecuted ! - We understand that 17 have been arrested in connection to the Harmondsworth disturbance and will be charged with a criminal offence. We feel it is the Home Office that should be prosecuted for recklessly endangering lives by detaining people in conditions known to be unsafe. One detainee charged with Violent Disorder regarding the Yarl’s Wood disturbance was left standing in the dock with 24 of his 26 witnesses having been deported (he was later acquitted) – there can be no fair trial in such circumstances. We are concerned this is happen to Harmondsworth defendants. The Table Office at the House of Commons have refused to accept a Parliamentary Question on this – where’s the transparency and accountability to the public ? In the Yarl’s Wood trial, we heard how detention centre operator staff subverted the investigation by a series of “wholly improper” actions and were threatened by police to be interviewed about obstruction. Will this scenario be repeated ? Another Inquiry – will it do justice ? Stephen Shaw, Prison Ombudsman, is responsible for investigating deaths in custody and aims to “enhance public confidence when someone has died while in the hands of the state” and to “to reduce the numbers of self-inflicted and other avoidable deaths” … some would argue the two deaths last week were inflicted by the government’s asylum policy and were entirely avoidable. The only way to avoid more deaths is to end arbitrary and indefinite immigration detention. Our demands - Campaigners around the country have staged demonstrations at Removal Centres and main-stream prisons that detainees from Harmondsworth were transferred to. We commemorated the needless deaths, showing solidarity with detainees, and demanding an end to the deadly policy of arbitrary and indefinite detention. Detainees said our show of solidarity gave them strength. We want the Home Office to tell us why “failed” asylum seekers are committing suicide rather than be deported – what else than fearing detention, torture and death back home ? Journalist Melanie McFadyean wrote a number of months ago … “As specious as it may seem to compare our politicians and civil servants to the Nazis, there is a chilling echo. When Adolph Eichmann was asked how he could have sent people to their deaths, he replied: "To tell you the truth, it was easy. My fellow officers and I had our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache - office talk. In office talk you deny responsibility for your actions. If anybody says why did you do it, you say I had to: it's company policy, the law." Failed asylum seeker, illegal immigrant, bogus asylum seeker, detainee, removal centre, protection zones, islands far, far away - office talk. Acceptable at bus stops and in pubs. Behind the words are people we're concealing in our own kind of amtssprache.” Campaign To Stop Arbitrary Detentions at Yarl’s Wood - sady_campaign@yahoo.co.uk - 07786 517379 Note : data of deaths in detention kindly supplied by Institute of Race Relations • Anyone with a car or wanting a lift should assemble at Chorlton Str • bus station, Manchester at 12.00.Buses from Manchester - All buses • require 15 mins walk to the prison. No 8 from Cross Str (near Boots) • get off at Agecroft Rd / Bolton Rd junction. Buses every half hour • – 25 mins and 55 mins past the hour. This bus requires the longest • walk. No 93 from Exchange bus station - every hour, 50 mins past the hour. • Get of at Butterstile Lane. Walk down Hilton Lane. No 92 from Bury Interchange. Get off at Butterstile Lane. Every hour, 20 mins past hour. Walk down Hilton Lane. HMP Forest Bank 01/08/04 asylum seekers …… scapegoats As a part of a nation-wide series of demos, our last demo at HMP Forest Bank on 1st August helped attract a lot of media focus, which held up for quite a few weeks. The demos had a major impact and detainees said it gave them great strength to know people on the outside supported them. So please, come and support detainees again and help us continue to raise awareness through local and national media.Thank you !

