Is self-harm in detention centres a 'bargaining tool'?

Oxford vigil following death at Campsfield detention centre

Source: Corporate Watch

Two people have died from suspected heart attacks and a third killed himself in UK immigration prisons in the last month. Meanwhile, a leaked memo by Serco, which runs one the prisons, reveals that the outsourcing and security giant had dismissed similar incidents in Australia, where it runs all immigration detention facilities, accusing detainees of “creating a self-harm culture” and using it as a “bargaining tool.”

Early in the morning of 2nd July, a 47-year-old Pakistani national locked up in Colnbrook immigration prison, near Heathrow airport, collapsed in his cell with “very bad chest pain.” According to his cellmate, Muhammad Shukat had been groaning in agony for hours but his repeated pleas for help were not taken seriously by the detention centre staff, who did not call the ambulance until it was too late (see here). A postmortem found the “provisional cause” of the death to be coronary heart disease. The Home Office would not give any more details.

Less than a month later, on 31st July, another man, aged 35, was found dead in his cell, also in Colnbrook. Again, the Home Office would not reveal any details, not even his name and nationality, though unconfirmed reports by detainees said he was American.

A postmortem found the cause of death to be “a ruptured aorta” and the death was treated as “unexplained.” Aortic ruptures can be caused by a number of things, including trauma, where the aorta (the largest artery in the body, which branches directly from the heart and supplies blood to the rest of the body) is ruptured as a result of severe distress.

Two days later, on 2nd August, a 35-year-old man locked up in Campsfield House immigration prison, in Oxfordshire, was found dead in the toilets. Conflicting reports suggest he either hanged himself or cut himself with a razor blade. According to fellow detainees, the unnamed Moldovian migrant was hours away from being deported and had been moved to the short-term holding facility within the centre, causing him to become “very anxious.”  

Investigations, investigations

As usual, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) declined to comment on the specific circumstances of each case. It simply said: "the police and the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman always investigated deaths in immigration detention centres and it would be inappropriate to comment until these were complete.”

Similarly, Serco said: “While these enquiries are under way, it would not be appropriate for Serco to comment on specific cases.” However, campaigners say experience shows that these investigations are “unlikely to go anywhere” and that the whole detention system, which “drives people to such desperate measures,” should be reviewed.

A spokesperson from the Campaign to Close Campsfield, which held a vigil in Oxford following the death in Campsfield, said:

Read more »

In UK, protest against deaths in detention centres

Source: Indymedia London

Anti-detention campaigners 5 August held a small, but noisy, protest at Colnbrook immigration prison, near Heathrow airport, where two migrant prisoners apparently killed themselves in less than a month. With a megaphone, whistles, a vuvuzela and pots and pans, they made themselves heard to the migrants locked up in Colnbrook, as well as in the adjacent Harmondsworth. Detainees shouted back 'freedom, freedom' and other angry, desperate slogans.

On 31st July, a 25-year-old man in Colnbrook reportedly killed himself. No details or hard facts are known yet. The Home Office is claiming that he died of 'natural causes' but fellow detainees told campaigners he committed suicide after becoming “very distressed.”

Less than a month before, on 2nd July, another Colnbrook detainee, Muhammed Shuket from Pakistan, died on the way to hospital after he apparently tried to hang himself. Again, the Home Office refused to reveal any details and promised “an inquest in due course.”

Earlier this week, on 2nd August, a 35-year-old man locked up in Campsfield immigration prison in Oxfordshire was also found dead. According to other detainees, the Moldovian national was about to be deported and hanged himself in the toilet.

The three deaths bring the number of people who have died in UK immigration prisons over the last few years to 16. These crimes should stop and the only way to do that is to close down all immigration prisons and stop forcibly deporting people who have come here to seek refuge and safety.

