AT THIS moment, hundreds of people seeking political asylum are on hunger strike in Home office 'detention centres' and other prisons in England.
On Friday 11 March some 150 joined about ten already on hunger strike since the previous Monday at Campsfield House, the new 200-place detention centre at Kidlington, Oxford run by Group 4.
About 70 are on strike at Haslar prison, Portsmouth. Almost all are from Africa and Asia. They have been held for months - some over a year - without charge or time limit, on the decision of individual immigration officers.
They demand to be free while their asylum applications are considered.
The government is trying to break the strike by moving strikers from prison to prison, by threats of deportation and confining them to their rooms.
Detainees are supposedly allowed free association. But they report HOME NEWS force-feeding and other violence by immigration officers and Group 4 men. Campsfield and Harmondsworth are profit-making enterprises.
Three times as many asylum seekers, 720 last month, are being detained than a year ago.
It is part of an agreement made in secret by Europe's governments.
Labour's Graham Allen MP has called for an inquiry. Instead he should call to end to all immigration laws and detention centres. • CLOSE CAMPSFIELD demonstration, Saturday June 4, Kidlington, near Oxford.