former detainees | >Re-PHOTO

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 12 – 2017

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 12: On Saturday 18th November 2017 I put my folding bike on three trains to take me to Bedford Station and rode the five or so miles to the closed main gates of Twinwoods Business Park on a former wartime aerodrome. Mostly it was an easy ride, but the last half-mile or so was up a rather steep hill and I was well out of breath by the time I arrived to meet the crowd of protesters already there but waiting for more coaches to arrive.

It was I think my 11th visit to photograph the protests organised by Movement for Justice at Yarls Wood Immigration Centre on the other side of the business park a little over a mile away which we could reach by a public footpath.

The numbers at the protest were down on the previous protest as the preparations for the event had been disrupted by a controversy about Movement for Justice, with one formerly very active member leaving feeling very angry about the group’s treatment of her. Although I sympathised with her I felt that much of what she claimed to reveal about the group was already well known and that she and her supporters were using her personal issue in a way that damaged the campaign to close Yarl’s Wood and other immigration prisons.

As I wrote in 2017:
“MfJ has never made any secret of its political background (you can read about it on Wikipedia), and has done far more than any other group to raise the issue of immigration detention, organising major protests at Harmondsworth, the Home Office and Yarl’s Wood and working practically with many former asylum seekers to stop deportations. And while much of the organisation of protests has clearly been carried out by a small and devoted core group, the activity and enthusiasm of those former asylum seekers is vital. MfJ would be impotent without their support, which it would not have unless it commanded their respect.”

The protesters held a noisy rally on the grassy area at the side of the road, with much chanting of slogans, practising them for when they would be outside the prison. They had brought large clear posters and banners that the women inside would latter be able to see, as well as a sound system and a ladder.

When all had arrived we set off marching a few hundred metres down the road to the start of the footpath, with me pushing my bike and stopping occasionally to take pictures. When we got closer to the site, one of the campaigners kindly offered to push my bike so I could take pictures of the marchers more easily.

We went through a gate into a field next to the detention centre where the protesters began to make a great deal of noise, particularly by kicking and banging on the lower solid metal section of the 20ft fence imprisoning the site.

The field slopes up steeply from the fence and others stood on the flat area at the top where they could see through the grid on the top 10 feet of the fence – and be seen by the women inside who were able to get to the upper floor windows. Some of the protesters had brought flowers and stood on the ladder to poke them into the grid.

We could see – if not clearly – the women inside who had come to greet the protesters, holding up messages: ‘SOS Plz’, ‘5 Months In No End in sight‘, ‘We Need Freedom‘, ‘We just no visa not criminal‘, ‘Release Us’. The windows can only be opened a few inches but some managed to hold out their messages. The photographs using a very long lens show them more clearly than we could see them.

The prison guards had put on a fashion show in another block of the centre to try to entice the women away from the windows, and guards were harassing them and telling them to leave the rooms facing the protest, event trying to pull them away, but they still manage to stay there to greet the protest. But some of the windows were pretty crowded.

Some held up mobile phone numbers in large print – the detainees are allowed phones to contact their lawyers and others over their immigration cases – and we were able to hear their voices which were relayed to the PA system. We could also hear them shouting, though it was hard to make out what they were saying.

Speakers standing on a ladder could see and be heard by the women inside, and most of those who spoke were former detainees at Yarl’s Wood or other detention centres. Mabel Gawanas who was held inside there for a day under 3 years was able to speak to her friends still inside.

*Between speeches there was more noise, and the samba band played.*

Also speaking was a woman released only a few days earlier who thanked MfJ and greeted her friends still inside.

I commented “‘China’ , ‘China’, ‘Release Us’, ‘We Need Freedom’ , ‘5 Months In No End In Sight’ , ‘Release’. None of these people should be locked up. There is no good reason to lock any of them up. Some need help and protection. All need to be treated as human beings, not pawns in a numbers game to satisfy the racist right.”

Other former detainees spoke, including some others recently release and this man who had been held in three different detention centres.

And on the hill people held their banners and the protest continued.

