From Standoff films.
Press Release 08/4/15 - For immediate release
*Guards ‘beat up’ man after failed suicide attempt in Immigration
Removal
Centre*
NEW STANDOFF FILMS <http://www.standoffilms.com> VIDEO :
https://vimeo.com/122270700
Guards in IRC The Verne, located on the Isle of Portland of the South
Coast
of England, have been accused of ‘beating up’ a suicidal man just
minutes
after he tried to hang himself.
First hand interviews with detainees who witnessed the incident, which
occurred on the evening of 6th March, describe how after the noose
snapped
and the man fell to the floor, guards kicked him, handcuffed him, and
then
‘beat him up’.
He was then reportedly taken to ‘the block’ - the term detainees use to
describe solitary confinement within the centre. The man has since been
moved to a different detention centre.
Fellow detainees responded to the violence of the guards with an angry
protest. Bricks were thrown and windows were smashed. Those interviewed
reported that police arrived in the morning and arrested several
detainees
for their involvement in the protest.
Film footage released today by Standoff Films shows the moments
preceding
the incident, as the man prepares to jump from the roof of the library
of
the Immigration Removal Centre, and images of the site the following
day.
In the sound recordings that accompany the images, witnesses say that
‘people have had enough’ and that they are ‘frustrated’. ‘They should
look
after him because he said he's got mental health problems’, says one
man,
but 'they are treating us different just because we are foreign.’
The Home Office said it was aware of an incident at the facility. A
spokesman said no detainees or staff were injured but the emergency
services were called as a precaution.
Since the incident there has been a wave of protests, including hunger
strikes, by hundreds of detainees across 7 of the UK's immigration
detention centres. Their testimonies are being posted live on a blog
called
Detained Voices.
The incidents have unfolded amid mounting pressure on the Home Office,
as
on Monday 2nd March Channel 4 released undercover footage of abuse by
guards in Yarl's Wood IRC and squalid conditions inside Harmondsworth
IRC.
The following day an All Party Parliamentary Group had released the
report
of its inquiry into detention, providing damning insight and urgent
recommendations for change. It criticised the Home Office practice of
detaining people with mental illnesses.
Amid the protests and media coverage, plans to expand Campsfield IRC in
Oxfordshire have been halted. According to campaigners, the Home Office
has
so far failed to provide sufficient evidence of its necessity:
statistics
show that although detention spaces increase year on year, removals from
the country remain static, meaning that detention is not meeting the
government’s own justifications for the practice.
*Background information for editors*:
30,000 people are detained annually in immigration detention, over half
of
them asylum seekers. The Verne is one of 13 adult Immigration Removal
Centres in the UK. It was converted from a prison into an immigration
Removal Centre in March 2014.
Migrants and asylum-seekers are detained indefinitely in the UK, meaning
that many are detained for months and even years. Detention is
authorised
for administrative convenience, implying that detainees are deprived of
their freedom without having committed any crime.
*Contact: *
George - 07459030368
--
www.standoffilms.com
@standoffilms <https://twitter.com/Standoffilms>
Three videos, which provide some context for the hunger
strikes in Harmondsworth & other detention centres: in order of release
-
(1) Harmondsworth Hunger Strike 9 March 2015 -
https://vimeo.com/121766147
(2) "We are being threatened here" protesters tell us about the
authorities
response to the March 2015 Harmondsworth hunger strike -
https://vimeo.com/121978747
(3) From Harmondsworth IRC: the silence and noise around the hunger
strike
- https://vimeo.com/122324903
The new video interview from inside Harmondsworth, which the hunger
striker would like to be spread publicly ishttps://vimeo.com/123100987
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