In the penal colony
On Saturday 27th October I visited Campsfield House, an immigration detention centre six kilometres outside Oxford. I was to write a report on the monthly protest that takes place outside the gates, organised by members of the Campaign to Close Campsfield. My intention had been to find out what exactly they felt was wrong with detention centres and what, realistically, the alternative could be. In my mind I felt that perhaps these centres were a necessary evil in an already overstretched system. I wanted to present both sides of the argument and produce a balanced article on the pros and cons of our current immigration and asylum system. Having visited Campsfield I am ashamed that I ever even partially condoned the use of detention centres. To say I was shocked by what I learnt that Saturday would be an understatement. I was disgusted, appalled, horrified.
Campsfield house is a bleak place. It is set back from the road, barely visible behind a row of trees. A sign on the main road reads "Campsfield House" indicating the turn-off. No mention of "Immigration Detention Centre". You could almost be forgiven for expecting some sort of stately home or a National Trust site. Nothing could be further from the truth. A twenty-foot high metal fence, topped with barbed wire, surrounds the centre.
On Saturday about twenty protestors gathered outside, a few with children: it was a peaceful protest. Nevertheless, two police officers waited nearby lest anyone should scale the fence or pose a threat to an unsuspecting passer-by. Unlikely given the position of the centre. In fact the place seemed deserted. The only evidence of life behind the fences was the appearance of two disinterested, bored-looking faces at the window of the 'reception'. Any threat to them would involve climbing the fence and breaking through three heavy metal doors. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.
Bill MacKeith, the driving force behind the Campaign, called the protestors into a meeting. Among other things he announced that this months protest was entitled "War makes refugees". Three and a half million according to the United Nations. Already Afghanistan is the main country of origin for asylum seekers, accounting for 9% of all applications lodged in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In the last 6 months alone, over five thousand Afghans have applied for asylum in Britain, and that was before the events of September 11th. The issue of asylum is inextricably linked with the war. People are fleeing not only the oppression, hunger, drought and disease they experienced from within the country, but are also having to move from the temporary camps they created for themselves for fear of being bombed or attacked by British and American troops. These people are not responsible for the terrorist attacks. They are the innocents. On October 8th, Julian Filichowski, director of the Catholic Aid Agency, CAFOD, stated: "We would remind the international community that international humanitarian law obliges those who take armed action to ensure that civilians have access to humanitarian aid". This aid is not accessible within the borders of Afghanistan so the people have no choice but to seek it elsewhere, thus the issue of asylum-seekers is renewed with new urgency.
Saturday 24th November will be the 8th Anniversary of the Campaign to Close Campsfield. But I was at first not entirely sure why the desire to stop the use of detention centres for asylum seekers was so strong. The protestors around me were shouting the answer to my question and the message was loud and clear: refugees are not criminals. They should not be detained, yet from the outside, certainly, the centre looks like a prison. If I had fled my country because of persecution, torture or fear of death, Campsfield house would not be the destination I had in mind but surely it must be better than the conditions I had run from? That is not the case for some of the detainees: in the last eight months, three people have attempted suicide. I don't wish to labour a point but how can that reflect anything but the complete and utter failure of a system which should be offering a safe-haven to those who are burdened with immense suffering in their homeland? What does it say about our country if suicide is a more appealing option than enduring the treatment you would otherwise receive? Our Government is first to stand up and protest against unjust regimes in other countries yet when it comes to the crunch, our country is as guilty as the people it condemns.
