Following the screening of the BBC programme ‘Asylum Undercover’ which exposed the abuse of immigration detainees, around 50 demonstrators including refugees from many different countries, gathered at Dallas Court Reporting Centre in Salford to demand justice for asylum seekers and an end to arbitrary detention and deportation.
The Home Offices answer to the abuse seen on the BBC programme is to call yet another public inquiry concerning GSL (Group 4) which has taken over the contract from Wackenhut. This is the third enquiry into this company. The last inquiry into allegations of abuse at Yarls Wood concluded that most of the incidents exposed by an undercover journalist did happen, and yet GSL retained all its contracts to run Removal Centres. A contract to build and manage an accommodation centre for refugees was awarded to them only thirty days after the publication of the results of the inquiry.
Dallas Court is effectively a ‘point of disappearance’ for some, into detention and eventual deportation to potentially unsafe countries. Each time an refugee reports to Dallas Court, they fear being snatched, detained and deported.
Full report | Press Release for Dallas Court Demo | Anti-Detention Center Filmscreening and Talk