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ONE hundred people are set to be deported in a chartered flight from Stansted airport tonight as campaigners accuse the Home Office of using “excessive” restraints.
The 22.30 Titan Airways flight heading to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone is thought to also be carrying a Belgium-born man who has lived most of his life in Britain.
According to immigration activists, many are being boarded under duress and issued travel documents unrelated to their actual country of origin.
In a statement, the deportation and detention support charity Unity Centre said it had “opposed these flights for years.”
A spokeswoman said: “Detainees are taken from detention centres across the UK throughout the afternoon leading up to the planned routine charter flights after being locked up in individual rooms from the night before.
“This practice is believed to avoid any resistance with individuals suspected of resisting being placed in solitary confinement for days or weeks leading up to the flight.”
She added that since the death in custody of Angolan detainee Jimmy Mubenga, security firms outsourced by the Home Office have used new, unregulated restraining methods.
Restraints are said to go around the whole body and keep the arms and hands pinned down.
The group also said it “received a distressing call a few months ago after this contraption was used upon a Nigerian national held in Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre.
“As a result of the force used and severe pressing upon his chest he was admitted to the emergency room.
“One detainee reports seeing the use of these devices as an ‘everyday thing’.”
The Home Office refused to comment.
