The last month has seen renewed protest by people being held in detention centres in England.

Yarl's Wood

At the beginning of May, women at Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre staged demonstrations and a hunger strike. The actions followed the take over the centre by SERCO, the company which won the £87m contract to run it in April. SERCO seems set on cutting costs by reducing staff numbers and making conditions even worse for the women and children held there. In particular women were concerned about suggestions that SERCO would begin:

- Locking women up their rooms from 7pm – 7am;
- Confiscating mobile phones which women rely on for contact with the outside world;
- Cutting Sky News TV where women get information about the countries they fled .

Women took to the corridors shouting “We won’t be locked up.” “Hands off our mobiles.” and made banners out of bed sheets saying “We want freedom.” “We demand Human Rights.” “We want justice.” Others went on hunger strike – including all the women on DOVE wing. Across the four different units almost 200 women took part in separate protests in their courtyards. Women explained their demands by phone to supporters outside:

"- Release from detention - some of us have been held for over two years.
- No lock up – we’ve committed no crime.
- No punishment or retribution against those of us who are protesting or on hunger strike
- Stop sabotaging our asylum claims. Vital faxes are withheld, staff refuse to allow us to fax information even to our lawyer or MP and confiscate legal rights information. 23 women signed a letter of protest at LAW’s Self-Help Guide being snatched from them during room searches or at other times. We are told “you are not supposed to have this in the centre”.
- Our privacy should be respected. Male guards come into our rooms without warning, even when we don’t have clothes on. They search the room scattering our underwear.
- An end to violence from staff especially when they take us to the airport. Women have been assaulted, handcuffed, drugged and beaten up. One woman was stripped naked and thrown in the van. The pilot refused to take her as she had no clothes.
- Sexist and racist guards to be sacked – we are called ”black monkey” “nigger” and “bitch” and told “go back to your country”.
- To keep our mobiles – it costs £3 for a 3 min call on the phone cards they sell us.
- Stop stealing our money. We want an investigation into how money sent by relatives and supporters, which the authorities put into accounts, is later gone when we come to get it.
- We want our 71p daily allowance – it’s a pittance but we are entitled to it.
- No fingerprinting of visitors - people have stopped coming to see us since this started.
- A choice of sanitary pads – we are only given one type but for those of us with heavy periods they are not enough.
- Food we can eat. It is the same every day – days old re-heated jacket potatoes, uncooked rice, partially cooked fried eggs, hair, dirt and sometimes maggots in it. It’s rationed so we don’t get enough to eat - one tin of sardines between three people - and the serving people are rude.”

Ruth Williams who has been detained for nearly six months said: “We are women like other women, who have suffered and been forced out of our countries by killing and other violence. We have committed no crime but are locked up without rights and terrorized by threats to send us back to the horrors we fled. We want our human rights.”

Later Ms Jacklyn Edwards, who was involved in the hunger strike and protest was removed to Holloway prison threatened with return to Jamaica where she was gang-raped and her life is in danger. Ms Edwards maintains that SERCO have trumped up charges against her, a claim supported by other detainees who are ready to come forward as witnesses. She says: “I am being punished for speaking out about the inhumane conditions we have to suffer in Yarl’s Wood.” 100 women in Yarl’s Wood have written in support of Ms Edwards calling for:

"- Jacklyn Edwards’ release;
- return of Sky News channels which women rely on for information from their home country; - the right to send faxes to their MPs, courts and groups based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre; return of the photocopy machine so that women don’t have to hand confidential legal documents to guards for copying;
- an end to Group 4 security escorts’ assault, torture and brutality of innocent detainees when they are being taken to and from the airports. (One woman was returned to Yarl’s Wood in the last few days from the airport with bruises all over her body.)"

Information from Black Women's Rape Action Project.

Death of Asylum Seeker

The continuing tragedy of detention was further brought home by the death of the husband of one of the women held at Yarl’s Wood. Congo Support Project reports that "on the evening of Thursday 10 May, Solange Nlandu Therese Nsingi, an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who has been in detention for seven months at Yarl's Wood, learnt that her husband, Ilunga Tshibangu, had been found dead at their home in Coventry. Ilunga was known to have been extremely distressed at his wife's prolonged incarceration. He was particularly disturbed by the treatment she received at two removal attempts when she was badly beaten by escorts and then made to spend a week in solitary confinement at the detention centre on each occasion.

Solange has been in detention since October 2007, an attempt to remove her in January failed and she was also one of the intended passengers on the 26 February charter flight that took 38 vulnerable men, women and children back to the DRC. She was saved by a last-minute legal representation and was awaiting bail proceedings to be implemented. Unfortunately they did not happen soon enough and we are left wondering whether this tragic death could have been avoided if Ilunga had been reunited with his wife sooner. Our deepest sympathy goes out to Solange".

Colnbrook

At Colnbrook detention centre by Heathrow Airport, also run by SERCO, detainees protested last week after restrictions on association with the opening times of the church and library being reduced. Detainees resisted being locked up at lunch and night times. Following the action, about 17 men were reported as being moved to prisons or other centres.

Resistance on planes

Meanwhile asylum seekers facing being flown against their will to other countries have been putting up last ditch resistance at airports and on planes, in some cases with some success. The Home Secretary admitted this month that "During the past two years there have been 1,173 occasions when attempts to remove detained people have failed due to disruptive behaviour on their part. If a detainee cannot be removed due to their disruptive behaviour they are returned to detention and arrangements are made to remove them as soon as possible with in-flight escorts." Full report at Scotland on Sunday.