Asylum seeker detention ‘unlawful’
Amnesty International has strongly attacked the Government for holding asylum seekers in “jail like” conditions.
There are no official figures for the number of asylum seekers detained each year, but the campaign group suggests that 25,000 people were detained in 2004.
It claims that many of these detentions are “protracted, inappropriate, disproportionate and unlawful.” Asylum seekers can be held at any point of the application process.
Amnesty wants an automatic independent review of the decision to detain any individual.
Director Kate Allen said: “Seeking asylum is not a crime, it is a right. Thousands of people who have done nothing wrong are being locked up in the UK. We found that in many cases there was no apparent reason to detain people.
“The human cost of this policy is frighteningly high. We found that languishing in detention with no end in sight had led to mental illness, self-harm and even to people trying to take their own life.”
She added: “The lawfulness of the decision to detain someone should be reviewed automatically by a court or similar independent body. People who have sought asylum are being denied justice in the UK.”
The Home Office insists that detaining asylum seekers is an essential part of immigration control and that detainees are treated with “dignity”.
The report’s release has been timed to coincide with International Refugee Day.
Immigration Minister Tony McNulty told Today that he thought the powers of detention were “generally” used wisely, and disputed Amnesty’s figures.
Mr McNulty said: “We have the power to detain if we can make a quick decision, if we need to establish someone’s identity and if we think there’s a potential risk of absconding usually at the end of the process when detention is a prelude to removal to a third country or the country of origin.”
“I certainly accept what Amnesty International say about the paucity of data,” he added. “Apparently we do snapshots in every quarter; the snapshot at December 2004 for example was about 1300 people. It certainly runs into thousands. But I do accept their point and we are looking at how to present the data better and how to move to an annual figure.”
He added that people were not languishing within the system as claimed and nearly 80 per cent of new applications were now processed in a couple of months.
Maeve Sherlock, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the report revealed the inherent dangers in detention.
Ms Sherlock said: “The evidence is stark – people are being detained arbitrarily, without proper consideration of whether it is appropriate or indeed necessary to do so. This includes pregnant women and families with children, torture victims and other extremely vulnerable individuals.”
She added: “It can’t be right to lock people up simply because they have asked for safety here – seeking asylum is not a crime.”
The Refugee Council wants a maximum time limit for detention, an appeals process against detention and an end to detention of children.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said that courts should be given the power to review the decision to detain asylum seekers.
He added: “It is a serious embarrassment for the Government that an organisation better known for attacking oppressive regimes has been so critical of conditions in our own detention system. These are asylum seekers, not criminals, yet the Home Office is putting many of them behind bars for no good reason.”
