Skip to content or view screen version

scottish asylum seekers go on hunger strike

ananova | 10.04.2002 09:44

about lenthy beurocratic delays

Asylum seekers continue hunger strike

Detainees at an immigration centre are continuing to refuse food in a protest over delays in dealing with their cases.

A spokesman for about 40 men at Dungavel immigration detention centre, near Strathaven, Lanarkshire, says the protest will continue.

The men, who say some detainees have been held for more than a year, want the Home Office to hear their cases faster.

The detainees held at the former prison, which was opened as an immigration detention centre last year, began refusing meals on Tuesday.

Spokesman Eduardo Sanchez, 35, said: "We are not eating breakfast - I have no idea how long this will take, as long as necessary."

Some men have been using a shop to get things such as cigarettes, but deny they have been buying food.

Mr Sanchez, who has a nine-year-old son in Scotland, is appealing against his deportation to Peru.

The centre, owned by the Home Office Immigration Service, is managed by the Premier Prison Service, which is also responsible for running Scotland's only private jail, Kilmarnock Prison.

The facility does not house asylum-seekers but is for people being detained before deportation.

Premier Prison has said it will make sure detainees receive the best possible medical treatment if it becomes necessary. Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan is backing the protests.

Story filed: 09:34 Wednesday 10th April 2002

ananova

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

it's up to them

10.04.2002 14:51

No-one asked them to come to UK, sheer ingratitude I call it, moaning about UK's treatment of them. Couldn't we tempt them with some haggis or a deep-fried Mars bar?

delroy murphy


Nice

11.04.2002 13:24

The UK is bombing the fuck out of the Third World for oil, the refugees come here for sanctuary and we treat them like scum.

Humanist


'Delroy Murphy'= Jack

11.04.2002 14:29

What a SILLY little man!

Spike Militant


'Delroy Murphy'= Jack

11.04.2002 14:29

What a SILLY little man!

Spike Militant


no

12.04.2002 00:11

Believe me, delroy is NOT me..

However people have resorted to using my name as a way of discrediting me personally instead of winning an argument for a change.

Jack


What do you mean?

12.04.2002 16:45

No, they haven't! What help do you need for your "arguments" to be discredited, anyway?

Jack