No To Hassockfield campaigners will stand in solidarity with all people seeking refuge in the UK on World Refugee Day Saturday 20 June. During the protest they will hear the voices of women with lived experience of detention inside of Derwentside IRC.
Refugee Week
This year, Refugee Week honours the theme of courage. Meanwhile, Pride Month celebrates identity, community, and the ongoing fight for equality. We must acknowledge the recent racist violence targeting migrants and racialised communities that has left survivors fearful for their own safety, and the increase of homophobia and transphobia fuelled largely by politicians. Refugees and asylum seekers from the LGBTQ+ community therefore face particular challenges, often seeking sanctuary due to restrictive laws in their home countries which put their lives at risk.
Saturday’s human rights protest will be part of a series of actions across the country. Break Up The Border is a national weekend of solidarity and resistance against growing hostile borders. It’s taking place on 20-21 June, in Belfast, Bristol, Brighton, London, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and at Derwentside IRC, County Durham.
Women’s voices
Agnes Tonah, a long-term campaigner for the closure of Derwentside IRC, said:
“I followed every rule as an asylum seeker – I was still detained. I was put in the back of a van and driven for around six hours to an airport, where I was told I’d be deported.
“It’s difficult to describe the stress of that journey – the terror of thinking I was about to be sent back to a country I’d fled; a country I loved, but where I’d surely be put in prison, or killed, if I was to return.
“In 2012, when I was 55, I was detained in Yarls Wood for three months – during which time I was taken to the airport to be deported three times before being brought right back to Yarls Wood again: A place I equate, in every way, with a prison.
“I wouldn’t wish a detention centre on anyone, let alone on people who are forced to come to the UK because they have no other choice. I now campaign against detention and I’ll never stop.”
Mary (name changed), who was detained at Derwentside IRC said:
“Because of my husband’s political activities, I was sexually assaulted in my country. The men who did this were police officers, security agency officers. I had not been politically active before this, but my experience made me become an activist and this put my life in danger.
“When I arrived in this country to seek sanctuary, I was asked if I wanted to claim asylum. I was asked what evidence I had. What sort of evidence do I produce to prove what happened to me in that environment?
“Initially, I reported annually and then three-monthly and then every month. I arrived one month and they asked me to sit in a different room. I kept asking, ‘Do I need to call my solicitor’, ‘Are you going to detain me’? They kept saying no we’re just questioning you, and then they put me in a different room, and I knew they were going to detain me. I remember crying and saying I am not a criminal. They took my phone, they took my bag, I had no control of myself or my life, which took me back to the day I was attacked.
“Two men took me in a small van. I told them I suffer from claustrophobia and told them I didn’t do well in small spaces. It was a long, long journey, I didn’t know where I was going. When I arrived at the centre all I could see were these huge gates, huge walls and the van drove into the centre and they ‘processed me’. I felt like a criminal, all I could ask myself is ‘What crime have I committed? I came to seek safety, and this is the way I am treated.”
