Unlocked

Unlocking Detention shone a spotlight on the hidden world of immigration detention. This ‘virtual tour’ of the immigration detention estate used Twitter, Facebook and a website to ‘unlock’ the gates of immigration detention centres.

Each week, Unlocking Detention ‘visited’ one of the UK’s detention centres. We heard from people who had been detained there, volunteer visitors, NGOs, campaigners and the families, friends, neighbours and communities over whom detention cast its long shadows.

We started Unlocking Detention back in 2014 and it ran for 6 years. While we no longer run this campaign with its dedicated website, it has left a powerful legacy of the impact of immigration detention. We have archived the key information, and we are now proud to continue to make it accessible via our website.

#Unlocked16 Reflection Special – (3)

To mark the end of this year’s Unlocking Detention tour, we asked a selection of activists, legal commentators, politicians, journalists and experts-by-experience – all engaged in the fight against detention in the UK and across Europe – their [...]

2022-10-05T15:45:18+00:00December 14th, 2016|

#Unlocked16 Reflection Special – (2)

To mark the end of this year’s Unlocking Detention tour, we asked a selection of activists, legal commentators, politicians, journalists and experts-by-experience – all engaged in the fight against detention in the UK and across Europe – their [...]

2022-10-05T15:47:33+00:00December 13th, 2016|

#Unlocked16 Reflection Special – (1)

To mark the end of this year's Unlocking Detention tour, we asked a selection of activists, legal commentators, politicians, journalists and experts-by-experience - all engaged in the fight against detention in the UK and across Europe - their [...]

2022-10-05T15:51:18+00:00December 12th, 2016|

Week 9: #Unlocked16 visits Dungavel

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 [...]

2022-10-05T15:52:03+00:00December 11th, 2016|

Live Q&A with Gil, detained in Dungavel

This week Unlocking Detention has been ‘visiting’ Dungavel detention centre, the only detention in Scotland and a site of much contention after the government announced plans earlier this year to close it and open a Short-Term Holding Facility [...]

2022-10-05T15:53:18+00:00December 9th, 2016|

The closure of Dungavel? The fight must continue

By Pinar Aksu.  Pinar works with Migrant Voice as a Community Development worker in Glasgow and with Active Inquiry using Theatre of the Oppressed methods and is also a member of Right to Remain's management committee.  She has [...]

2022-10-05T15:53:57+00:00December 6th, 2016|

Unlocking the future of detention in Scotland

By Kate Alexander, director of Scottish Detainee Visitors. 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 [...]

2022-10-05T15:54:32+00:00December 5th, 2016|

I’ll never forget . . .

Scottish Detainee Visitors asked their volunteer visitors to write a few sentences about a memorable experience they had while volunteering with them - visiting people detained in Dungavel detention centre.  They asked them to start with the phrase [...]

2022-10-05T15:55:13+00:00December 4th, 2016|

Week 8: #Unlocked16 visits Colnbrook

In this week of Unlocking Detention, we visited Colnbrook detention centre next to Heathrow airport (and the high-security neighbour of Harmondsworth). https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804977726901854209 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804986786837450754 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804622389749411840 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804618613520941057 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804388345887371264 https://twitter.com/MIDdetention/status/805087953009700864 https://twitter.com/MIDdetention/status/804640271828914176 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804653844563042304 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/805014469944426496 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/804731860643446785 The first blog post of the week [...]

2022-10-05T15:57:43+00:00December 4th, 2016|

Q&A with Ali, currently detained in Colnbrook

This interview with Ali, who is detained in Colnbrook, took place last week and we planned as usual to tweet the Q and A throughout the afternoon on the Friday of Colnbrook week of #Unlockd16. On Friday morning, [...]

2022-10-05T15:58:18+00:00December 2nd, 2016|
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