Video Report by Alishba Khaliq
Students have joined protests calling for the closure of Campsfield House, an immigration centre near Oxford where detainees are accommodated pending their case resolutions and subsequent removal from the United Kingdom.
Amnesty International have accused Campsfield of contravening international human rights. A spokesperson for Oxford University Amnesty International said, “OUAI strongly believes that seeking asylum is not a crime and people who are seeking asylum should not, therefore, be detained under immigration laws. The people detained within Campsfield House are suffering human rights abuses, and the detention centre should be closed down.”
Campsfield is one of 12 detention centres in the UK, which the UK Border Force has stated are “used for temporary detention in situations where people have no legal right to be in the UK but have refused to leave voluntarily.”
Target of a 19 year campaign to shut it down, Campsfield House has witnessed over 200 protests since its conversion from a youth detention centre in 1993. Its closure has been requested by local trade unions and the Oxford and District Trades Union Council, in addition to student, faith and human rights groups.
Local government bodies have added their voices in support of this movement, with the Cherwell District Council, the Oxford City Council and the Oxfordshire County Council also calling for Campsfield House to be closed or, at the very least, for it not to be expanded. David Blunkett described Campsfield House as “outdated” and announced its closure in 2002. However, owing to a fire at another detention centre, Yarl’s Wood, there was an “unplanned reduction in detention places” according to the Campaign to Close Campsfield website. This allegedly resulted in the decision to close Campsfield to be reversed.Campsfield has a history of suicides and hunger strikes.
A 35 year old male hanged himself in the toilet block last year when he learnt that he was to be deported. A fellow detainee who wished to remain anonymous told the Guardian, “He was normally a very quiet person … but the pressure is too much for people in here.” In 2009, staff allegedly ignored suicide threats from Brice Mabonga, who apparently attempted to kill himself with a sharpened plastic knife.
Manzambi Birindwa, fellow detainee said, “He told me one day in his home country they killed his father, his mother and brothers so he lost everything. If they send him back, he says the Government will kill him, so it’s better for him to die here. He told the guards he wanted to kill himself here, but nobody said nothing. They don’t care.”
In 2005 Ramazan Kumluca became the youngest asylum seeker to commit suicide after learning his application had failed. Another inmate, Abdulwase Kamali, told the Independent, “Ramazan said he had been told by immigration he would be sent back to Italy, and he said if he was sent back to Italy he would be used in sex films. He said he would slash himself or hang himself.”
Kumluca was found hanging to the closing mechanism of his door on the morning June 27th when other detainees tried to wake him for prayers. Later, in 2010 around 147 of the 216 detainees went on hunger strike. They released a statement that said, “Some of us detainees have been detained for over three years with no prospect of removal or any evidence of future release. There is no justification whatsoever for detaining us for such a period of time. Our lives, incidentally, have been stalled without any hope of living a life, having a family or any future.”
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Wadham student Emmeline Plews, member of Oxford University Amnesty International, stated that the prison-like atmosphere made it “really psychologically difficult” for those inside. She said, “These people are being kept here without charge. Campsfield is the equivalent of a high-category prison, yet they haven’t been charged. They’ve been locked up for an indefinite amount of time without being told anything or being given reasons, which is incredibly cruel and gives them an awful loss of control.
Oxford students have been partaking in the monthly protests with the Close Campsfield Campaign and visiting the centre to talk with inmates. Rebecca Sparrow, a third year Classics and English student, visits an inmate weekly. She said that this was mainly an “act of solidarity” to show the detainees “that they had not been forgotten.”
Plews added that the security at Campsfield makes it difficult to visit. She claimed, “Like a prison, they are very tight on the security. You have to obtain the person’s name and number and ring them before you’re given permission to go. And this means it’s often quite hard to make contact and get established as a group, but hopefully we will do so soon.”
The UK Border Association website states, “Visitors attending the centre will need to book 24 hours in advance and provide photographic ID…and a utility bill on arrival. Visitors will be subject to search procedures and fingerprinting. They will also have their photograph taken.”
Further concerns have been expressed since Campsfield House was taken over by private company MITIE, described by their website as a “strategic outsourcing and energy services company”. Bill Mackeith, joint organiser of the Close Campsfield Campaign said, “Detainees and their supporters do not accept MITIE making private profit out of causing misery and injustice by imprisoning people without charge or conviction for an indefinite period without proper judicial oversight.”
MITIE has been accused of making vast profits from enterprises such as Campsfield, paid for by the taxpayer. It costs £45,000 to hold one inmate at a centre like Campsfield for a year. Mackeith supported this accusation, saying, “Like other outsourcing companies, MITIE specialise in taking over a service and then squeezing it for profit, finding more ways to exploit staff or cut corners. In our case, a juicy ‘corner’ could be to exploit further the migrants wrongfully imprisoned in Campsfield, who provide more or less forced or virtual slave labour for just £5 a day.”
He continued, “MITIE’s chief executive Ruby McGregor-Smith was one of the 35 bosses who signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph last October, backing the government’s public spending cuts in the interests of “a healthier and more stable economy” and commenting on the “significant opportunities for the outsourcing market” that will result.
MITIE refused to comment on any allegations, directing all questions to the Home Office, who told Cherwell, “Immigration removal centres like Campsfield are vital in helping us to remove those with no right to be in the country. Detention is a last resort after all attempts to return someone voluntarily have failed. HMI Prisons confirmed last year that Campsfield continues to be a particularly well-operated centre, and that it provides a safe and secure environment for staff and detainees.”
The Home Office did not comment on the allegations that Campsfield breaches human rights, including claims that detainees are deported without being given long enough to appeal nor to the hunger strikes and suicides that have been reported at the centre over the past decade
The report of the unannounced inspection of Campsfield by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in May last year revealed, “Health care staff received no training in recognising symptoms of torture and trauma. Detainees with low-level anxiety had no counselling services and there was little structured support for detainees with significant mental distress.” There was also “no mental health awareness training for custody staff” and detainees claimed that there was “disrespectful behaviour on the part of some of the nurses”.
It also stated that there was a greater need for translation and interpretation services within the centre. It concluded, “Too little progress had been made in remedying areas that we had previously identified as requiring improvement, and we had particular concerns about the lack of progress in health care.”
Out of the 36 recommendations that had been made upon safety, only seven had been achieved by May 2011. 19 of the 41 recommendations regarding respect at the centre had not been achieved, and only two of the 24 recommendations made in the areas of purposeful activity and preparation for release were fully achieved.
HMI Prisons declined to state when they were planning another inspection of Campsfield. A spokesperson for HMI Prisons told Cherwell, “We routinely inspect all centres and will certainly reinspect Campsfield in due course.” They also refused to comment on Amnesty’s allegations of human rights contraventions.
Alistair Johnson, member of Oxford University Amnesty International and attendee of the latest protest stressed the danger of running an institution such as Campsfield for profit. He said, “We believe that the failure to implement recommendations calling for the improvement of conditions within Campsfield represents the danger of privatizing detention centres. Campsfield House represents human rights abuses that are happening virtually on Oxford’s doorstep, and it’s therefore really important for Oxford students to get involved.”
