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HUNDREDS of detainees in immigration detention centres across Britain are on hunger strike in protest at their inhumane conditions and their imprisonment.
The hunger strike began last week at Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow airport and quickly spread to other centres, including Morton Hall in Lincolnshire, Dungavel in Lanarkshire in Scotland, Colnbrook at West Drayton in Middlesex and Dover.
Harmondsworth is a holding centre for “removals” with the capacity to hold up to 600 men. Around 240 are believed to be involved in the hunger strike there.
“The numbers are rising,” said Abbas Haider, 43, who is being held in Harmondsworth and is acting as a spokesman for the hunger strikers.
“One of the guys in here has been inside for 19 months. The staff tell us that if we don’t stop our strike and disperse, we will end up in jail.
“But all the guys say in one language, in one sound: ‘We are already in prison.’ We don’t have any human rights left here.”
Some of the detainees are posting on website Detained Voices.
One wrote: “We are not criminals. We are locked up in rooms like animals.”
Protests have also been staged outside some of the centres by campaigners and supporters.
Privateer security firm Mitie runs Harmondsworth.
Cases of self-harm at Harmondsworth are reported to have quadrupled in the last two years, reaching 62 in 2014.
Unlike the rest of the European Union, Britain imposes no limit on the length of time asylum-seekers and migrants can be detained, despite their having committed no crime.
Refugee Council Head of Advocacy Dr Lisa Doyle said: “It’s hardly surprising that people imprisoned across the detention estate are protesting.
“It’s extremely distressing for asylum-seekers to be locked up when they haven’t done anything wrong with no release date in sight.
“Ministers must accept that the cat is out of the bag: immigration detention is inhumane, expensive and inefficient. If the government wants to prove it’s serious about justice and protecting vulnerable people then it’s high time they consigned the whole system to the history books where it belongs.”
