66 on Yarl's Wood Solidarity Hunger Strike

Today, Friday 12th February at 9am, 66 people in Bradford, West Yorkshire began a hunger strike in solidarity with hunger strikers in Yarl's Wood Detention Facility, Bedfordshire over the imprisonment of children and general conditions of detained asylum seekers. The solidarity strike will continue until 9am tomorrow, Saturday 13th.

84 women have gone on hunger strike in Yarl's Wood Detention Facility, in protest at the treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants detained for deportation from this country. Their hunger strike started on the 5th February, and continues. Up to the minute details of the strike can be found from the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC).

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Yarl's Wood Detention Facility is a prison style building used to hold up to 405 people who the government has deemed to be in the country illegally. Many of these people are asylum seekers, seeking safety from horrendous crimes committed against them in the country in which they used to live.

The women are not eating in protest against the period of time spent in detention and the treatment that they receive while being detained. They have listed their demands which include;

* Access to appropriate medical treatment and care as in the community, access to edible and well cooked food, phones with good mobile connections, with camera and recording facilities to back up cases.
* To end the detention of children and their mothers, rape survivors and other torture victims, to end the detention of physically, mentally sick people and pregnant women for long period of time.
* To abolish the fast track system, in order to give asylum seekers a fair chance with their application, while understanding the particular needs of victims of torture, and access to reliable legal representation which the fast track system denies.

While the Home Office has reported that the strike is over, women on the inside have said that it is not. Yesterday, the NCADC reported that "For about eight hours, the detainees were harried by staff at the centre. Many of the women sustained light injuries but were refused treatment for several hours. People phoning into detainees, could not hear what was being said as the cries of distress in the background, were drowning out any attempt to converse. Four of the women were removed from Yarl's Wood, yesterday evening at 20:00 hrs to Bedford police station, where they are now; they have not been arrested/charged, so why are they in police cells?"

Maya Williams, a human rights campaigner from Yorkshire who is also on hunger strike today said "These women have come here fleeing persecution; it is a disgrace to Britain that they are treated so inhumanely. We support the asylum seekers' demands and call on the UK Border Agency to take action." She also told us that the hunger striking women detained in Yarls' Wood describe the conditions there as "physical and mental torture" and call for access to appropriate medical treatment, an end to the detention of children and their mothers, and for the use of detention to be an absolute last resort.

At 12.30pm and 5pm in Centenary Square, Bradford some of the solidarity strikers will congregate to hold a public vigil. After the 5pm vigil a candle lit procession will walk up to Desmond Tutu House for silent reflection on the struggles which these women face.
In Manchester there will also be a vigil in Piccadilly Garderns at 12 for at least an hour.

The centre at Yarl's Wood, run by Serco, has been plagued by hunger strikes over general conditions since it opened in 2001. Serco employees have been criticised for attacking the people held there in June 2009 while they were hunger striking over inadequate medical care, problems over food provision and the continued detention of children there.

Serco also run Education Bradford, for which they have signed a 10 year contract and are responsible for the entire government-funded education service in Bradford. Additionally they are involved in serving the armed forces and military intelligence in the US and the UK and have been subject to a on going campaign against their involvement in these areas and also detention centres.

Please send messages of support/solidarity to:
WomenBehindTheWire@ncadc.org.uk

To find out how you can support the four women who have been removed from the centre to police cells please see the NCADC website

 

Attached Files

Audio Interview with Hunger Strikers

Links:

Demands from Yarlswood Hunger Strikers

Yarls Wood Hunger Strikers: Students Protest

Barbed Wire Britain on current strike

Demotix on current strike

Hunger strike @ Yarls Wood - Reprisals and demo

No Borders UK Network

Independent (newspaper) report on conditions

Yarls Wood wikipedia entry

MULE report on solidarity strikers in Manchester and Bradford

Areport on the hunger strikers and solidarity strikers from Manchester and Bradford written by our mates at the Mule