Defend Asylum Seekers
No more Detention Centres: Stop Oakington!
On October 21 1999, Barbara Roche, Minister for Immigration and Nationality announced plans for yet another detention centre. The Home Office have applied for planning permission to convert Oakington army barracks near Cambridge into a detention centre for asylum seekers
The centre would, when fully operational, be able to accommodate up to 400 asylum seekers, who arrive at ports in the South East and at Stansted Airport.
Applicants will be required to reside at Oakington under existing Immigration Powers for initial examination of their claim.
Upon their arrival in the UK many asylum seekers are traumatised, some have been tortured and raped. They may not be able to speak the language and have no relatives or friends in the UK.
Britain is a signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention and has agreed to provide refuge for those fleeing persecution. It is also one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, whose Government is preaching an ethical foreign policy. But when those in need manage to come through all the obstacles prepared for them - such as visa restrictions, safe third country rule, carriers liability etc. they are faced with the cruelty and humiliation of being put into a detention centre.
On an average day, more than 800 asylum seekers are detained with no judicial oversight of their detention for long periods of time. In Campsfield, Harmondsworth and Tynsley House detention centres, Rochester and Haslar detention prisons and criminal prisons throughout the UK.
The current figure for the backlog of asylum claims which were awaiting an initial decision at 30 September 1999 was 90,685, (Hansard written reply Thursday 28 October 1999).
The total backlog of immigration and asylum cases, at September 1999 was 149,013 cases, (Hansard written reply Monday 25 October).
The Home Office has failed to convince anyone that they are capable of dealing with asylum claims fairly and quickly and they will not manage to deal with an additional 400 detainees.