“This is not what I was expecting. This prison is scary”: HMP The Verne
By Ben du Preez from Detention Action, with testimony from Jamal who was detained in HMP The Verne. Detention Action is a member of the Detention Forum. On 24th March 2014, vans carrying migrants began arriving at HM Prison the Verne. Jamal was one of the first 30. He says [...]
Foreign national prisoners: The fear of being forgotten
By Francisca Stewart. Francisca works for Article 1, a member organisation of the Detention Forum. Published at OpenDemocracy, as part of a series of articles on unlocking detention. Too often for foreign national prisoners in Britain, the completion of a prison sentence is followed by a period of limbo behind [...]
Unlocking Detention, Unlocking Change
By Eiri Ohtani from the Detention Forum. Immigration detention is often hidden. It is hidden behind the gates and barbed wires. It is hidden at the back of people’s consciousness. It is also hidden because many of us feel powerless in front of it and prefer not to talk about [...]
Shining a light on the inhumanity of the current system
By Ben du Preez from Detention Action. Last Saturday I attended Right to Remain's annual conference in Bethnal Green, London. Bringing together local advocacy groups, grassroots activists and self-advocates from across the UK it was a wonderful opportunity to hear about different positive, working, successful campaigns fighting against the abuses [...]
Visiting someone in detention
Many years ago I used to visit a man in Harmondsworth. He was from North Africa. He made it to the airport in the UK, on his way to another country to seek safety. Because he was using a false document – he could not leave his country otherwise, he [...]
Immigration detention: Time for a time limit
By Jessica Kennedy and Penny Keza. Jessica is Development Co-ordinator at The Forum, which supports refugee and migrant communities and individuals in the UK. Penny is a former detainee. Published at OpenDemocracy, as part of a series of articles on unlocking detention. The countdown to the UK general election is [...]
Migrant lives in the UK: The deprivation of liberty
Eiri Ohtani and Jennifer Allsopp. Published at OpenDemocracy, the first in a series of articles on Unlocking Detention. Detention is often seen as a difficult issue and one best avoided, even among those who make it their business to talk about immigration. To mark the first Parliamentary Inquiry into Immigration Detention, [...]
Justice, peace, truth – and no indefinite detention The Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network
One of the most exciting aspects of the Detention Forum is an opportunity to work with many groups and organisations who are not traditional "detention" organisations. We believe that a wide variety of organisations that come together at the Detention Forum demonstrates the strength of the civil society's opposition to [...]