Police patrols near Oakington Detention Centre in Cambridgeshire made it clear that protestors gathering to highlight the plight of asylum-seekers would have to play by their rules or face the consequences. "Are you going to protest?" asked an officer at a roadblock 100 metres up the little country lane that shields the detention centre from the outside world. People were then read Section 14 of the Public Disorder Act while police from Milton Keynes (a constabulary based nearly 30 miles/50 kilometres away) were maintaining patrols in four-wheel drive vehicles which were being used to film protestors on video recorders. Combined with police photographers in full body armour and the occaisional presence of a police helicopter there was an atmosphere of intimdation. The 120 people-protest seemed dwarfed by comparison.

Groups had gethered as part of a Cambridge-wide action entitled Cambridge In August (CIA) which had targetted the Oakington Detention Centre, respected Trinity College (which has major share-holdings in arms manufacturer British Aerospace) and nearby Huntington Life Sciences (Europe's largest and most notorious animal experimentation facility). Protestors were keen to point out that as a leading academic facility with a growing science and computer-based element Cambridge is now known as 'Thames Silicon Valley' and is home to several key biotech companies including US GM giant Monsanto.

At Oakington people were playing music, dancing and sharing lunch while tying ribbons and signs to the perimeter fence. A young woman from a solidarity group dressed as a large green fluffy dinosaur had entered the facility to drop off a vanload of toys, food and clothes. "The conditions inside are better than most" she explained pointing out that people within the facility had access to legal, medical and human rights support alongside translators. "But, remember, these people have been detained without trial and there are reports of officials operating a 'White List' including India and Pakistan". (The 'White List' in effect states that people from countries mentioned on the list cannot claim asylum. Human rights abuses - including accusations of slavery - have been documented in both these countries).

A man with a loudspeaker began directing his attention at the converted army barracks: "Greetings of solidarity" he proclaimed, "what are kids doing in a detention centre? What crime have they committed?"

Simon from Manchester was nodding in agreement. "I've come to add an extra number in solidarity with victims of politics and economics - those at the bottom of the pile".

Tabloid-inspired stories about "scrounging" asylum-seekers and the political climate this has helped create have been seen as damaging to the UK's reputation as a safe-haven for victims of persecuction - the United Nations (UN) is currently investigating whether the controversial 'voucher' scheme (which gives asylum-seekers vouchers instead of cash) is contravening international law.

So, what kind of obligation does the UK have to asylum-seekers and what would happen if we had no immigration controls? A member of the campaigning group CAGE explained that the myth of "floods" of immigrants has been successfully developed through the media - according to the UN, she explained, the European Union needs an additional one and a half million people of working age every year to stop its own ageing population from being unsustainably reliant on younger workers. "Anyway, that's only part of it - the UK is selling a lot of arms; we're backing regimes like Turkey and we're embargoing medicines to Iraq ... we're helping create asylum-seekers ourselves and then we're turning our backs".