CHURCHES and trade unions in Scotland urged Home Secretary Theresa May yesterday to let them have a meeting with hunger-striking asylum-seekers at Dungavel immigration centre in Lanarkshire.

Hundreds of detainees at Dungavel, Harmondsworth near Heathrow, Morton Hall in Lincolnshire, Colnbrook in Middlesex and Dover are on hunger strike protesting about continuing detention and appalling conditions.

Scottish TUC general secretary Grahame Smith said the STUC and other Scottish civil society organisations are “very concerned at reports of large numbers of detainees refusing food” at Dungavel.

He said: “It is unclear whether this is a response to conditions in the centre, or wider issues relating to the asylum system, or both.

“But what is clear is that the decision to refuse food reflects a level of desperation which must be investigated — the mark of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable.”