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.
Welcoming the Stranger – a Jewish Perspective to Ending Indefinite Immigration Detention
"You shall not oppress the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9), is a clear principle which offers an opportunity for René Cassin [...]
The silencing of race in NGO and charity campaigning against detention
There are certain norms in terms of how immigration detention can be described. ‘Inhumane’, ‘unjust’, ‘unfair’, ‘harmful’ – but ‘racist’? Gemma Lousley (@gemmalousley) at Women for Refugee Women unpicks why [...]
A post-detention Scotland?
With a declining occupancy in Dungavel, the only Scottish detention centre, Kate Alexander, director of the Scottish Detainee Visitors (SDV) is imagining what Scotland would look like post-detention and what [...]
Reflections on Unlocking Detention
As we near the end of Unlocking Detention, Charlotte (@CCionnfhaolaidh) one of the Detention Forum volunteers who was responsible for running the ‘tour’ of Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres, explains [...]
Visiting people held in Dungavel immigration detention centre
To close this year’s Unlocking Detention by a ‘visit’ to Dungavel and reflect on what’s next, we have asked volunteer visitors of Scottish Detainee Visitors, ordinary people doing extraordinary job [...]
After Campsfield
As more detention centres are closed, visitors’ groups shift their focus to what’s next. Clara Della Croce, from Asylum Welcome, explains to Unlocking Detention what Asylum Welcome did after the [...]
British Justice?
You come here to study and find yourself in immigration detention - that’s what has happened to some of the so-called TOEIC students, international students wrongly accused of cheating in [...]
An ingredient for successful parliamentary lobbying? A lack of ego
Since the Detention Forum was founded 10 years ago, parliamentary lobbying on immigration detention reform has evolved dramatically. First of all, there is a lot more of it. Secondly, it [...]
Who am I again?
Testimony is a powerful way of helping those of us lucky enough not to have experienced the blunt end of immigration detention to understand a little bit of what it [...]
Reflecting on visiting immigration detention centres
How has visiting people in immigration detention changed over the last 10 years? Ali McGinley, Director of the Association of Visitors to Immigration Detention (AVID), looks back at the lasting [...]
Yarl’s Wood and the anti-detention movement: challenging perceptions at the grassroots
When we think of immigration detention, we tend to focus on immigration detention centres, what happens inside them and groups working directly and exclusively on immigration detention. But perhaps, this [...]
Who gets to ‘imagine better’? – Breaking hierarchies and shifting power on our way to end indefinite immigration detention.
Illustrations by @carcazan Is there an implicit hierarchy of power, even in work and activities intended to create social justice? How do we make that visible? What do we about [...]