It was mid-November and the light was beginning to fall and the protest was to end shortly. I was getting cold and decided I had to leave, and pushed my bike back to the road for the ride back to Bedford station. Fortunately apart from one short steep hill it was mainly downhill.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood 12.

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Shut Down Yarl’s Wood – September 2016

Shut Down Yarl’s Wood: Saturday 10th September 2016 was one of quite a few protests I photographed at the Immigration Detention Centre at Yarls Wood, and it followed a similar pattern to the others.

The main difference to most other occasions I went there was the weather, with some heavy and rather persistent rain, which failed to dampen the energy of the protesters but did make the event more hazardous.

The 20ft high fence around the centre – essentially a prison – is at the bottom of a slope in the field where the protest took place. From higher up the slope you can see the upper floors of one of the detention blocks though the top 10ft of thick wire metal fencing.

Around the base of the fence is a concrete base several feet wide, and in front of that is a short level grass-covered section before the ground rises. In the rain the level section became waterlogged mud and climbing the slope became extremely treacherous, and nearly impossible and I had to walk some yards to one side where the slope was less steep.

Between speeches over the public address system the protesters had brought so the women inside the prison could hear them clearly – even those who the prison staff had prevented from coming to the rooms facing the fence – people kicked and banged the lower 10 feet of metal sheet fencing – which made a very satisfactory loud noise.

My account on My London Diary was short – so here it is in full, although there is more information in some of the captions to the many images in the post there:

Hundreds of protester braved persistent rain to stand for several hours in a protest organised by Movement for Justice waving and shouting support to the women asylum seekers held indefinitely inside Yarl’s Wood, who responded enthusiastically by shouting and waving back from the prison blocks behind the high fence, hindered by windows that hardly open.

Several spoke to the protesters on their mobile phones, some telling how Serco security guards had prevented them from coming to the windows and were threatening those who greeted the protesters with solitary confinement, and there were speeches by a procession of women who had been held, some for a year or more, inside the immigration prison.

*No Limits – Sin Fronteras states the Latin American Young Women’s banner*

Immigration detainees are held ‘indefinitely’ with no release date until their cases are determined. One of those then inside was 42-year-old Mabel Gawanas who had then been held in Yarls Wood for over 2 years, having fled Namibia after being tortured and raped. She has an an underage British daughter and several health problems. She was eventually released after being held one day short of three years.

*As well as the women there were some families on the lower floor*

Many of those who spoke had been detained inside Yarls Wood – and were able to speak to friends still inside and to encourage them to keep up the fight. Most who do fight will succeed eventually, but too many who should be granted asylum are being deported – and often back into very dangerous situations.

*Sisters Uncut and others set off flares on the hill facing Yarl’s Wood immigration prison.*

By the time the protest was coming to an end my boots were encased in heavy clay mud. I scraped off most of it on the long walk back to the coach, but still had to remove my boots and put them in a plastic bag before getting into the coach in my socks. But I was pleased with many of the pictures I had made and I think the bad weather brought out the best in the protesters.

Many more pictures at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood.

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Shut down Yarl’s Wood Immigration Prison – 2017

Shut down Yarl’s Wood Immigration Prison: Saturday 13th May 2017 was the 11th protest outside Yarl’s Wood in the Movement for Justice campaign to shut down this and other immigration detention centres.

For once the weather was fine and there was little or no mud in the field facing the prison. And for some reason – perhaps the windows had been cleaned – we could see the detainees more clearly than on some previous occasions. And I seem to have written rather more clearly than on some occasions about the day – so here I’ll just reproduce the text from My London Diary, with a few of the pictures.

I’d caught the train from St Pancras to Bedford as usual, but instead of waiting for the MfJ bus had brought my Brompton, so could just jump on it and cycle towards Yarlswood. It was a ride of around 6 miles, mainly along side roads or on cycle paths beside busier roads, and it was a pleasant enough ride, though Yarl’s Wood is on a former airfield on a plateau rather higher than the city, and so it was uphill quite a lot of the way. And the climb up from the nearest village, Milton Ernest, was rather long and steep, though at least I didn’t have to bother about traffic, as the police had closed the road. But I was a little out of breath and tired as I arrived.