Related articles

• Three deaths in immigration detention (irr.org.uk)
• Detention centre deaths spark police investigations (guardian.co.uk)
• In UK, "excessively long" detention at one 'removal centre' (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

UK's removal of gay tortured, imprisoned Ugandan stopped at last moment

Robert Segwanyi

By Paul Canning

• New updates are here. 

The removal of Ugandan gay asylum seeker Robert Segwanyi was tonight "deferred" at the last minute. He had been moved today to a Heathrow 'removal centre' for an early morning 11 July flight to Kampala.

The deferment comes after the last minute intervention of Segwanyi's MP, Mike Hancock, as well as the MEP Michael Cashman. Many concerned people also wrote the British Home Secretary Theresa May over the past few days.

A new lawyer had been found today for Robert - who has been badly represented previously - but he did not have enough time in which to submit a judicial review application.

Robert was imprisoned and tortured for homosexuality. On escaping prison in June 2010 he fled to the UK and applied for asylum a fortnight later. The UK Border Agency (UKBA) does not accept he is gay and a judge rejected his appeal claiming that there is no risk to gay people in Uganda.

Hancock's letter demanded that Robert be given enough time to put in for judicial review - because, he explained in some detail, previous judicial dismissal of Robert's case appeared to be unsafe.

In particular he pointed to immigration judge Hembrough's treatment of the evidence of Professor Cornelius Katona, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Emeritus professor of Psychiatry in the University of Kent, Honorary Professor in the Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London and author of over 300 expert medical reports. (Katona's evidence wasn't available on Friday when we detailed other problems with both judge Hembrough's as well as the UKBA's treatment of Robert.)

Hancock pointed to the judge's statement in his ruling that Prof. Katona did not consider Mr Segwani to be gay - yet Prof. Katona has said that this is "with respect, incorrect".

Hembrough said he had “considerable doubts as to whether” Segwanyi was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) – despite Prof. Katona saying that it would not even be possible for professional actors to fake PTSD symptoms in a way that Segwanyi did.

The treatment of Katona's evidence demands judicial review, Hancock says.

Further, he points out that Theresa May has said that "cases involving LGBT will be reviewed before final deportation." And Hancock wants an answer to his suggestion:

"That this case shows that the UKBA and the Home Office are institutionally homophobic and there should be better consideration of this case so that it can demonstrate that it is not."

Mike Hancock MP

Hancock notes that the judge's determination in November was:

"Even if I am wrong regarding the Appellant's homosexuality I see no reason to depart from the [then] current country guidance" - this guidance being that "the evidence does not establish that in general there is persecution of homosexuality (sic) in Uganda".

When, Hancock says, the situation for LGBT in Uganda was widely reported as worsening.

He notes that Professor Katona says that

"Mr Segwani's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [means that] there is a strong possibility that his high levels of fear and stress may have led to his assenting to be interviewed in English without taking fully into account the disadvantages of doing so." 

Robert's prior argument was that the 'credibility' issues raised by UKBA were due to the interviewer mixing up his statements about his past relationships - and Prof. Katona says that Robert's understanding of English was poor and his spoken English also "very limited". The judge dismissed this evidence.

When Robert's case was last dismissed by UKBA 21 January reiterating the judge's ruling, Prof. Katona said:

"This assessment appears however to have ignored my expert clinical assessment."

Commenting on the judge's decision, Hancock quotes the Public Law Project:

"Public bodies must correctly understand and apply the law that regulates their decision making powers. An action or decision may be unlawful if the decision maker had no power to make it or exceeded the powers given to him/her. Four kinds of illegal activity may be identified:...[including] taking irrelevant factors into account or failing to take account of all relevant factors."

Hancock writes that Hembrough's findings about Segwanyi being interviewed in English, his PSTD and his homosexuality:

"Are at best based on somewhat prejudiced views and not in line with the evidence. Indeed if Mr Segwanyi had wanted to mislead the immigration authorities he would surely have acted in a different way."