2. Control & Restraint (C&R) - One female detainee told the prison Ombudsman Inquiry into racism and abuse by Group4 staff at Yarl’s Wood (published 30/04/04) that “an officer twisted her neck and kept twisting her wrists and swore at her while another officer put his/her hand in her mouth so that she could not breathe”. The Inquiry team viewed the CCTV and video footage of the incident and said “It was clear that everything was done in line with proper procedures”. One wonders how appropriate these “proper procedures” are. A Yarl’s Wood officer was reported by the Daily Mirror as saying “They might die in certain positions. We don’t want to kill them. But provided we have done it by the book we will get away with it.“. And another officer as explaining that C&R teams are equipped with ‘night sticks’; “They are called night sticks because, when you hit someone with them, it’s goonight”. And another officer as saying “Healthcare are there in case of a medical emergency, such as if they stop breathing. It happens more often than you might think.” A couple of months ago a 15 year old boy lost consciousness while being restrained by three prison officers at a Secure Training Centres run by a subsidiary of Group4 – the boy died an hour later in hospital. Dungavel detainee : 'Everyone is very angry and very upset. Nobody would listen to him [the man who died]. He spent a long time in jail in his own country and was afraid to go back” Why are tensions so high amongst immigration detainees ? Many of the men, women, and children detained do not understand why they are detained as they have not been accused of any crime. Immigration detention is indefinite and there is no requirement for it to be sanctioned by a court or be independently reviewed. The Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) reported on two immigration detention centres recently and said the “lack of supervision can result in arbitrary or sloppy decision-making … in one case to detainees literally lost in the system, three months into what was supposed to be an overnight stay in prison”. Who gets detained? - A report by Sir David Ramsbotham, then Chief Inspector of Prisons, found that even Immigration Officers themselves thought there was “little or no consistency or logic” in who gets detained. Sometimes an asylum seeker arrives in the UK and is given Temporary Admission with instructions to report back in, say 48 hrs. The asylum seeker duly reports back and then may be detained on the basis of being a potential absconder, even though they have just demonstrated otherwise. Immigration detention is indefinite – people can be detained for over a year, or more.One Harmondsworth detainee was released recently after over a year in detention – others in the past have been detained for years before being removed or released. One detainee moved out of Harmondsworth to a main-stream prison after the disturbance says he has been detained for over a year so far and never had a removal notice. Detainees left with no legal representation - Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) said that the recent HMIP report shows that “cuts in immigration & asylum legal aid are leaving many detained without representation, and that people are languishing in unsafe detention centres because of the inefficiencies and chaos of the Home Office”. Detainees have the right to apply for bail, yet many are not aware of it, or are not able to exercise their right as the have no solicitor or anyone to stand as Surety and offer accommodation. One removal centre was found to be charging detainees for an advice leaflet which had been provided cost-free by BID. Physical conditions - An “insider” quoted by The Scottish Mirror describes cells in the new block at Dungavel Removal Centre in Scotland – “The cell is tiny, the wooden bunk spartan, while the bars on the window are a constant reminder that there is no escape … they will be forced to languish in cramped six-foot by nine-foot cells - smaller than those in Scottish prisons” The “insider” says the horrifying atmosphere sends a chill down the spine, and must be terrifying for kids. The recent HMIP report describes Dover Removal Centre “Physically, it presents a forbidding appearance: it is a Napoleonic fortress, complete with moat”. The Scottish Mirror’s “insider” said: "They've paid more attention to the outside of the building and spent even more cash on making it look presentable from the outside. Anyone looking in from the outside can't imagine the stark, horrible reality these people have to face on a day-to-day basis. Medical attention - A 61 year old Iraqi detainee claims she was denied her medication – when she was released we had to take her to A&E – she was admitted and needs a angiogram to see if serious heart surgery is required. A Scottish newspaper reported that a nurse in a Glasgow hospital was horrified that a women detainee was handcuffed to a guard throughout her stay. Other detainee say they experienced the same and that when they need the toilet, the guards have a long chain-extension on the handcuffs. as claimed by women detainee who claims she was naked as assulted Assaults - There have been many allegations of assaults on detainees, mostly during the remove process – In Harmondsworth a Turkish detainee in his twenties claims he was taken to a segregation unit and assaulted. Five members of Harmondsworth staff were arrested in February over assault allegation. One detainee says he was brought back to Harmondsworth off a plane with significant injuries, which, he says had been entered into the computer as “self-harm”. Another Harmondsworth detainee claims that the escorts complain if they don’t get the detainee back to their country, they won’t get their commission.The Mirror described how a Yarl’s Wood officer said "It was because I once told him, 'I will f*** you up, tomorrow.' I was involved in the control and restraint team that wrapped him up the next day. It was brilliant.". How a supervisor said “We are actually assaulting him. It is only because of the job we are doing we can do it.". One officer was heard by the journalist “… I saw the red mist descending and followed them to the seg[regation] unit where they had taken him. There are no cameras in there so they gave him a good pasting. Somehow I got hold of one of the shields so I went in there and splattered him against the wall hard. He must have been about two inches thick after that. I went in again when strip-searched. He was bollock naked. I put him in a figure of eight and leant on him with all my weight [19 stone]. He didn’t move for ten minutes after that.” One firm of solicitors alone, Birnberg Pierce & Partners, says it is now receiving a new allegation of abuse every day and the recent HMIP report says that “Inspectors were told that allegations of assault were not always fully investigated [by the authorities]”.

