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G8 SUMMIT: Detention of Asylum-Seekers a “Shame”

Stefania Milan

DUNGAVEL, Scotland, Jul 5 2005 (IPS) - Some 3,000 people marched Tuesday on what they said is “the shame of Scotland,” the Dungavel detention centre for asylum-seekers. The protesters want the centre shut down – and to send a message to the G8 leaders gathering Wednesday at the Gleneagles golf resort.

“We are in solidarity with all the people across the world who suffer from unjust economic policies and militarization caused by the G8 politics and are forced to flee from their countries to find a way to survive,” Babs McGregor from the Scottish Campaign to Welcome Refugees (SCWR) told IPS.

“We want to shut down Dungavel, but most importantly we want to shut down the system which creates Dungavel and the detention centres for migrants,” McGregor said.

The Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre is the only detention centre in Scotland for holding failed asylum-seekers as they wait for deportation or hearings on their right to stay in Britain.

“It is known as ‘the shame of Scotland’ because of Scotland’s tradition of solidarity. It looks like a large ‘swish’ country house in the middle of the picturesque Scottish countryside, but there is a huge fence reinforced with barbed wire: it is prison,” McGregor said.

Campaigners, activists and migrants gathered at Dungavel the day before the July 6-8 summit of Group of Eight most powerful industrialised nations to express solidarity with the asylum-seekers and to protest against the restrictive migration policies of the G8 (United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia).

Protest organisers reported that several hundred people were stopped and searched by the police on their way to Dungavel, which is about one hour by bus from Edinburgh and Glasgow, where most of activists are staying in tents at makeshift campgrounds or bunked down in warehouses.

Activists from around the world have descended on Scotland to make their voices heard by the G8 leaders. Tuesday was another full day of civil society events in the capital and Glasgow, Gleneagles and points throughout the country. The Dungavel protest was said to be one of the day’s largest.

The Dungavel protest was peaceful, but largely symbolic. The centre was empty Tuesday as hundreds of police kept an eye on the eight-metre fence and razor wire surrounding the estate. The authorities shut it down for the week of the G8 summit, temporarily transferring the 38 asylum-seekers who live there to other detention centres around Britain.

“Again asylum-seekers have been treated like cattle,” McGregor told IPS. “We know that these people are somewhere else but not free, and this makes us very sad.”

“Now Dungavel is empty, as we want to keep it. The closure means they (the authorities) are scared of us,” said Mohammed from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “This shows that we can really make a difference.”

There are some 130 detention centres for the irregular migrants and asylum-seekers within the borders of the European Union, the French campaign Migreurop reports.

“There is a centre like Dungavel in Sicily, Italy, were migrants are forced to live in sheet tents and have to wash with sea water,” said Aidi Giuliani, whose son Carlo Giuliani was murdered by the police in the riots at the 2001 G8 summit in the Italian port city of Genoa.

“Every mother gives birth to her children for joy and happiness, not to be locked in this sort of centre. I believe each mother should stand up and denounce this terrible abuse,” Giuliani said.

“Asylum-seekers are not allowed to work, to access higher education, to marry or travel. They are indefinitely detained without having committed a crime but seeking a better life,” Ebe Charlotte from the Ivory Coast said. “Three-month-old babies are locked here: what have they done wrong?”

“We are standing particularly against the detention of children, who are locked up with the parents and whose education rights are not been looked after,” Maureen Watson from the Scottish teachers’ union told IPS.

Lukombo Ndenga was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He spent six months in Dungavel, and was released in April 2005, obtaining the right to live in England. “It was an awful period of my life. I did not know why I was detained there, not even if I would be released or sent back to my country,” Ndenga told IPS.

Asylum-seekers can be detained up to 12 months while a decision over their case is taken. If the application fails, they are deported.

“Commercial air companies like Virgin are used to repatriate failed asylum-seekers. They are making money out of blood,” SCWR activist Michael Brown said.

Fifteen asylum-seekers have died in Britain’s detention centres. Most committed suicide to avoid deportation, according to the SCWR. “This blood is on the hands of the government,” Brown said, calling for one minute of silence in their memory.

“So often if people have to flee famine and wars. It is because of the economic policies of the G8 countries. But we will come back to Dungavel until we make this place history,” said Ana Drago, from the Portuguese socialist party Bloco de Esquerda.