Balliol JCR notes that 1. In Britain, refugees are held in detention for an ‘unlimited period’, sometimes over a year but frequently longer than 6 months while their ‘refugee’ status is considered – they are not informed as to how long they will be detained. 2. The conditions in these ‘detention centres’ are akin to prisons, with denial of normal freedoms such as restricted television viewing, reading, recreation time, visiting hours, contact with visitors (e.g. husbands and wives holding hands is forbidden, or even to sit close to one another) and restricted periods of physical activity outside the jail. 3. The detainees are not given an allowance of any sort while their status is considered; hence they are unable to send letters home, make phone calls home, smoke, purchase ‘little luxuries’. 4. The detainees are not offered legal advice while in detention nor is it ever officially explained to them why they have been put inside. 5. Frequently, basic religious beliefs are denied – for example, in Campsfield Detention Centre, security guards refused to remove their shoes in the room which had finally been set aside as a prayer room; food frequently contains pork or beef; male security guards had been used to police female areas. Balliol JCR believes that 1. Unlimited detention of asylum seekers is wrong. 2. The process of assessment of refugee status needs to be faster and fairer. 3. Refugees should only be held as a last resort, and then only in reasonable non-prison like conditions while their status is being examined. 4. The people who are responsible for them whilst their status is being examined should receive training in refugee issues – many refugees, for example, may have particular religious or cultural needs, or may be frightened of people in uniform and need particularly sensitive handling and easy access to medical facilities. 5. The current Immigration Act will not make things “fairer, faster, firmer” but merely re-enforce the cultural stereotype that refugees are criminals and scavengers for money. (due for renewal AGM 2006) Balliol JCR believes that refugees are not criminals and Britain should do everything in its power at national and local levels to make the assessment process fairer and faster and to make our society a welcoming environment for those who have suffered discrimination and/or torture on account of their beliefs.
