Refugees demonstrate at North Shields Immigration Reporting Centre

TCAR has been holding pickets of North Shields reporting centre since February, providing solidarity to those going to sign and to protest against deportation. Reporting centres are places of fear for asylum seekers as you are never sure if you will come back out or if you will be detained and deported. Many asylum seekers are detained when going to sign on at the Reporting Centre at North Shields. Others are detained by immigration ‘snatch squads’ which operate out of the centre.

Asylum seekers are forced to sign like criminals even when they are homeless and have no money to travel miles to the reporting centre. Now new rules are coming in which will force asylum seekers to report by phone as well as by foot. Others have been tagged like animals to make sure they don't escape inhumane treatment.

During 2005 over 2000 children, including babies, were detained in immigration detention centres around Britain . Their only ‘crime’ was to seek asylum in Britain from violence and persecution in their home countries. The British government’s use of detention for children and families is in contravention of international human rights standards.

In the past local police have harrassed protesters, threatening to arrest them for not providing their names and preventing activists from collecting funds to support asylum seekers in Newcastle. On this demonstration the police were obviously taken aback by the size of the protest and didn't dare to come near. Instead the press contact received a call on her mobile and the police officer tried to gather information by phone. When demonstrators demanded to speak to the centre manager we were told that nobody was in charge.

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