Hancock quotes from Stonewall's Report 'No Going Back' that "some appeal judges' attitudes to LGBT are "old-fashioned"." And he highlights a quote from the report from another Ugandan asylum seeker who said:

"My lawyer asked whether I could change my case and claim on political grounds instead. She said it's hard to represent me properly with the case of being gay."

Related articles

• UK to Deport Uganda Gay Man, Robert Segwanyi, despite Torture and Risk to his Life (oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com)
• Is it getting worse for UK LGBT asylum seekers? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Eddy Cosmas freed from detention after one last (?) humiliation

Eddy on his release from Harmondsworth

By Paul Canning

Following a hearing today before an British immigration judge, Tanzanian gay asylum seeker Edson 'Eddy' Cosmas was released from Harmondsworth Removal Centre at 5pm and was also removed from the 'detained fast track' process.

Eddy has won a new hearing for his case after 5 September.

The judge's decision has not been written but a witness at the court hearing said that it was on the basis that previous immigration judiciary decisions could be regarded as possibly 'unsafe' and that more time was needed for both a psychiatrist's report as well as for an expert witness of the situation of LGBT in Tanzania to be found.

The witness said that a Home Office lawyer had immediately agreed that there could be 'an error in law' in how Eddy's case had been handled. In removing Eddy from 'detained fast track', the judge said that it would not be "fair" for him to remain in it.

The witness, a long term supporter of Eddy, said that without the support of herself and others "Eddy would have given up". She also noted that Eddy remained intensely concerned for other gay asylum seekers whom he had met in the detention centre.

In a statement released tonight, Donna Stern, BAMN [By Any Means Necessary, aka the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary] National Coordinator, claimed that:

"In part Eddy won this because he was organizing so much inside the detention facility that the authorities wanted him out of there!"

He has been the subject of a major campaign, initially by the group Movement for Justice, part of BAMN, of which he is a member, and later joined by the international LGBT campaigning group allout.org who secured over 7000 petitions to the British Home Secretary Theresa May.

We have followed the case closely and analysed the UK Border Agency's decisions as well as those of immigration judges in a series of posts, see:

• How one gay Tanzanian's asylum rejection shows the UK system's unfairness 
• Gay Tanzanian activist meets British asylum system: Is losing 
• No problems for LGBT in Tanzania according to UK immigration judge

Eddy reports that before today's hearing he was put through a (hopefully) final humiliation in detention

On Saturday (2 July) morning a guard came to his room and told him he was going to be transferred, but he wasn't told where to.

Last night guards came and told Eddy he had a legal meeting. This was not true, but not knowing Eddy went with them. Then in a corridor he was told he had to be transferred. He protested that he had a hearing the next day. They brought in about 10 guards (Eddy says managers were there too), to force him into a van which drove over to Colnbrook removal centre, which is literally next door, both being adjacent to Heathrow Airport. There he was kept without access to a phone, in a waiting area which had no bed, until 5am this morning.

He says he got no sleep, had no access to call anyone, nor to any of his papers or possessions. At 5am he was taken back over to Harmondsworth and then to today's hearing before a judge, who was informed of what had happened and that this would effect Eddy's ability to testify on his own behalf.

Action alert: Stop removal of F.N. to Uganda

Source: NCADC

F.N. is a 34-year-old refugee from Uganda. As a gay man he fears persecution if forced to return to Uganda, where he has not lived for 18 years. At the moment he is detained in Colnbrook, and faces imminent removal on Tuesday 17 May 2011 at 20.00 on Kenya Airways flight KQ101.

F.N. was brought to the UK in 1993 at the age of 16 without papers, but was only found by immigration enforcement in January 2010. He was detained on suspicion of illegal entry to the country during a vehicle inspection at the Port of Tilbury, where he was in a car of a friend. After the inspection, F.N. claimed asylum on January 2010. Because of a lack of adequate legal representation and missing evidence to prove his over 10 years in the UK, the application was refused, as were his three appeals.