3. Riots - There have been riots at almost all places of immigration detention. Before Harmondsworth, there was a major incident at Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre in 2002 – staff pinned a 51 yr old female detainee to the ground, dragged her along the floor, triggering the whole incident. They grossly and negligently mis-managed the incident and an order was given that detainees be locked in the burning building, that the Home Office had decided not to fit sprinklers to. Group4 were under investigation for Corporate Manslaughter and decided to sue the police for £97m costs. In 1997 there was a riot at Campsfield Removal Centre and they tried to prosecute detainees, but the trial spectacularly collapsed as the detention centre staff’s evidence was deemed unreliable. Detention centre staff’s canteen culture - The Daily Mirror journalist reported being told how one Group4 officer told a detainee that if he saw him outside he would “rip his fucking head off and shit down his neck”. Other officers’ comments heard by the journalist included … “We have to watch out for incest. It’s a part of their culture”. … “Go into the association room. They won’t like it. You won’t like it … [makes retching sounds] … the smell” … and describing women detainees at Yarl’s Wood as “useless scrubbers”. Children are dehumanised by being referred to as “child female” and “child male”. Note ; the journalist reported an officer saying that he was trained in what he called ‘PCC’ and explained: “It’s a form of C and R for children without the locks and that which can break their bones.” There was a 5 week old premature baby (born at 34 weeks) at Yarl’s Wood at the time of the 2002 fire. The mother’s solicitor said “They were locked in when it went up in flames" and “in the panic and the smoke XXX didn't know if she and the baby would survive. Other detainees helped them escape, then they waited outside to be re-detained. They lost everything - their few personal possessions, clothes, all her Home Office papers and the baby's birth certificate.". Suicide attempts and self harm seem common. A Nigerian detainee at Dungavel Removal Centre is said to have attempted to commit suicide by driving a seven-inch iron rod into his stomach. Recent suicides in immigration detention - The man who was found hanging last Monday was not the first at Harmondsworth : Lithuanian asylum seeker Robertas Grabys was found hanged on the day he was due to be deported. A report into his death criticised the private company that was in charge of Harmondsworth at the time. 42-year-old Ukrainian asylum seeker, Mikhail Bognarchuk, was found hanged by his shoelaces in a toilet at Haslar Removal Centre on 31 January 2003. He was due to be deported that day to Ukraine. How staff view suicide attempts - An officer giving training at Yarl’s Wood was reported by the Daily Mirror as explaining that Group 4 are fined £10,000 for each successful suicide bid: “And smaller profits for Group 4 mean smaller pay rises for us.” and “There are signs that people are going to self-harm. [In funny voice] ‘No one will miss me’ [laughter] ‘ I won’t see tomorrow’ Congolese asylum seeker Kabeya Dimuka Bijoux died in detention this May – he was alleged to have been assaulted during detention 2 months before being transferred to Haslar where he died. A post mortem examination recorded that the cause of death was inconclusive. Deportation “mistakes”. Two examples from news reports ; 28 year old Reza Zahidy was deported despite a last-minute court injunction. Zenab Traore and her 16 month old daughter were deported to Guinea, who refused them entry, so they were bought back to the UK where they have been told to get out of their house, and have been denied benefits. Fear & hopelessness. Many detainees are terrified of being sent back to their country – places like Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries in civil war and with serious human rights abuses. Some detainees also loose hope that they will be released from detention here. An ex detainee told us that he used to be able to hear the van pulling up in the middle of the night, and a detainee would be dragged off to the airport. Some never came back. Some did, and some of them had been badly assaulted by escorts. He said the days were largely tedious, punctuated with moments of terror. He said everyone one was thinking who’s going to be next. Hungerstrikes – are very common ; there is hardly a day in detention free of hungerstrikes. One man was on hungerstrike for 35 days. He was released and later won his asylum claim. “Some staff say, ‘oh, alright mate’ and shake their hand.”. Another officer was reported as listing the external escorts that are carried out: “We do hospitals, dentists, funerals … we should be so lucky. Did I say that? [to laughter]. The recent HMIP report mentions “common to all Prison Service run IRCs [Immigration Removal Centres] - was the use of strip conditions in the 'care and separation' unit, including for those who were suicide risks: a practice which ceased during the inspection” We are finding it upsetting to talk to people facing deportation but who are not (yet) detained about the two suicides – imagine what it must be like for families in detention. Are we comfortable with exposing children to this ?

