CCC hunger strike bulletin day 6, Friday 6 August 2010

from Campaign to Close Campsfield

FUTURE EVENTS:

Cycle ride to Campsfield, Monday 9 August. Meet at Martyrs memorial, St Giles, Oxford at 6pm to:

Vigil/demonstration at Campsfield at 7pm Monday 9 August.

Saturday 7 August: 11am street stall in Cornmarket, Oxford, to get people to sign letters to their MP asking them to act in support of demands of detainees.

Second major statement from detainees

Unlawful Detention of Detainees (Tuesday 03 August 2010)

We appreciate all the effort and support we have received.

Today we continue to fight for our rights, today, all we detainees will continue to fight for liberty and security which is our fundamental rights.

It is unbelievable that a country so great that advocates human rights and liberty, eradicated slavery still practice such inhumane treatment of humans with equal rights in its backyard with the expectation that the whole world would be unaware of these treacherous nature adhered by the institutions.

Today we raise our voices until liberty is ours. Over 140 detainees have maintained the decision not to feed and sleep until our lives and the lives of our families are restored.

Until this moment, we have not been contacted by the UK Border Agency or Immigration in respect to our protest. The onsite immigration have hidden away and refused to engage in any communication or dialogue. This is evidently a sign of weakness by UKBA and an acceptance that our cry is for a good reason.

We read that in media that we have vending machines and onsite medical services. It is evident that the Immigration is not in touch with fundamental issues we are facing. Our lives are at risk, we have no freedom or liberty, we are been tortured, yet Immigration speaks about vending machine. These are malicious claims in an attempt to deny or play down the gravity of our determination. Can any vending machine feed 140 people?

Our lives and liberty should be considered like the rest of the 6 billion humans in the world. Our families are undergoing pain, our cases should be reviewed frequently, our detention should be justifiable, we should be given time for adequate judicial proceedings, we should not be detained indefinitely.

In July 2010 Honourable Justice Silber ruled that the fast-track policy was "unlawful and must be quashed”, however, the UK Border Agency still indulge in the fast track policy which is against the ruling of Honourable Justice Silber.

We put this question to all. Can it ever be justifiable for any organisation, institution or country to detain any human being with family (wife and children) for 3 years with?

We are also aware that there is a possibility that our efforts will be suppressed and not channelled to the appropriate body or government, however, we will continue to fight with everyday.

We all would humbly request that the parliament and cabinet address our heartily concerns as our wives, children, and we detainees are all dying, very slowly.

Tonight, we would all sleep outside on the grass floor and would refuse to sleep indoors. We deserve to be heard and until such time, we fight.                  

In spite of all, it is our believe that people are good at heart and should be giving a right to life.

Our humble selves - Detainees

On behalf of all detainees

Report from demo tonight (Friday)

Twenty people demonstrated outside Campsfield this evening (Friday 6 August) their support for detainees protesting at their detention and ill treatment. Detainees spoke to those outside via a speaker phone. A detainee reported that 70 people continued on hunger strike. [UK Border Agency claimed yesterday that only 5 people continued to refuse food.] There were chants and shouts from both sides of the fence: ‘Freedom’, ‘Stop detention, Stop deportation, Close down Campsfield’, ‘We are not criminals’, ‘Migrants are not criminals’, Free the detainees’.

Report from visitors to a detainee on Wednesday afternoon 4 August 2010

BC [the detainee] affirmed that some 180 detainees in Campsfield are standing together in the hunger strike.

He also affirmed that organisers had made clear to everyone that any kind of violent behaviour such as breaking windows, damaging property or attempting to break out would not be tolerated. Their action was directed at the manifold injustice of the Asylum and Immigration system and to get a proper response from its authorities in the Ministry and Government.

In the light of the demise of Refugee and Migrant Justice, his own personal situation illustrates the stark consequences. His lawyer was one of theirs. He is now unable to access any of BC’s papers. Recently, applying for bail with his sureties (wife and a friend) fully accepted by the immigration judge, she told him that she would have released him on bail and wished to do so, but that this was impossible without the provision of his papers. The 12.30 programme today confirmed that all the lawyers' papers are locked up in the premises of the RMJ, with the lock changed, so that access is impossible.

We also learnt that there has been a huge email response supporting the action of the Campsfield detainees.

Media coverage

Protesting detainees Stevenson Grooms and Adel Kader have spoken live to local and national radio and TV. So far they have not suffered reprisals from GEO who run the centre or UK BA.

Detainee moved out of Campsfield as suspected protest ‘ringleader’

CD was due to be visited by two members of the Campaign to Close Campsfield yesterday afternoon. On arrival his visitors were told he had been moved to Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow airport the previous evening, only hours after the visit was booked.

Today CD said, by phone from his new residence, that the Centre Manager at Campsfield gave him a document (not accessible to him at the time of his phone call) giving ‘reasons’ for his being placed in segregation (solitary) and moved to another centre yesterday evening. The document referred to him as a ‘ringleader’ of the ongoing protest. Another document given to CD after his move as he was being placed in segregation in the new centre reads as follows:

‘Reason for Removal from Association

‘The above detainee arrived from Campsfield House as it was witnessed that he had been involved in a peaceful protest during an ongoing hunger strike at the centre by a number of detainees.

‘Due to this information you are currently not suitable for normal accommodation at present. Therefore it has been authorised that you will be placed on Rule 40 (Secure Accommodation) until further information has been gathered. During this time you will be monitored and managed for your suitability to be placed into normal accommodation.

‘Authoristation for an initial 24 hours.’

CD says he is/was definitely not a ‘ringleader’ of the protest in any sense, though he is/was [like over 100 others at the time] participating in it.

Letter of support from Oxford & District Trades Union Council

[sent to a detainee by email]

‘5 August 2010

‘Dear Mr BR,

‘The Oxford & District Trades Union Council met this evening and received a report on the protest of detainees at Campsfield, from one of the delegates.

‘We shall circulate your statement dated 2 August and we shall invite our affiliated branches to write to their Members of Parliament and the Home Secretary Theresa May in support of it.

‘Please convey this message to your fellow detainees:

‘Oxford Trades Union Council supports the protests of the detainees at Campsfield against their harsh, inhumane and unjust treatment.

‘As sponsors of the Campaign to Close Campsfield we support its aims:

‘At this particular time we call for the detainees at Campsfield to be released, for there to be a moratorium on the expansion of the ‘detention estate’, until the findings are published and the recommendations enacted of an independent inquiry into the whole policy of immigration detention.

‘Yours in solidarity,

‘Susan Tibbles

‘Secretary

‘Oxford & District Trades Union Council

Statement issued on 2 August 2010 by protesting detainees at Campsfield House:

http://www.closecampsfield.org.uk/

Please contact your MP

www.writetothem.com/

and the Home Secretary, Theresa May

Private Office to The Rt Hon Theresa May MP

Telephone: 020 7035 0198

Fax: 020 7035 0900

Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

calling for the detainees’ demands to be listened to, for the detainees to be released, and for an end to immigration detention, or at the very least a radical independent review of the unjust and inhumane policy of detention and a halt to the expansion of detention centres