National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC)
110 Hamstead Road
Birmingham B20 2QS
Phone: 0121-554-6947 Fax: 0870-055-4570
E-mail  ncadc@ncadc.org.uk
Web site:  http://www.ncadc.org.uk


Imprisoned Asylum Seekers start Hunger Strike

Today Thursday 26 July 2001 at 11.30am, asylum seekers and
immigration detainees in HMP Liverpool refused to take their midday
meal, and notified outside supporters that they had begun a hunger
strike against their intolerable imprisonment. Around 100 detainees
are held in Liverpool and the strike is believed to be solid.

Detainees in HMP Liverpool have to live, eat and sleep in a toilet
(popularly known as a prison cell). This is degrading and inhumane.
Despite their supposed status as "remand prisoners", detainees are
typically locked up 23 hours a day, denied education and forced to
wear prison uniform.

Detainees elsewhere are expected to join the hunger strike in
sympathy with Liverpool and in protest at their own detention. None
of the detainees held in normal prisons, detention prisons or
detention centres are held through decisions by a court of law. They
are detained indefinitely at the whim of immigration officers. As at
31 May 2001, 1,787 persons were recorded as being in detention in the
UK solely under Immigration Act powers.

Despite an earlier Home Office claim that prisons would not be used
to hold detainees beyond October, it is now believed that prisons
will continue to be used until at least the end of this year.

Local supporters of the detainees in Liverpool have called an
emergency protest to highlight the hunger strike and demand the
detainees' release.

Demonstrate: Sunday 29th July
Release the Refugees
1.00 pm to 2.00pm
HMP Liverpool
68 Hornby Road
Liverpool
L9 3DF

Below is a recent statement from the detainees in HMP Liverpool:

Dear Sir/Madam.

We hereby solemnly request your assistance in order to be released
from HMP Liverpool, where we are serving "False Imprisonment"
together with approximately 130 people in identical case, under the
the prison and immigration authority for seeking international
protection in the United Kingdom.

Your assistance would very much be appreciated in restoration of our
Human Rights under the European Convention of Human Rights and the
1951 United Nations Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to Status
of Refugees.

Thank you for your time and we seriously await your verdict in this
request, which we hope would be like Psalm 94: "The cry of millions
of sufferers through the ages has been 'Where is God? What is He
doing about the evil, sickness, sorrow and death currently swamping
humanity? If He exists and is all-powerful, as we are constantly
being told he is, then why doesn't He do something to stop earth's
ills?'"

==============================

For further information contact:

Tony Openshaw, NCADC -  tony.openshaw@pop3.poptel.org.uk
0161 740 8206

Greg Dropkin, Merseyside Against Detention -  gregd@gn.apc.org
0151 734 0153