No Borders has called a demonstration against the proposed new Detention Centre at Gatwick on Saturday 21st April 2007:

Over 2,600 people, mostly asylum seekers, are locked up in detention camps and prisons in Britain, without trial and without time limit and with no automatic right to bail. The government is building new detention centres with a target capacity of 4000. One of these is about to be built inside the Gatwick airport area. They are starting building works in the coming months and planning to finish it by 2008.

Detention centres are a crucial part of the European Union’s migration policy: they are a vital link in the process of controlling and managing migration movements - according to media propaganda this is essential due to the ‘masses’ of migrants ‘swamping’ the country. They are used as a way to filter migrants according to the needs of the European labour market. They are a tool of social control: promoting fear by presenting migrants as people who need to be locked up. Detention centres are institutions which resemble a closed prison regarding its conditions, and where migrants can be locked up due to their nationality and status.

Detention can be enforced for many reasons, but in general it is not based on any crime but e.g. in order to unravel one's identity or entering route, or as a way of controlling someone who is due to be deported. Because the detention will mostly be applied on these asylum seekers, it is also in contradiction with the clause 31 of the Geneva refugee agreement, the clause that forbids the punishment of refugees solely on the basis of illegal entering to the country.

Current immigration detention facilities such as Campsfield in Oxfordshire, Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire and Harmondsworth in London where fires and riots have broken out, are notorious for their inhumane regimes. Detainees encounter routine racism and an indefinite period of detention whilst living in prison like conditions. Unlike prisoners they do not know when they will ‘get out’ and also face the fear of being forcibly returned to former countries where they might face torture and death.

In September 2006 Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Asylum Aid published a report They Took Me Away on detention of women, focusing on violent treatment during deportations, length of detention, and failure to meet specific needs of women. Children continued to be detained at Dungavel and Oakington and at Yarl's Wood a 250-plus "family unit" was due to open around the end of the year. Seven out of 10 principal immigration detention centres in the UK are run by private companies for profit under contract to the Home Office (Interior Ministry).

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION TO STOP THE NEW GATWICK DETENTION CENTRE BEING BUILT. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE PRACTICE THAT IMPRISONS PEOPLE DUE TO THEIR IMMIGRATION STATUS

WE DEMAND THE BUILDING OF THE NEW DETENTION CENTRE AT GATWICK IS IMMEDIATELY CANCELLED.

NO DEPORTATIONS, NO TO ALL DETENTION CENTRES, NO TO ALL PRISONS.

The demonstration will take places in THREE BRIDGES near CRAWLEY. Come to the demonstration or organise solidarity demos/actions in your own cities and towns. Meet up at Jubilee Field in Three Bridges 12 o'clock. Nearest train stop Three Bridges. Come out of Three Bridges station and turn left into East Avenue, after two minutes walk the park (Jubilee Field) is on your right. For more information on the campaign against the Gatwick detention centre and further details about the demo and companies involved in building and running the centre check www.indymedia.org.uk regularly or email this address: stopdetentionatgatwick@riseup.net