The latest stop on the #Unlocked15 tour was Colnbrook detention centre, near Heathrow airport.  The virtual visit fell during a very busy week in the fight to end indefinite detention, with both Sanctuary in Parliament (organised by City of Sanctuary) and the report stage of the Immigration Bill in the House of Commons.

Immigration detention was a key issue at both of these parliamentary events. The Sanctuary in Parliament event was raising awareness of destitution, detention, and the need to provide safe and legal routes for refugees.

Eiri Ohtani of the Detention Forum asked everyone at the Sanctuary in Parliament event to show their support for people currently held in indefinite detention, and this is what happened:

Sanctuary

Although detention was notable in its omission from the 2015 Immigration Bill, much of the report stage debate focused on indefinite detention with key amendments calling for a time-limit on detention to be introduced which received cross-party support.

Colnbrook detention centre certainly epitomises many of the injustices of the UK’s detention regime.

Many of our tweets features photos by Nana Varveropoulou and people detained in Colnbrook themselves, part of a photo project by Varveropoulou to try and show what Colnbrook is really like, from the inside. “There are no windows, no wind”.

For the Unlocking Detention ‘visit’ to Colnbrook, John wrote a letter.  John, a member of the Freed Voices group, wrote a letter to Colnbrook, where he was detained for three and a half months.

Dear Colnbrook,

I’ve got a few questions for you in relation to the three and a half months you held me in detention.

John signed off his letter:

Goodbye Colnbrook. I hope I can clear your horror from my memory. I hope we never meet again.

Read John’s letter here.

We also heard from Danae, who works for Detention Action and supports people detained in Colnbrook.

I first visited Colnbrook 5 years ago, when I was volunteering at one of Detention Action’s workshops. What struck me most back then, was the number of high security doors we came across; the electric gates, the weird-shaped keys, the big fat locks on every door, and the dense barbed wire that sat on the thick tall walls surrounding Colnbrook. I could not understand why these men were deemed so dangerous so as to justify the level of security.

Continuing #Unlocked15’s theme of how detention affects communities across the UK, we heard from South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG), on the impact of detention on communities in Sheffield:

The Home Office South Yorkshire asylum reporting centre is now at Vulcan House in Sheffield, on the banks of the River Don. Except for temporary holding cells beneath Vulcan House there is no immigration detention centre in South Yorkshire. The nearest is Morton Hall in Lincolnshire. For people seeking asylum who are obliged to report to Vulcan House each visit carries with it the threat that they will be detained. And the Home Office are keen to reinforce this fear. ‘I’m always sick… the week before I go to sign’, Pride from Cameroon explained. Mohammed from Sudan couldn’t sleep the night before his reporting day at Vulcan House and he packs all his immigration case papers in a rucksack each time he has to go to report.

We finished up the week with a live Q and A with Sergey, currently detained in Colnbrook.

Sergey’s descriptions of the impact of detention on him and his family were tough to hear, but provided vital honesty about just how harmful detention is.  Read the full Q and A here.
https://twitter.com/EiriOhtani/status/672810289621016577