Remember the Dead - Justice for the Living - End Immigration Detention Now!
Noise demo at Harmondsworth immigration prison - Tuesday 6th November, 1.30pm
Meet at the main entrance to Harmondsworth and Colnbrook IRCs (Colnbrook by Pass, Harmondsworth, West Drayton, UB7 0FX)
Prince Ofosu died in Harmondsworth last Tuesday, 30th October 2012. The private security firm running the prison, GEO Group Limited, and the Home Office refused to disclose any information about what happened, or the person's name or nationality.
Detainees inside and an anonymous GEO officer confirm his name as Prince Ofosu, a Ghanaian detainee, 31 years old. They say he was forcibly restrained by GEO officers, taken to the 'block' (isolation cells), sustained injuries from being hit by an officer and stripped naked and left for 24 hours with the heating turned off until his death.
We will not let this death be silenced!
Bring banners, whistles, instruments and whatever you can find to make a lot of noise outside the detention centre, and to show solidarity to those still incarcerated inside Harmondsworth & Colnbrook immigration prisons.
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman is visiting the detention centre on Tuesday, 6th November. Reports say the death has been referred to the Hillingdon coroner but an inquest is not expected to open until the middle of next week.
This is the seventh death of a detainee in Harmondsworth and brings the total number of deaths in the UK detention estate to 17.
This is the tip of the iceberg in the untold reality of people suffering at the hands of a racist immigration system that persecutes people because they have the 'wrong' kind of identity and status.
Everyday people without papers are seized, detained and deported. They are racially profiled, picked out because they are 'foreign' and deemed 'undesirable' from society. Every day people face 'identity controls'. They are criminalised and told they are 'illegal'. This fear of 'others' promoted by governments makes xenophobia and racism normalised and institutionalised.
** Immediate closure of all Immigration Removal Centres, the modern day concentration camps of our society.
** Remember the dead - Justice for the living - End immigration detention now!
No Borders London