Shut Down Yarl’s Wooden – Yarl’s Wooden Immigration jail, close to Bedford
Saturday eighth August 2015 noticed a big protest outdoors the immigration jail at Yarl’s Wooden the place asylum seekers are locked up indefinitely by our racist immigration system with out trial, a jail run for revenue by a personal firm the place detainees are subjected to abuse and sexual harassment.
Yarl’s Wooden was used to detain ladies, lots of whom had fled abuse and violence in their very own nations solely to reach on this nation and be locked up and additional abused right here. The detention centre is in a distant location in a enterprise park on a former wartime airfield round 5 miles from Bedford.
The protest was one in all an extended sequence organised by Motion for Justice, however was supported by a lot of different teams, significantly many ladies’s teams together with Sisters Uncut. In my put up on My London Diary I listed 25 of them, however there have been others too. This was solely the second protest they’d organised at Yarls Wooden, but it surely got here after a sequence I’d photographed on the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres.
MfJ is a small Trotskyist group which has been some of the lively UK teams organising towards racism and for civil rights within the UK because it was fashioned by college students in North London in 1995. This protest got here a few years earlier than a bitter dispute led many different teams to finish cooperation with them, however MfJ proceed their lively position, particularly in opposition to deportation constitution flights and the shameful Rwanda plan.
The principle entrance to the detention centre is on a personal highway which is gated far from the centre. The coaches bringing individuals from throughout the nation, and me and others from Bedford Station have been parked in an extended line along side a public highway round a mile to the north, near the locked entrance to the enterprise park. The protest started on an space of grass right here as we waited for everybody to reach, and there have been speeches and far chanting and dancing.
Lastly the protest started its march, setting off round 300 metres alongside the highway to a bridleway which finally after round a mile of strolling led to a hilly subject beside the 20ft excessive fence across the jail. The decrease 10ft of that is strong metallic sheeting, however the higher 10ft a sturdy metallic gauze, and from the hill we may see ladies at most of the home windows waving to greet the protesters. These held inside really feel remoted and forgotten, although there are a number of jail guests and they’re allowed some cellphone contact with solicitors and others to pursue their asylum circumstances.
Protesters made an important noise, kicking and banging on the metallic sheeting of the fence in addition to shouting, and had introduced a sound system in order that they may communicate to the ladies outdoors. They have been additionally in a position to make cellphone contact with a few of them and amplify their voices too.
The home windows of the centre solely open a few inches, however some have been in a position to squeeze their arms via the hole and wave cloths or articles of clothes, whereas others held up messages to the glass. One fastidiously drawn one learn ‘We Need Freedom – No Human Is Unlawful – Shut Yarls Wooden’ whereas one other merely learn ‘Assist’. Others wrote their cellular numbers giant sufficient to be learn by the protesters to contact them.
A gaggle of individuals sporting face masks started to jot down slogans on the fence, and shortly an extended size of it was lined with them ‘No Borders’, ‘No One is Unlawful’ ‘#SetHerFree’, ‘Shut it Down’, ‘Gaza 2 Yarls Wooden Destroy Apartheid Partitions’, ‘Racist Partitions’ and extra.
The audio system on the hill dealing with the jail included a number of who had been held inside Yarls Wooden and will see ladies inside they knew, and others who had been in different detention centres. Most people who find themselves held on this approach are lastly launched and allowed to remain within the UK – generally after a number of years of imprisonment – and their appears no justification for locking them up on this approach.
Right here’s the ultimate paragraph I wrote again in 2015:
Too quickly we needed to go away. They usually needed to keep. As I walked away to catch the coach again to Bedford station I felt ashamed on the approach that my nation treats asylum seekers. They deserve help and humanity and get handled worse than criminals.
Extra on My London Diary: Shut Down Yarl’s Wooden
Tags: abuse, asylum, asylum seekers, Bedford, civil rights, shut Yarls Wooden, detention centres, feminists, freedom, G4S, House Workplace, hostile surroundings, human rights, immigration, immigration detention, immigration jail, institutional racism, LGBT activists, MfJ, Motion for Justice, no human is against the law, peter Marshall, jail, protest, racist immigration system, Serco, sexual harassment, Shut them Down, Sisters Uncut, state violence, ladies, Yarls Wooden
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