Religious and refugee groups denied access to Dungavel immigration centre
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Version 0 of 1. The Home Office has refused to allow religious and refugee representatives into the controversial Dungavel immigration centre in Scotland amid reports of detainees on hunger strike, it is claimed. An emergency motion before the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) AGM on Tuesday condemns the decision and calls for an end to detention within the asylum system. It is calling for a demonstration outside the centre, near Strathaven, in protest. The request to assess the conditions in the South Lanarkshire facility, where dozens of asylum seekers have been held for months, followed recent reports that protests were taking place inside and that as many as 60 detainees were refusing food. The request was made by the STUC, the Church of Scotland, the Catholic church, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Scottish Refugee Council. “Whilst the visit was welcomed by the centre manager, the Home Office denied the request, citing their own assurances that nothing was happening within the walls as a reason to deny civic Scotland entry,” said the STUC. Figures released to BBC Scotland under freedom of information legislation, showed that on 7 January 2015, 41 out of the 185 detainees had been held there for more than three months. Of those, 32, had been detained for more than six months, while in two cases detainees from Western Sahara and Algeria had been at Dungavel for more than a year. One detainee from Iran had spent 11 months in Dungavel and a total of almost two-and-a-half years in detention. Last month the home secretary, Theresa May, was urged by the Scottish government to investigate conditions at the centre following reports of a hunger strike. The Home Office claims it only detains people for the shortest time necessary while their cases are assessed or they are awaiting deportation. The UK is the only country in the European Union with no cap on the time someone can be detained under immigration powers. A recent report by Westminster’s all-party parliamentary group on refugees and migration called for a 28-day limit and for “community-based resolutions” to be favoured over detention. The STUC general council supports the motion. It said: “Detention is a blight on our asylum system. The people being held indefinitely in Dungavel have committed no crime. They have caused no harm in our country and seek nothing but the opportunity to live in safety and with dignity. “How can we stand back and allow our government to treat vulnerable people in this way? They say it is OK because there is an inspection regime around it, but that inspection regime does not ask what effect indefinite detention has on the person who is detained. It does not really see a person at all, only a set of criteria, decided by the Home Office, that needs to be ticked off.” The motion also calls on the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission to work together to inspect Dungavel from a human rights perspective in order to determine the human cost of detention. |