News from first Global Days of Action Against Immigration Detention, April 2006 : IMC Maritimes

There's still more to come with a protest at Campsfield House removal centre in the UK on April 29.

Please send your reports, photos, feedback, ideas for 2007, etc. to info{aat}no-id2006.org. And sign up to the organising email list to help build an even bigger GDA 2007!

* London & Portsmouth, 18th April: The biggest ever hungerstrike in UK detention centres continues, with 125 of 130 detainees at Haslar joining in solidarity with 100 in Colnbrook detention centre near Heathrow airport, and reports that it has also spread to Tinsley House. The hungerstrike began after the April 8 action at Colnbrook, during which detainees faced repressive controls, and one man stripped naked and put in solitary confinement after speaking at the protest via mobile phone.

* Sydney, 16th April: Day 3 of Villawood convergence sees a protest at Prime Minister John Howard's residence, Kirribilli Lodge. Hundreds of activists from across Australia have converged in Sydney for protests against immigration detention. Other actions over the weekend have included a protest at Holsworthy army barracks, where 160 detainees are temporarily relocated during asbestos removal works at Villawood detention centre, and a protest outside Villawood detention centre.

* Melbourne, 16th April: The Easter Bunny is locked up in a cage outside St Paul's cathedral as activists protest against the mandatory detention of asylum seekers and Australia's new policy of processing asylum seekers offshore.

* Perth, 16th April: Day 3 of convergence camp outside Perth airport detention centre.

* Manchester, 15th April: Exposing Manchester's hidden shame, a march on Strangeways prison, British Airways, and other locations.

* London, 13th April: Demonstration at Home Office in solidarity with 100 hungerstrikers in Colnbrook detention centre near Heathrow airport.

* London, 10th April: Demonstration at Communications House in solidarity with Day of Action for Immigrant Rights in the USA.

* London, 8th April: 250 people from across Britain march on Colnbrook and Harmondsworth detention centres at Heathrow Airport. Following the protests, 100 detainees begin a hungerstrike in solidarity with a detainee who was put in solitary confinement after speaking at the protest via mobile phone.

* Glasgow, 8th April: Around 300 asylum seekers, refugees, sans-papiers and their supporters march across Glasgow calling for the Right to Work and an End to Deportations.

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Second holding centre hit by hunger strike

Eric Allison, prisons correspondent
Monday April 17, 2006
The Guardian

More than 120 immigrants held at a detention centre in Portsmouth have begun a hunger strike in protest at conditions at the centre, with children as young as 15 said to be refusing food.

It is the second hunger strike at a detention centre in just over a week, and protesters say strikes will spread to other centres throughout the UK.

The Home Office confirmed that all but five of the detainees at Haslar removal centre, Portsmouth, began refusing food yesterday.

They join 100 inmates at Colnbrook removal centre, Heathrow, who have been on hunger strike since last Saturday in protest at being detained while asylum claims are processed.

Haslar detainees said their accommodation was "not fit for dogs".

Amos Onokare, from Nigeria, who is refusing food at Haslar, said the protest was mainly about the length of time asylum seekers spent in custody. He said the centre was dirty and unheated, with no doors on cubicles.

"We have no privacy and people steal our belongings," he said. "This place is not fit for dogs."

He said detainees were moved around "like parcels", and that Haslar was the fourth centre at which he had been held in three months. He said detainees in UK centres were in contact and that protests would spread.

Chiara Lauvergnac, spokeswoman for campaign group London No Borders, said conditions at Haslar were "appalling" and people who had not committed crimes were being locked up, in some cases for years.

"We support the detainees in their struggle to be treated with humanity," she said.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office confirmed that 125 out of 130 detainees at Haslar were refusing food, but said the protest was not linked to those at other detention centres.

"Detention is an essential element in the effective enforcement of immigration control, in particular in support of our removals strategy," she said.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1755363,00.html

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Pics:
1. Sydney: Blood on your hands, John Howard
2. Manchester
3. Communications House
4. Colnbrook & Harmondsworth detention centres: Samba band playing
5. Glasgow: March along Paisley St West

More pics at http://www.no-id2006.org

http://www.no-id2006.org