You may ask how I can possibly make such statements after just one hour outside a detention centre. I can't. That is exactly the reason I returned to Campsfield. The protest gave me the opportunity to meet a woman called Gill Baden who works with an organisation called "Asylum Welcome". Among other things she visits detainees in Campsfield and invited me to go along that evening to visit Raymond who is originally from Nigeria. We met outside at 6pm and then began the visitation process. Having passed through two heavy, remote controlled doors we entered the reception. After a ten minute delay we were called to get our visitor passes, a process that involved our personal details and photographs being entered into the computer only to be deleted three hours later. We then had to empty our pockets and pass through a metal detector before being allowed through another three remote-controlled doors to reach the 'Visitors Centre'. The centre consists of one large room with a number of tables, each with four chairs around them. There was no privacy whatsoever, and guards walked around the room to 'supervise' the visits. Visitors were not permitted to pass anything to the detainees, and the detainees were searched as they went back to their rooms to make sure they had not been given anything. There was a palpable penal atmosphere: in less than one hour there I felt that I was under scrutiny. I cannot imagine what it is like to be held there for any length of time. Raymond's body language spoke volumes. Raymond is only thirty-three years old but he looked utterly drained. His shoulders were hunched and there was only the faintest flicker of a smile on the face of a man who was happy, independent, and free until just months ago. During our visit traces of a sharp sense of humour came through in his conversation. He made a quip about one of the guards and we laughed together. Momentarily his face lit up.
The frustration Raymond was feeling was almost tangible. He looked intensely at me when I asked about his family and implored me to put myself in his shoes: why would he do anything to jeopardise his family? He has a wife and two young children. He entered the country legally with a two-year work permit and then was permitted to stay provided he renewed that permit each year.
He has now been in the country for nine years. Until January of this year he was working to support his family in Bristol. Sadly his partner had a mental breakdown and was taken into care, during which time Raymond was meant to renew his visa. Events took over and he failed to do so. In January of this year he was detained by the Immigration authorities. His children were separated and put into care. Just months earlier Raymond had been working to support his family, now he is in Campsfield House, costing the taxpayer £1000 per week, money which could be spent on other things if he was granted his right to freedom. He does not choose to be a burden to the taxpayer. Having lived in Britain for nine years he is now subject to a deportation order which, if all goes ahead, will mean taking him away from his children permanently and returning him to Nigeria. It seems a little ironic that this may happen when Blunkett has just announced plans to bring new immigrants into the country to fill labour gaps. However, a Home Office spokesman commented earlier this week "work permits would not be aimed at those already in the country". So while a deportation order is being carried out on Raymond, another immigrant will be imported to fill his job. The system is a farce.
I hope my description so far brings across the penal atmosphere at Campsfield House. It is not merely prison-like in appearance but in the manner in which it is run. As far as I can see, there is only one thing that distinguishes Campsfield from a prison and that is the fact that it is run by Group 4, a profit making security group which ultimately means that this private company makes money for every detainee held at Campsfield. Group 4 is 'supervised' by Home Office Immigration officials but a monthly visit to Campsfield is not enough to see whether the detainees are receiving proper treatment. Refugees are not criminals yet detention centres appear to accord them fewer rights than convicted felons.
Regardless of whether the asylum-seekers being held are political or economic migrants, the treatment they receive is unacceptable. A number of their basic human rights are being violated at Campsfield and at detention centres across the country. Article 13 of the Universal declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution". The majority of the asylum-seekers in Campsfield are doing exactly that but as a result they are treated like criminals. Article 9 states that "no-one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile" yet how can detention be anything but arbitrary if no crime has been committed? Of the asylum-seekers who were detained between May 2000 and may 2001, 61% were held in prisons yet Article 10 of the International Covenant on civil liberty and Political rights states that unconvicted people must "be segregated from convicted persons and shall be subject to separate treatment appropriate to their status as unconvicted persons". Why then were these innocent people held in prison? The only criminals here are those behind the implementation of detention centres.
David Blunkett's recent proposals for an overhaul of the immigration and asylum system have been welcomed, albeit cautiously, by refugee groups. His desire to use reception centres whereby asylum-seekers are given food, clothing, somewhere to live and the support they need in conjunction with the ability to move freely in and out of the centres would be a welcome step towards awarding them the rights they deserve, but my fear is that while on paper his suggestions are commendable, in practice asylum-seekers will experience a marked difference in the way they are treated. At these proposed reception centres they will have to obey a curfew. Any failure to do so will be a withdrawal of benefits so how different really will these reception centres be? In the words of Nick Hardwick, chief executive of the Refugee Council, "if we believe in human rights, then we believe in the right to asylum". These people should not be treated as criminals simply because they choose to exercise their rights. Refugees are not criminals. They should not be detained.
8th Nov 2001