But Yarl’s Wood really is in the middle of nowhere, making those inside feel very isolated, and visits to them by anyone without a car are tedious and expensive for those on low income. So events like this are important in reminding those inside that they have not been forgotten.

There were several hundreds of people already at the roadside – and a long row of coaches that had brought them there, and there were speeches and chanting while they waited for others to arrive.

*Most of the detainees are women, but there are men in a family section of the prison*

From the road there is still a long walk along field edges following a public footpath, around three-quarters of a mile. Parts of this were heavy going on the Brompton, not designed for off-road use, and I did have to walk part of the way, as well as occasionally stopping to photograph the marchers, now around a thousand strong.

When the protesters arrived at the field in front of the tall fence around the centre, they were welcomed by shouts and waving from those imprisoned inside who held up messages calling for justice in the narrow slits the windows open. Only those who could get to the upper windows on the block facing the fence could see the protest, but others inside could certainly hear it.

There were speeches from former detainees, including several women who had been held at Yarl’s Wood, including Mabel Gawanas who was recently released a few days short of 3 years inside, and other former immigration detainees. People kicked on the fence to make a terrific racket and held up banners, posters and placards to show the detainees in what the protesters describe as as ‘racist, sexist hell-hole’ they have not been forgotten. Some inside spoke to the protest by mobile phone.

Some of the protesters climbed ladders to hold banners and placards above the first solid 10 feet of the 20 foot fence, while others had long poles or lit flares to make the protest more visible. A few yards back from the fence where the ground slopes up we could see those at the windows and photograph them through the mesh fence, though it wasn’t easy.

I left as the protest began to draw to a close, cycling back along the footpath to the road and then enjoying the long downhill stretch to the village and the main road. But I had to pay for this, as a short uphill modern stretch of road off stretched me almost to exhaustion. 40 metres doesn’t sound a lot, but feels in on a bike. And while the road up from Milton Ernest does the climb at a fairly sensible rate, Oakley Hill up from the A6 is at least twice as steep. I should have got off and walked, but pride doesn’t allow it unless it becomes really impossible. For some reason my three-speed gear had decided to be a two speed gear, but probably it wouldn’t have helped here as I think it was only the top gear I was missing – and I needed something considerably lower. But after than it was downhill most of the way to Bedford and a train probably an hour earlier than had I been on the bus.

More pictures at Shut down Yarl’s Wood Prison,

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Surround Harmondsworth – End Immigration Detention

Surround Harmondsworth – End Immigration Detention – Saturday 11th July 2015

*On Bath Road immediatly north of Heathrow Airport*

As a boy I spent much of my leisure time cycling around south-west Middlesex, either on my own or with a couple of friends exploring both the quiet lanes and busy roads such as the A4 Bath Road, then heavy with traffic, most of which now prefers the M4 a mile or so to the north here.

As we came to Longford we came to the Peggy Bedford, a pub at the junction where the Colnbrook Bypass, which had been opened in 1929 to take traffic away from the narrow streets of quiet villages of Longford and Colnbrook. The streets were still fairly narrow back in the 1950s (and remain so) but the quiet was then regularly replaced as planes taking off or landing at Heathrow, a stone’s throw away, thundered overhead. And what had been annoying but bearable in the age of propeller-driven aircraft soon became deafening as these were replaced by jets.

The Peggy Bedford was a typical fake-tudor building of 1930, complete with mock half-timbering and exaggerated chimneys, but the name (and licence) had a long history, dating back to a tavern around half a mile west in Longford, The Kings Head Inn. This was the first of a long string of coaching inns through Longford and Colnbrook where coaches out of London picked up their second change of horses, having made their first change in one of the hundred inns of Hounslow High Street.