Being sent back to Uganda would be extremely dangerous to F.N as he is gay. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda, and the BBC recently stated that it is one of 'the world's worst places to be gay'. Homosexual people risk being incarcerated for up to 14 years, and if the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which was drafted in 2009, is enacted, homosexual people, who are HIV positive, would even face the death penalty. (see HRW)

Edited to add: We understand that the UKBA did not believe he is gay.

Human Rights Watch documented the following in their latest report of 2011:‘The bill, still pending at this writing, would also punish failure to report acts of homosexuality and prohibit the "promotion" of homosexuality through advocacy on sexual minority rights, threatening work of human rights groups. In early October 2010 a new newspaper, Rolling Stone, published photographs, names, and locations of some Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights activists and individuals under a headline that included the phrase "Hang Them." Some have since gone into hiding. The government has taken no action to protect them.’ (See HRW)

Please help F.N. in his fight to stay in the UK by supporting his campaign! To send F.N. back to Uganda would be a violation of his human rights and put his life at risk.

Act Now

1) You can contact the Home Office to support F.N.

Click here for a sample model letter

Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Office,
2 Marsham St London SW1 4DF

Fax: 020 7035 4745
(00 44 20 7035 4745 if you are faxing from outside UK)

Email:
mayt@parliament.uk
UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk
CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

2) Contact Kenya Airways

Click here for sample model letter

Sam Okwulehie
Kenya Airways
World Business Centre 3,
Heathrow Airport, Hounslow,
Middlesex, TW62TA
Fax: 020 8745 5027 (Head Office)
Email: contact@kenya-airways.com

Two-thirds of UK's immigration detainees are never deported

Image by Getty Images via @daylife 

Source: The Independent


A damning new analysis of Britain’s “broken” immigration system reveals how two-thirds of people held in immigration removal centres for years at a time are never deported. Large numbers of detainees are from countries where diplomatic barriers make it near impossible to return them, according to a new study, published tomorrow.

Instead of being released until the situation changes, migrants are being kept behind bars for indefinite stretches. The policy has been criticised as costly and an abuse of human rights.

The report, No Return No Release No Reason, from the London Detainee Support Group (LDSG) traced 167 people detained for an average of 25 months and found that only one in three were ever deported.

Nearly half the detainees were from four countries, Algeria, Iran, Iraq and Somalia, all of which had barriers in the way of the detainees’ return: Somalis, for example, cannot be deported while the European Court of Human Rights considers the dangers that might be faced by those returned.

Read more »

Flight cancelled for Baffour Obeng

By Simon Lewis

Ghanaian asylum seeker Baffour Obeng was due to be removed on Sunday, until he received a fax on Thursday from the Home Office. It said that his ticket back to Ghana has been cancelled and his case would be looked at again.

It could only have been the campaign generated by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns which secured the cancellation. Petitions, letters and emails to the Home Office appear to have made it reconsider its position that that "the independent courts found that the claim was totally without merit".

The news was welcomed by his aunt Pauline Boachie, who lives in Edmonton Green, North London. She said: "We need to say thank you to all the people. A lot of people have been really helpful."

But, said Pauline, "The battle is not over." The Home Office have said that a new decision is imminent, but at the moment Baffour is without representation and needs to secure legal aid. Baffour is still being detained at Colnbrook detention centre at Heathrow and could recieve as little as 72 hours warning if he gets another removal order.

Baffour, 23, is bisexual, and has been abandoned by much of his family. In Ghana homosexuality is against the law and a recent march suggests that anti-gay sentiment is rising in the country, as elsewhere in West Africa.

Baffour has received specific warnings that his life is in danger if he returns, but he was told by the Home Office to move to another part of Ghana and be discreet about his sexuality. In light of the coalition government's commitment to stop deporting people fleeing persecution for their sexuality, and a pending Supreme Court decision, Baffour could become a test case for a new approach to LGBT asylum.

• More information on how you can help Baffour

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• Gay asylum seekers need sanctuary, not secrecy (guardian.co.uk)