ID :
156914
Wed, 01/12/2011 - 14:45
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http://m.oananews.org//node/156914
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UK violated rights of immigrant families, court rules
London, Jan 12, IRNA – The UK government’s detention of two asylum-seeker families breached their fundamental rights, the High Court in London ruled Tuesday.
The young families of Reetha Suppiah from Malaysia and Sakinat Bello from Nigeria were held at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedforshire, north of London, unnecessarily and in a manner that took inadequate account of child welfare, the court said.
In a judgment critical of the UK Border Agency?s approach, the judge, Mr Justice Wyn Williams, found that the immigrants’ rights to liberty, security of the person and to home and family life were violated.
The two families were arrested by UK Border Agency officers in dawn raids in February last year, when the parents with their children aged between 1 and 11, were loaded into vans with meshed windows and driven to the detention centre.
Reetha’s family were detained for 17 days and Sakinat’s for 12 days despite the fact that both reported regularly to the immigration authorities prior to their arrest.
According to their solicitors, Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), all of the children became sick, suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting upon their arrival.
The judge considered that not only were the decisions to detain these families unlawful, but the failures to release them at an earlier stage also breached their human rights.
Phil Shiner of PIL said that he hoped that the Home Office will learn difficult lessons from the inadequacies exposed in this case, and that the coalition government will end child detention without further procrastination.
“These women have courageously fought on behalf of all those who have suffered unnecessary and damaging detention due to the “tick-box? manner in which UKBA has been allowed, until now, to lock families up,” Shiner said.
Yarl's Wood opened in 2001 as the largest immigration detention centre in Europe holding up to 900 people, but since it has been dogged by controversy, with hunger strikes, riots and fires./end
The young families of Reetha Suppiah from Malaysia and Sakinat Bello from Nigeria were held at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedforshire, north of London, unnecessarily and in a manner that took inadequate account of child welfare, the court said.
In a judgment critical of the UK Border Agency?s approach, the judge, Mr Justice Wyn Williams, found that the immigrants’ rights to liberty, security of the person and to home and family life were violated.
The two families were arrested by UK Border Agency officers in dawn raids in February last year, when the parents with their children aged between 1 and 11, were loaded into vans with meshed windows and driven to the detention centre.
Reetha’s family were detained for 17 days and Sakinat’s for 12 days despite the fact that both reported regularly to the immigration authorities prior to their arrest.
According to their solicitors, Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), all of the children became sick, suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting upon their arrival.
The judge considered that not only were the decisions to detain these families unlawful, but the failures to release them at an earlier stage also breached their human rights.
Phil Shiner of PIL said that he hoped that the Home Office will learn difficult lessons from the inadequacies exposed in this case, and that the coalition government will end child detention without further procrastination.
“These women have courageously fought on behalf of all those who have suffered unnecessary and damaging detention due to the “tick-box? manner in which UKBA has been allowed, until now, to lock families up,” Shiner said.
Yarl's Wood opened in 2001 as the largest immigration detention centre in Europe holding up to 900 people, but since it has been dogged by controversy, with hunger strikes, riots and fires./end