*Walking to a pen outside the Harmondsworth prison administration block*

In 1782 Peggy Bedford was one of six children born to the licensee of the inn, and later she owned and ran it from 1807 until her death in 1859. All the locals came to call the pub by her name, and it became known as the Peggy Bedford, though officially still the Kings Head. When the bypass was built, the brewers realised it would bypass the pub, closed it and built a new pub at the junction and were persuaded by its patrons to officially name it so. For a while in the ’30s it was a popular roadhouse for some of London’s idle young smart set, who would drive out and race along the bypass. And when it was pulled down – to some local disgust – in 1995 the name was given to the McDonalds which replaced it.

When we chose to take the bypass – a rather smoother and faster ride for us too – we soon passed on the north side of the Bath Road a government site – The Road Research Laboratory. A monument on Moor Lane at the north of this large site now records “Tests conducted by the Road Research Laboratory against model dams built on this site during 1940 – 42 assisted Barnes Wallis in his development of the bouncing bomb (Upkeep), used by No. 617 Squadron Royal Air Force to breach the Ruhr Dams 16/17 May 1943.” But the main business of the RRL was to find ways to make roads faster and safer for cars and lorries – if rather less safe for pedestrians and cyclists.

The RRL moved out to Crowthorne in the late 1960s and the part of this site closest to Bath Road is now the site of two of the UK’s heinous immigration prisons, Harmonsdsworth and Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centres (now collectively called Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre.) An area behind them is in use by BT.

It was outside the detention centres on the Bath Road that I met with a large group of people who had come from London by underground to Heathrow terminal 5 and then a local bus to protest against the unfair treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, including some still being held under the Fast-Track system then recently found unlawful by the High Court.

*People spoke about their experiences of being detained*

The recent change of name of these prisons from ‘detention centres’ to ‘immigration removal centres’ makes clear that the government’s intention is not to properly investigate asylum claims but to simply deport those making them as fast as they can. Although the ‘fast track’ system, designed to make it impossible for people to properly fight their case to stay has now been declared illegal, those held in the centre are still under threat of being bundled onto a plane without a proper chance to present their case.

This protest at Europe’s largest detention centre complex was the eighth organised there by the Movement for Justice, who have also organised protests at other immigration prisons including Yarls Wood. MfJ have also worked with many detainees whilst they are inside the centres, providing assistance and preventing many cases of premature deportation. Thanks largely to the efforts of them and other bodies which also work with detainees many have eventually been released and allowed to remain in the UK, and most of those taking part in the protest were former detainees.

*Along a public footpath beside the prison fence*

Security had been stepped up greatly at the Heathrow centre since some previous protests and police and security staff confined the protesters to an area in front of the administration block, well away from where detainees are held. But the protest made a lot of noise, shouting and dancing with megaphones and a small public address system, and phone calls with the detainees confirmed they could be clearly heard inside.

*which leads to a field beside the prison fence*.

Detainees are not held under the same conditions as prisoners in jail, though the Colnbrook centre is built and largely run on prison lines. But while trying to argue their cases the detainees need mobile phones to try to contact their legal advisers and MFJ were able to contact some of them and amplify their messages to the protest.

After a lengthy protest in front of the Harmondsworth administration building the protesters moved off and walked down a public footpath that runs beside the 20ft fence on the east of the Colnbrook blocks. Here they were much closer to the people inside but the tall fence, a hedge and some trees prevented us from seeing them at the windows. But again they could be contacted by phone and told those outside about the poor conditions and treatment they were experiencing and gave profuse thanks to the people outside who had come to visit them.

*They could hear people shouting from inside as well as by phone*

Finally the protesters decided it was time to begin their hour and a half journey back into central London and I said goodbye to start my shorter journey home.

More on My London Diary: Surround Harmondsworth.

Shut Down Racist Yarl’s Wood

Shut Down Racist Yarl’s Wood. On Saturday 12th March 2016, six years ago today, I made another visit to the immigration detention centre at Yarl’s Wood where the Movement for Justice (MfJ) had organised another large protest.

The Home Office no longer uses Yarl’s Wood to house large numbers of women asylum seekers, but unfortunately this does not mean their cruel and racist policies have changed. Women were at first moved out because of Covid, but Priti Patel has set up a new immigration prison, Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre, to hold 80 detainees to replace it, with around 88 women being moved and locked up there for Christmas 2021.

