OMASASE Lumumba survived imprisonment and torture in Zaire only to die in a British prison after claiming asylum. He was the 32 year-old nephew of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of Zaire, assassinated by the CIA during the turmoil after independence.
Omasase was detained in London's Pentonville prison without being brought before a court, without any right to apply for bail and without any limit on his detention.
On 8 October 1991 he died after being "restrained" by prisoner officers. His case is currently before the High Court -the subject of a campaign by his family, his solicitors and civil rights organisations.
Outcry
Because of the public outcry the case has produced, an in. creasing number of people have heard of Omasase Lumumba Far less known however is the plight of many more prisoners who are currently being held without trial, as he was, under the 1971 Immigration Act.
Recent investigations* have shown how the use of detention by the UK authorities is producing a sharply increasing number of immigration prisoners - over 10,000 a year. They are held mainly in the two largest detention facilities Harmondsworth, near London's Heathrow airport and at Haslar prison outside Portsmouth, but condon prisons are also used to Lake the 'overspill". Drawing by a 7-year old Kurdish refugee detained with her family on arrival in UK They are imprisoned for as long as 18 months. Some de tainees may be people attempting to enter the UK as visitors.
students or asylum seekers.
Others may include peopie who have been settled in the UK for several years but who are picked up and accused of having infringed their conditions of stay or of having entered the country illegally. Still others may be prisoners served with a dcportation oract on completing a sensence.
People detained under current immigration and asylum rules can be granted temporary aarussion or temporary release while making their case to reman in the country. Instead they are being imprisoned on a scale, and for period of time, Picketing the Harmondsworth detention centre clearly intended to deter them and others from attempting to stay in Britain.
Recent statistics testify to the racist use of detention powers. For example, among people held on arrival in the UK between 1988 and 1991, pending further examination or remova, lose trom Alnca accounted for casily the largest percentage - 36 per cent in 1991. The next largest nationality groups detained in 1991 came from Asia (23 per cent), followed by the Americas, including Latin America and the Caribbean (13 per cent).
In 1992, the largest group of SMC asylum seekers detained came from India, Zaire, Nigeria and Ghana. In may the same year, of those 42 asylum scekers who had been detained for more than 6 months, people from Africa accounted for over half.
The Manchester-based CamMALGO paign Against Double Punishment, fighting against the continued detention and threatened expulsion of prisoners who have served a sentence, has highlighted the fact that an overwhelming majority of them Apart from being an ordeal in itself, the very fact of imprisonment inevitably adds to the difficulties detainees experience in obtaining assistance.
Their isolation, coupled with the problems of solicitors and community organisations obtaining information about their whereabouts and recources to support them adequately means incy are ur a very Teal scas Britain's "forgotten prisoners". grim. In 1990 a man from Zaire mondsworth. Already this year there have been nine attempted suicides among the 70 foreign nationals currently held in PenThe government clearly intends to imprison more people while using the upcoming Asylum and Immigration Appeals Law to speed up the "processing" of asylum seekers and those charged with immigration offences. Of the 300 extra detention places already announced by the Secretary of State, at least 120 are to be created this year at Campsfield House, Kidlington, near Oxford.
Periodically there has been an unsuree of protest about detentions, notably during the Tamils in 1987 and during the in 1989 when picketing and demonstrations were organised.
In general however protests localised, prompted by actions of the detainees themselves and backed by black community organisations and pressure groups near the detention cenMost recent among these were the six-day hunger strikes at the beginning of March this year at Haslar and Harmondsworth involving nearly all the total 200 detainees at the FIGHTING RACISM Charter In June, to coincide with the end of the Lumumba bearing in the High Court, a Charter for detainces is to be laurence by a broad group of voluntary agencies and community organisations led by Inquest and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.
If detainees are not to remain Antain's forgotten mrisoners. 3 fight must be waged to defend them. The campaign for abolition of detention must be sip up an oracat be placed upfront in all anti-racis acaon insioc and alonesiac the labour movement.
*This article is based on Britain's Forgotten Prisoners by Kathy Lowe, published by the Delention Advice Service, 2 Prince of Wales Rd., London NWS 3LG, priced £2.50; and on Detained Without Trial by Mark Ashford, published by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, 115 Old St., London ECIV 9JR, priced $4.99.
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