Solidarity from outsiders is a source of strength
The website Detained Voices was set up in 2015 to allow these stories to be shared. Presenting first-hand accounts of people living in immigration detention, it has become one of the only forums to publish their words unedited, making it a vital source of solidarity. On the outside, numerous groups and movements since the 1990s have campaigned for detention closures and reforms, including Freedom from Torture, Asylum Matters, One Strong Voice and Survivors Speak Out.
So far, campaigners have not been able to close detention centres. Since 1993 the Campaign to Close Campsfield has held monthly demonstrations at the Oxfordshire centre. Members say the campaign came close to succeeding in its first few years; it also helped win the acquittal of nine West African prisoners accused of rioting in 1997.
However, they have been successful in keeping some centres closed and preventing new sites to open. In 2017, the Stop Detention Scotland campaign stopped the opening of a new ‘short term holding facility’ at Glasgow airport. Although there was an unintended consequence: the government kept Dungavel, in South Lanarkshire, open instead. One campaigner involved told Corporate Watch:
“We did extensive research, consulted with the councillors who were to make the decision, created petitions and had the public submit hundreds of letters of objection to the planning committee. We went door to door around the community generating local resistance to the proposal and held protests at the council meeting and in Glasgow. The plan was unanimously rejected by the council and the Scottish National Party pledged that there would be no more detention centres in Scotland.”
Corporate Watch has said: “We believe that solidarity campaigns from outside have given considerable strength to people inside, empowering both their personal and collective struggles. We know how much detention managers hate solidarity demos, because they fear how prisoners become fired up by feeling passionate support from without. And there are untold statements from prisoners themselves testifying to the power of solidarity across the walls.”
