A CAMPAIGN has been launched over alleged human rights abuses suffered by asylum-seekers in hotels run on behalf of the government by outsourcing firm Serco.

Raising Our Asylum Rights’ (Roar) campaign, Resisting Racism In Hotels, was launched in Manchester last night and is supported by 17 trade union branches and campaign groups including the Peace and Justice Project which was founded by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

At the launch, one refugee told of his treatment at the Britannia Hotel, which is run by Serco in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Iranian Shay Babagar Murab told the meeting: “After many abuses and two assaults and the disappearance of belongings, in November 2022, I went on hunger strike.”

He told the meeting that he stopped the hunger strike after 35 days “because otherwise, irreversible physical damage would have happened to me.”

A film shown at the meeting showed “harsh and disturbing behaviour” towards a mother with young children, including a baby, by Serco staff after she refused to take her family to other asylum accommodations which posed severe health and safety risks.

A member of Serco’s staff can be heard in the film subjecting the woman to verbal abuse.

Rhetta Moran of Roar said: “Roar will show what is really happening inside the hotels which, in the north-west and other regions, are managed by Serco — the global profit-making company and recipient of countless UK government contracts.”

In 2019, Serco was fined £19 million for making false claims for payment for electronic tagging of released prisoners on behalf of the government’s Justice Department.

Serco was invited to comment.