4. Deaths come as no surprise - Rumours are rife in detention centres, and given the high number of assault allegations, rumours may not feel like an illogical conclusion to detainees – paranoia may be heightened when, according to detainees on several different occasions, articles about what’s going on in detention centres appear, detention centre staff cut them out of the newspapers in the detention centre library. Locking people up without good reason, little access to legal help, a high level of assault claims, fear of being sent back to a place where their life may be in danger – it’s a lethal cocktail of conditions so we were not surprised by last week’s deaths and disturbance, and neither should the Home Office be. The government’s flippant responses - Home Secretary David Blunkett visited Dungavel a few weeks before the death there and said he found conditions to be "entirely satisfactory". We wonder if he is still entirely satisfied. The day after the major fire at Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre in 2002, David Blunkett said that staff had “acquitted themselves with dedication and courage” – one wonders if he felt the same when we found out that an order had been given that detainees be locked into the burning building, which the Home Office had decided not to fit a sprinkler system to. David Blunkett’s blunders inspire little confidence or comfort. Official “watchdog” reports on detention centre conditions - limited impact on change – the previous HMIP report on Harmondsworth noted “We did not find Harmondsworth was either a safe or respectful environment”, “The centre's suicide awareness team was unaware that there had been 11 incidents in the month before the inspection”, “we met one detainee who had sustained injuries requiring hospitalisation in the course of a removal attempt, and who claimed to have been assaulted”, and “ … we were told that police and prosecutors were reluctant to act”. The most recent HMIP report on Haslar Removal Centre says “The most serious was the failure to implement a fire risk assessment, which recommended, as a priority, the installation of a fire detection system in the dormitories” and that “There had been a self-inflicted death at Haslar since the previous inspection. Inspectors were therefore concerned that staff training in suicide prevention was not up to date, and that monitoring by night staff of those at risk remained inadequate … “ Yarl’s Wood Inquiry Mirror - In April the Prison Ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, Inquiry into allegations of racism and abuse at by Group4 at Yarl’s Wood was published, following an under-cover article in the Daily Mirror (08/12/03) . Despite the many accounts of “spalttering”, giving detainees a “good pasting”, and moving cameras away whilst it’s happening – Shaw said he found no evidence to support the journalist’s assertion that staff had an unwonted enthusiasm for C&R or were violent towards detainees. Shaw stated that the Mirror’s claims were “startling and hugely worrying allegations. If true, they would have called into question … the fitness of the contractor to run any removal centre or prison in this country”. Shaw concluded that most of the things the journalist “said happen, did happen” – yet that contractor (Group4/GSL) continues to run Yarl’s Wood, Oakington, Tinsley and Campsfield Removal Centres, as well as a number of prisons - at least one of which (Altcourse) an ex Harmondsworth detainee was moved moved to. In fact, just 30 days after publication of the Inquiry, Group4 was rewarded with the contract to design, build and operate the 750-bed Accommodation Centre in Bicester. This leads many of us to agree with Amadou Diallo’s view … “an island in the middle of the UK” – Home Office seems to be able to act with impunity - Shortly before last week’s Harmondsworth riot, Amadou Diallo, 31, who says he had been in Harmondsworth for 13 months, told a news reporter : 'The officers here can do anything they want. They know it's not going to go any further. We may as well just be a little island in the middle of the UK, the way we are treated.' Home Office effectively dismisses Yarl’s Wood fire Inquiry before it’s finished - David Blunkett says “The Government, and those agencies and organisations delivering nationality, immigration & asylum services, need to demonstrate that they know what they are doing, and that they are doing it well” – some say it is blatantly evident they do not know what it they are doing, or even worse, they do. We look to another Inquiry by the Prison Ombudsman into the 2002 fire at Yarl’s Wood for badly needed clarifications but it seems the Home Office didn’t, going ahead and re-opened Yarl’s Wood, with Group4 - before the publication of the Inquiry – unintending to act on all the findings, subjecting more people to ostensibly the same regime and risks. And look what has happened since. What then ? Over 400 Harmondsworth detainees were moved, many to main-stream prisons ; In addition to what they have already suffered, many Harmondsworth detainees were transferred to prisons. A few years ago the Home Secretary said “…we will remove the necessity and practice of anyone claiming asylum being in prison … It is a scandal that shouldn't have happened. It's time it was over”. It’s never been over ; asylum seekers have continued to be held in prisons. One of the prisons Immigration detention from B Wing, HMP Wormwood Scrubs where detainees are some times banged up 23 hours a day - sometimes 24 hrs a day for days on end, during which time they have no access to showers and can’t call friends or a solicitor. to which Harmondsworth detainees were transferred was HMP Forest Bank, operated by UKDS (the same private profit making company that operates Harmondsworth Removal Centre). The transfers were chaotic and for those who have solicitors, some of those solicitors did not know where their clients were. When they found out, some told detainees that they can no longer represent them at the new location. Some detainees say they were not allowed to gather their possessions, which could include vital immigration documents and address books, and say that some of new locations were not able to provide them with basics so they had been washing their teeth with their fingers. One detainee at HMP Forest Bank managed to contact a supporter and said he was provided with 70p for phone calls to his solicitor, friends and family to tell them where he was. It can be that detainees are lock up, for up to 23 hours a day in prisons and their one hour association time might be outside business hours so contacting their solicitor is difficult. In some prisons, detainees have to put names and numbers of people they want to ring on a list to go in the prison computer and telephone system, and this process can take many weeks. One prison Chaplin told me the detainees were mixed in with convicted prisoners. In the past, immigration detainees have been kept on the Lifers’ Wing at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. If their solicitor dumps them, they may be stuck in detention without the Home Office ever being required to justify depriving them of their liberty.