Warwick students protest against immigration centre

On Saturday 26 February, Warwick Amnesty and Warwick STAR took part in a protest at a
immigrant detention centre to show support for the detainees.

The demonstration took place at Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre just outside
Oxford in conjunction with Oxford Amnesty, Oxford STAR, and Oxford Brookes Amnesty, with an
estimated turnout of 50.

The protest was directed against the treatment of the detainees, many of them fleeing
danger, torture, or death in their home countries, which included Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia among others.

Most of them are asylum seekers whose claims are under consideration, or whose claims
have been refused, or immigrants who have overstayed their visa.

According to Warwick Amnesty, these immigrants are held without charge, time limit,
legitimate reasons, or access to legal representation in the prison, which is run for private profit and supervised by the Home Office.

Aidan Hocking, 2nd year Comparative American Studies student, who took part in the protest, described the centre as “shocking” with “a really ominous air.” He added that several inmates have been found dead in the past year.

Amnesty International reports that the conditions under which the immigrants are detained
breach internationally recognised human rights.

Hocking added that “the detention centre made me ashamed to be British.” According to
him, the degree of isolation of the inmates was “horrendous”.

“To lock refugees up in such a place without a trial just makes a mockery of our liberal
democracy and shows quite how much governments, whether Tory or Labour, act not out of
concern for human wellbeing but fear of rightwing tabloids that act as a latter day lynchmob.”