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.
Week 8: #Unlocked17 visits Morton Hall
This is Morton Hall detention centre in Lincolnshire, the focus of the eighth week of the Unlocking Detention tour. Up to 392 people - all men - may be detained [...]
If only everyone could be welcomed as warmly as Paddington…
Jawad Anjum and Steve Rolfe are activists with Global Justice Glasgow, a group of committed people who campaign to tackle the root causes of global poverty and injustice as part [...]
Visiting Dungavel for another year…
This week, #Unlocked17 is visiting Dungavel, Scotland's only detention centre. In this blog, Kate Alexander, Director of Scottish Detainee Visitors (SDV), reflects on another year of visiting Dungavel, and takes us [...]
“A Prison For My Heart”
Coming out is often be a nervous and fearful experience - what does it feel like to that in immigration detention? Umar (not his real name) had to do that [...]
Putting stock Home Office statements in the stocks
New Freed Voices member, John P.*, was recently released after ten months detained in Morton Hall IRC in Lincolnshire. For this #Unlocked17 special, he sat down with Detention Action to [...]
Over 150 people demonstrate to mark 24 years since Campsfield ‘House’ opened
This blog was written by Bill MacKeith, joint organiser of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, for Unlocking Detention. Photos: Campaign to Close Campsfield On 25 November 1993, two white vans arrived [...]
Week 7: #Unlocked17 visits Harmondsworth and Colnbrook
The seventh week of #Unlocked17 focused on Harmondsworth and Colnbrook: two detention centres alongside one another, a stone's throw from the runway at Heathrow airport. Around 1,000 migrants are detained [...]
It’s about time – a time limit on immigration detention
Since the publication of Detained Lives (which Tamsin Algers refers to in her earlier blog here), a campaign to end UK's practice of indefinite detention has been gathering pace. Rachel [...]
Mapping detention
Images courtesy of Freed Voices At Unlocking Detention, we occasionally receive emails from people, including those who say they are journalists, asking us to let them join the “tour”. These [...]
From British playgrounds to Immigration Removal Centres
Authors: Candice Morgan-Glendinning and Dr Melanie Griffiths (University of Bristol) The following post is informed by an ESRC-funded project running at the University of Bristol. The research examines the intersection [...]
The importance of being with
Beatrice Grasso is Detention Outreach Manager at Jesuit Refugee Service UK where, with volunteers, she supports many detained in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres. In this blog, she explains how [...]
Four days in Colnbrook
This blog was written by Helen*, a US citizen who travelled to the UK and was detained earlier this year. She spent four days in Colnbrook detention centre, before being [...]