The brave actions of the detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centre at the end of November 2006 publicised the disgusting conditions and treatment faced by asylum seekers who are imprisoned to a wide audience. Despite every attempt by Home Secretary John Reid and his sidekicks in the National Offender Management Service and Immigration Service to portray the protesters as criminals and saboteurs, the very fact that the uprising followed immediately after the publication of the most damning report ever into an immigration detention centre by the Chief Inspector of Prisons’, meant that these lies could not be sustained.

In December London FRFI dedicated its monthly demonstration at Communications House immigration reporting centre to highlighting the struggle of the detainees at Harmondsworth. In January and February we will again be demonstrating outside Communications House, and we urge anyone in London who supports this struggle to join us.

Immigration reporting centres are places of fear for asylum seekers, who have to report to them monthly, weekly or even several times a week. From reporting centres asylum seekers are often detained without warning and sent to removal centres, such as Harmondsworth, to await deportation.

For further information phone 0207 837 1688