Comment by Margaret Lally, Refugee Council Deputy Chief Executive on the use of prisons for the detention of asylum seekers - Refugee Council
August 10, 2001

Comment by Margaret Lally, Refugee Council Deputy Chief Executive on the use of prisons for the detention of asylum seekers

Refugee Council press release

“We call on the Government to bring an immediate end to the grossly unjust practice of detaining asylum seekers in prisons. They are being forced into prison regimes when they have neither committed or even been accused of a crime. Often locked up for 23 hours a day, they are not given written reasons for their detention and are not told the length of time they will have to spend in prison. Many of the practices such as handcuffing in public and denial of free association or fresh air are both inhumane and degrading to people who have fled unjust imprisonment, torture and persecution.”

ENDS