Challenge to Britain's racist immigration laws
By Paul Clarke
Thirty-five thousand people marched through London on March 19 to oppose racism and fascism. The demonstration, organised by the Trades Union Congress, reflected concern at the growth of the fascist British National Party and increasing repression against asylum seekers and "illegal" immigrants.
A wave of hunger strikes has swept Britain's special prisons for "illegal" immigrants since February 15. The strikes are a response to a new government clampdown which detained 600 people in January under Britain's notoriously racist 1992 Immigration Act.
Led by 30 Algerians in several different prisons, the strikes have been joined by prisoners of various nationalities. Their complaints centre on the unlimited powers of detention which immigration officers have over asylum seekers and alleged illegal immigrants.
In an attempt to head off more trouble, 14 Algerians have now been released.
The hunger strikes come in the wake of the opening of a new 220-place detention centre on November 29 at Campsfield, just outside Oxford.
Warnings by local anti-racist campaigners that the opening of the centre signalled a new clampdown were confirmed when, on December 23, 179 young Jamaicans were detained at Heathrow airport and taken to Campsfield. They were accused of having the "intention" to overstay their visas.
The 179 were on the same flight, visiting Britain to stay with relatives over Christmas. All but 10 were eventually deported.
Bill MacKeith, president of the Oxford Trades Union Council and a leader of the "Close Campsfield" campaign, told Green Left: "In any one year more than 1000 people, especially from Africa and the Indian subcontinent, are held without trial in Britain's detention camps. They have no idea how long they will be imprisoned or whether they will be deported.
"Britain's immigration policy is patently racist. In Campsfield they have even installed compasses, so that Muslims will know the direction of Mecca — a sure sign of who they expect to imprison there."