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.
Rebuilding a life after detention
This blog comes from Indre Lechtimiakyte. Indre is originally from Lithuania and has been working as a caseworker and coordinator of the Ex-Detainee Project for Samphire since 2016. Prior to [...]
Week 7: #Unlocked18 visits Morton Hall
Week 7 of #Unlocked18 took us to Morton Hall IRC, near the small village of Swinderby in Lincolnshire. Surrounded by fields and villages, it is one of the UK's most isolated [...]
‘If I don’t come back, call my lawyer’: Practical solidarity for people at risk of detention
Luke Butterly works for Right to Remain, a UK-based human rights organisation challenging injustice in our asylum and immigration systems. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Red Pepper. [...]
Hidden in plain sight: Working with trafficked people in detention
Content warning: torture. Image by @Carcazan This blog comes from Beatrice Grasso, Detention Outreach Manager with JRS UK, who recently published a report on the indefinite detention of trafficking survivors. While JRS’s [...]
When a ‘good’ inspection report is bad news
This blog comes from Kate Alexander, Director of Scottish Detainee Visitors, who support people detained in Dungavel immigration removal centre (IRC) and tweet at @SDVisitors The latest inspection report on [...]
Because of detention | In spite of detention
Content warning: torture. This contribution comes from the Life After Detention group (LAD) based in Glasgow and facilitated by Scottish Detainee Visitors. Between them, members of LAD have lost 4 [...]
Separation and abandonment as a result of detention
This blog comes from A. Panquang, a member of Freed Voices (@FreedVoices) and Detention Forum volunteer. Detaining anybody simply means separating them from their familiar surroundings; away from friends, family and community. [...]
For many autumns to come
This blog was written by Mishka, a member of Freed Voices, a group of experts-by-experience committed to speaking out about the realities of immigration detention in the UK. And Mishka [...]
‘The stain of detention will haunt us for the rest of our lives, but I don’t want it to define us’: Experts-by-experience give evidence to the JCHR inquiry
This blog comes from A. Panquang, a member of Freed Voices (@FreedVoices) and Detention Forum volunteer. On 28 November, A gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ inquiry into immigration [...]
Your pocket Home Office phrasebook: A dialect of dehumanisation
Patrick Page is a senior caseworker in public law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors (@DLPublicLaw). He is also founder and editor of No Walls, a forum for discussions on migration and human rights, [...]
Week 6: #Unlocked18 visits Harmondsworth and Colnbrook
From the 26 November - 2 December, Unlocking Detention visited Colnbrook and Harmondsworth, the two detention centres next to Heathrow Airport. Here, a few hundred metres from the runway, well over [...]
“Once a criminal always a criminal”, especially if you don’t have a British passport
Content warning: suicide, torture. Image by @Carcazan This blog comes from Celia Clarke and Rudy Schulkind at BID (Bail for Immigration Detainees). BID tweets at @BIDdetention “I couldn’t go swimming, or [...]