The new centre at Hassockfield is on the site of the notorious Medomsley Detention Centre, where over 1,800 young male detainees were abused in the 1960s to 1980s, and is at at Medomsley Edge, 13 miles NW of Durham, 1.7 miles North of Consett. It has been renamed again as Derwentside, to give it a more friendly image, though the river is around a mile away as the crow flies. Almost certainly the Home Office was fed up with the protests organised by MfJ and others at the already rather remote site at Yarl’s Wood, around 5 miles outside Bedford, and thought it a good idea to move it rather further away from London, where there are many former detainees and activists who came to demonstrations.

But of course people came from all over the country – including from Scotland – to Yarl’s Wood, and protests will continue, with an active ‘No to Hassockfield‘ local group at their centre, although it’s too far away for me to photograph them.

*Women have little to protest with and the windows only open an inch or so. They hold messages to the glass and throw out toilet paper*

Hassockfield is so remote that the Home Office was unable to find law firms which would give satisfactory tenders to give legal advice there and abandoned the search – with detainees now only able to get advice by phone. Women for Refugee Women are calling for donations to mount a legal challenge over this lack of support. There is a great deal more information about the cruel and racist treatment of asylum seekers with many telling their own stories on their web site.

*Yarl’s Wood like almost all of the immigration prisons is privately run for the Home Office, with companies cutting costs for profit*

Back on 12th March 2016, my own journey to Yarl’s Wood didn’t go too well, with a train cancellation. But I still got to Bedford Station in a little over two hours and in time for the coach organised by MfJ to the meeting point at Twinwoods Business Park, around a mile walk from the prison. Unfortunately the coach driver didn’t know the way and police had put up large signs stating the road up from the A6 was closed (though in fact they were letting traffic to the protest to go through.) The result was a rather lengthy tour of the Bedfordshire countryside – with another wrong turning, meaning we arrived the best part of an hour late.

Fortunately the event had started with a rally on the road waiting for people from around the country to arrive, and the mile or so walk to the prison was waiting for us and only just about to begin.

Fortunately it was a fine day for the walk, but there had been heavy rain in previous days and some of the footpath and the field beside the prison where the protest took place was full of mud and some puddles, making it hard to move about and keep my balance. As you can see in some pictures close to the fence it was a sticky mess.

The field has a fairly steep slope up from the 20ft prison fence, which does enable protesters to see over the lower 10ft of thick metal sheeting and to glimpse the women waving, shouting and holding posters at the upper floor windows inside.

It is tricky taking pictures through the 10 ft upper section of the fence with its thick wire grid and I don’t have the kind of long and fast lenses for this. I actually declined the invitation from the organisers to photograph the first large MfJ protest here as I knew I didn’t really have the right gear, suggesting they invite a colleague. But for later protests I decided that there were many other pictures I could take and I could at least get some kind of pictures through that fence.

Many of those at the protest were people who had been locked up inside Yarl’s Wood or other detention centres, and almost all of those who spoke had stories to tell about how their mistreatment – having been physically and sexually assaulted, locked in rooms, denied medical assistance, unable to get proper legal advice and more. Most had come to this country fleeing from violence, often from rape and in dire need of care and understanding and instead were locked up, their stories disbelieved and further subjected to hostile and inhuman treatment.

At the end of the protest people let off a number of coloured flares before the long walk back to the coaches. I was rather caught in the mud and unable to get close to where this was happening. On the path and road back to the coach I tried to scrape the worst of the mud from my boots and trousers on the grass and on the kerb of the road, and found some sticks to help, but Bedfordshire mud proved extremely persistent.

We needed to remove our boots before getting on the coach, and fortunately I had a plastic bag to put them in for the journey, getting back into them where we were dropped off at the station. The journey home was slow but uneventful and I was exhausted and needed a good meal and a bath when I arrived – but at least unlike those detainees I was free.

More at Shut Down Yarl’s Wood on My London Diary, where you can also find accounts of other protests at Yarl’s Wood as well as other immigration prisons at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook using the site search.

