No Gilded Cage

Elaine Smith MSP

A personal view on detention of asylum seekers

Recent weeks have seen the suicides of two asylum seekers, days apart, in British immigration removal centres. These tragic events resulted in demonstrations being held across the country to commemorate the deaths and to demand a review of the Governments harsh asylum policies in particular, the abolition of the detention system. Such demands should also include an end to inflammatory and fallacious language, used not only by elements of the press but also by Government Ministers who have been known to employ incongruous terms such as "illegal asylum seeker"- when surely there can be no such thing?

The Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees organised a rally at Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre in Scotland and invited me to speak at the demonstration. I have been at Dungavel previously to join with others in demanding its closure. The last time I was there was at the STUC event held last September and attended by hundreds. At that time, those held inside were kept away from the side of the building where the protest was taking place. One of the most poignant and heartrending events of that day was when a hand waving a white handkerchief emerged from a window at the far side of the building as the protesters made their way out of the grounds. Sadly, despite considerable protest, Dungavel remains open and, indeed, is subject to expansion plans.

As I made my way to the rally, I was again struck by the paradoxical setting which detainees find themselves in. Dungavel is situated within beautiful Lanarkshire countryside amidst a landscape of green fields, country roads and woodland. At first glance it looks like an idyllic setting for children to play and explore. However, as you draw nearer the building you see the high wall and fence, adorned with barbed and razor wire, which surrounds this former prison, preventing the families who inhabit the centre from venturing beyond the bounds of its yard.

When the centre opened in 2001, it was described as a facility where failed Asylum seekers would be detained for the short period of time prior to their deportation. It has now become clear that this has, for the most part, not been the case. According to a report published by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education last year, 36 children have spent 6 or more weeks detained in Dungavel during the last twelve months; in some cases detained for over a year in its custody. The trauma and psychological damage inflicted upon these children by being torn from their schools and communities and thrown into prison is appalling and worse than that, having been held there for long periods, they may then face the horror of being deported to a country where they face intolerable uncertainty and untold danger.

One fact about Dungavel that has received little coverage is that a private, for profit, company, operates the prison with a 5-year contract awarded in 2001. This is ethically vile. Profit from the imprisonment of vulnerable children and their families is abhorrent.

Many politicians, and others, have defended Dungavel by drawing descriptions of decent conditions, caring staff and pleasant surroundings. These arguments are spurious on a number of levels. Firstly, occurrences reported at Dungavel have shown the reality of life in the centre to be far from the idealistic setting portrayed by some. Mothers disciplined for the surreptitious stockpiling of food for those children insubordinate enough to fail to adapt to the rigours of a regimented lifestyle provides just one account of life in Dungavel which undermines the defenders. More fundamentally however, such defences only serve to detract attention from the real issues. Whether deliberately, or in their ignorance, those who attempt to muddy the waters by focusing on conditions in the prison are missing the point. The gilded cage argument can never be a legitimate one; to deny an individual their liberty is to imprison them, no matter how comfortable the confines.

The argument for closure is quite simple; either you find it morally repugnant to incarcerate and remove the liberty of people who are guilty of no crime or you do not. There really cannot be any middle ground on this issue and silence in itself, particularly by elected representatives, is tantamount to acquiescence.

Only a matter of weeks ago, David Blunkett visited Dungavel and said that he found conditions there to be "entirely satisfactory". The question of course must be "satisfactory" for whom? For people who our legal system finds guilty of offences and imposes the removal of their liberty? Perhaps. For people fleeing oppression, poverty and potential death: who are guilty of no crime? I don't think so. Indeed, I think that it is "entirely unsatisfactory" to lock up behind barbed wire innocent people including children; for a private company to profit from their incarceration; and for elected representatives to remain silent on this issue or worse, to allow it to continue.

Conditions at this prison were so satisfactory that a young man preferred to take his own life rather than remain there and be deported back to horrors we can only imagine. What depths of despair and fear must he have plummeted to take such a drastic, tragic decision?

At the most recent Dungavel protest there was a small breakthrough. Two representatives were invited in to speak to asylum seekers being detained there. Prior to that we heard the plaintive cries of "Freedom" from behind the barbed wire. The detainees handed over a letter and the following is an extract from it, in the words of the detainees:

"There are detainees who want to go back but they are still being kept here for ages even though they have their documents. There are also detainees who don't want to go back home because they are running from prosecution and persecution, but they are still force and remove them from the country to go and face further torture and degradation in their country's in which they will end up being killed, which is a breach of our human rights and it seems to us if asylum seekers are not human beings. It seems like asylum seekers are creatures from a different world. If democracy is about equality why don't they treat us equally and fairly."

A woman at the rally spoke to me of her despair about the situation. She reminisced that she had often wondered why ordinary people in Nazi Germany had not torn down the fences around concentration camps and freed the poor souls being held there. Our conversation was cut short, but I presume that her reflection was due to the fact that here we were outside a prison where innocent people were being held, destined be deported at some point, back to potentially horrendous situations which might result in their torture and death.

We left Dungavel and left the "prisoners" behind but we can tear down that barbed wire, albeit metaphorically. I urge everyone reading this who believes that it is fundamentally wrong to imprison innocent people to do everything they can to pressurise the government to: stop the detention of asylum seekers, to make fair decisions based on the realities of the situations faced by many of these people and to shut down these detention centres now.

Originally published in the Morning Star on 19th August, 2004

Elaine Smith is the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament for Coatbridge and Chryston Constituency