This was the final week that Unlocking Detention 2016 visited a specific detention centre, ahead of the round-up final week next week.  And the final visit went to Dungavel, Scotland’s only detention centre, and the subject of lots of news and campaign activity recently.

https://twitter.com/EiriOhtani/status/806825844660465666
As part of #Unlocked16’s virtual visit, the fabulous Scottish Detainee Visitors (SDV), who visit and support people held in Dungavel, and also after release, tweeted extracts from their visitor reports:

The first blog post of the week was also from the volunteer visitors of SDV and was one of my (Lisa from Right to Remain) favourite pieces as it managed to be moving, enlightening and heartfelt as well as laugh out loud funny at times.  Visitors were asked to complete the sentence “I’ll never forget”:

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a young Afghani man. He was telling me that he had gone to school one day and when he came home his house and all his family had been destroyed by a bomb. Then he told me that being in Dungavel made him feel worse than anything he had felt before.
I’ll never forget the horror I felt 25 minutes into my first car journey to Dungavel when I realised I’d forgotten my photographic ID. I’ll also never forget the look on the guard’s face when I presented my Partick Thistle season ticket to him as “ID”. Suffice to say, it didn’t work, and a wait of an hour and a half in the car park followed.
I’ll never forget all the people who have thanked me for my visits and for my motherly care (I am somewhat older than the young people we usually see). Some people do eventually get out of detention. I love the way we can keep in touch these days. I now have new friends in London, Glasgow, Inverness and Pakistan and sometimes get phone calls from various African countries It’s such a pleasure to be able to visit those people who live near by and to see photos of other friends’ growing families on Facebook.

Read I’ll never forget here

Kate Alexander, the director of SDV, authored our second Unlocked blog post this week, tackling the vital subject of the future of detention in Scotland, since the announcement of the closure of Dungavel but subsequent rejection of planning permission for a new short-term holding centre at Glasgow airport, billed as its replacement.  

It’s been a funny few months. Just a month before the beginning of this year’s Unlocking Detention tour of detention in the UK, the Immigration Minister, Robert Goodwill, announced that Dungavel, the only detention centre in Scotland would close ‘towards the end of 2017’. You might think that this would be a cause of unalloyed celebration but from the announcement it was clear that there was no intention to end the detention of people in Scotland (or anywhere else in the UK). At the same time, the minister announced the intention to build a new short term holding facility at Glasgow airport. And of course, there would still be eight other detention centres in England where people living in communities in Scotland could be taken to be detained.
And then the message changed a little. In October, the Minister said that the closure of Dungavel was dependent on planning permission for the new centre being granted. Maybe he knew something the rest of us didn’t know because a week after he said that, in a surprise decision, Renfrewshire Council rejected the planning application for the new centre.
The Government has a right to appeal that decision and immediately after it was made they said they were considering their position. And then there was silence. But on 24 November, in response to parliamentary questions from Gavin Newlands (the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North), Robert Goodwill repeated that the government were considering their position about an appeal but also that ‘the intended closure of Dungavel immigration removal centre is dependent upon a successful planning application for a new short term holding facility.’ So it sounds like they will consider somewhere else if they can’t build the centre they planned at Glasgow airport.
A short term holding facility, wherever it is located, would bring with it the prospect of people being routinely moved to England after being detained for a few days in Scotland. Clearly that will mean that people’s legal representation will be disrupted. This is of particular concern because of the different legal systems in Scotland and England. It will also mean disruption to people’s family, social and community support – all vital lifelines to people in detention.

Read Unlocking the future of detention in Scotland

Next up on the blog was a piece by campaigner and expert-by-experience, Pinar Aksu, on the need to keep on fighting to end detention in Scotland:

I’m experiencing mixed feelings. As much as I am very happy that it’s been announced that the only detention centre in Scotland will be shut, I also have worries about what it would be replaced with and what it will mean for refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland.
When my family was detained in 2007, twice in Dungavel for 4 days and once in Yarl’s Wood for 2 months, I never knew what detention was.  As I got older, it was then when I noticed the injustice my family and many others went through. Locking people in prison-like detention centres while seeking asylum for safety and future is horrible. Knowing that Dungavel will be gone will erase the memories of my and many families who were detained there.

Read Pinar’s blog post here
The final Unlocking Detention live Q and A with someone currently in detention was with Gil, detained in Dungavel for nearly a year, and it was a heart-breaking one.  Thank you so much to Gil for speaking to us and sharing his views and experiences, and to Ben du Preez of Detention Action, for conducting the interview from the public’s questions, supporting Gil to do the interview AND live tweeting as well – not at all an easy task.  And thanks to SDV too, for putting us in touch with Gil. 
Experience the Q and A here