Close Down Yarl’s Wood: 2015

I’m not sure what is happening at Yarl’s Wood now. Temporary huts were erected there to house destitute asylum seekers at the beginning of 2021, but abandoned in February by the Home Office after a legal challenge and a local and national outcry. In 2020 it’s purpose was changed from holding women to holding men, and there were reports that most of the women had been removed, but according to the Asylum Information Database there were 238 asylum seekers still held there at the end of 2020. Both Home Office and Serco web sites appear to lack any information. Six years ago today, on 8th August 2015 I attended a protest there and wrote the following report, illustrated here with just a few pictures from the many in the original My London Diary post.

Yarl’s Wood Immigration prison, Bedford. Sat 8 Aug 2015

Around a thousand protesters in a field adjoining the detention centre joined with detainees locked up in Yarl’s Wood to demand an end to immigration detention and the whole racist system which locks up migrants and asylum seekers without trial, subjecting them to abuse and sexual harassment.

Coaches came from around the country to drop protesters outside the business estate on a former aerodrome in the middle of the country around five miles from Bedford, and a coach from Bedford Station made two journeys from there to bring myself and the others who had arrived by train. Others made their journey there by taxi, car and bicycle, and a few by bus, which dropped them at the centre of a village around a mile away.

The protest was organised by Movement for Justice and there is a long list of other groups that supported it and the campaign to close detention centres, though I think there were also others present: Women for Refugee Women, Right To Remain, CheltFems, Black Women’s Rape Action Project, All African Womens Group, Refugee Support Devon, Exeter City of Sanctuary, London Palestine Action, Diásporas Criticas, South London Anti Fascists, No One Is Illegal, Jewish Socialist Group, Left Unity, CUSU Women’s Campaign, Freedom Without Fear Platform, Black Dissidents, Feminist Fightback, Women’s Association for the Guild of Students, University of Birmingham, Unite Hotel Workers Branch, Plan C, Birmingham, Leeds Feminist Network, Sisters Uncut, SOAS Unison.

The protest started next to the road at the front of the estate to give time for all the protesters to arrive, and then walked along a public bridleway which goes close to the detention centre. The protesters were allowed into a field which ran along the side of the high fence around the centre for today’s protest – at a previous protest they had pushed down fences and breached barbed wire to get to the fence.

There was a rapturous welcome from the women inside the prison, who came to the windows, shouting and waving and holding up signs. Protests like this really give the prisoners hope, and show them they have support and are not forgotten. Together, inside and out people chanted slogans ‘Shut Down Yarls Wood’, ‘Detention Centres, Shut them Down’ and more.

A small rise in the field help us see the windows on the first floor and above despite the fence, solid for around 10ft with another 10ft of mesh on top. People banged it to make a noise, kicked it, and banged it with pots and pans, and some climbed on others shoulders to lift up banners and placards so those inside could see.

Then a group of people wearing face masks began to write slogans on the fence, and soon a long length of it was covered with them ‘No Borders’, ‘No One is Illegal’ ‘#SetHerFree’, ‘Shut it Down’, ‘Gaza 2 Yarls Wood Destroy Apartheid Walls’, ‘Racist Walls’ and more.

Inside the women waved. The windows open to a small gap and one woman waved her leg though it, decorated with paper tied around. Others waved clothing and held up signs, some with slogans like those held up and shouted by the people outside. One carefully drawn one read ‘We Want Freedom – No Human Is Illegal – Close Yarls Wood’ while another simply read ‘Help’.

The organisers had mobile numbers for some of those inside – and others inside wrote theirs large and held them up in the window. We were able to hear greetings and reports from some of those inside, their voices on the phone amplified on the megaphone.

They too could hear the speeches from outside, including several by women who had been held with them inside the prison. Many are held for long periods in this and other detention centres, never knowing when they might be let out – or an attempt made to send them back to the country they were desperate to escape from.

Too soon we had to leave. And they had to stay. As I walked away to catch the coach back to Bedford station I felt ashamed at the way that my country treats asylum seekers. They deserve support and humanity and get treated worse than criminals.

Many more pictures at Close Down Yarl’s Wood.

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