HUNDREDS of protesters are expected to rally at UK immigration detention centres in a bid to protest the Government’s “unprecedentedly racist and deliberately punishing” Rwanda scheme.
The demonstrations are in protest to the Home Office’s plan to send asylum seekers who they deem to have entered the UK illegally to Rwanda while their claims are “processed”.
The demonstrations - called by SOAS Detainee Support (SDS) and the Solidarity Knows No Borders Network and supported by Global Justice Now - will take place at immigration detention centres across the UK, including Brook House IRC and Colnbrook IRC, where protests were held hours before the grounding of the scheme’s first planned flight.
The protests at Brook House IRC and Colnbrook IRC will begin at 3pm on Saturday.
Other demonstration sites include Hassockfield, Manchester airport, and the former Campsfield IRC site which may be reopened for use for the Rwanda plan.
And on Sunday, migrants' rights groups and allies from across Scotland will protest at Dungavel House Removal Centre in South Lanarkshire.
The UK Government has already hit major roadblocks in implementing the scheme as a last-minute intervention from the European Court of Human Rights grounded the first flight of the scheme last month.
However, the Government has expressed its intention to push ahead with the controversial plan.
A judicial review of the scheme, brought by several individual asylum seekers as well as the PCS Union, Detention Action and Care4Calais, was originally scheduled to take place between July 19 and 21 in the High Court but the hearing has now been adjourned to September.
A detainee who has been given removal notice to Rwanda said: “They tell me I must go to Rwanda. Believe me, if I thought Rwanda was a safe option I would have gone there. And if I thought I would be safe in my country I would go back there in an instant.”
Talia U, lead organiser with Global Justice Stirling, said: “The Rwanda plan is another appalling piece of legislation that highlights the racist, colonial past of the UK. Forcing people fleeing dire situations to then be held in captivity, to then be shipped off like cattle to another country, should be unfathomable. We stand against the government's deplorable plan and in solidarity with refugees.
“The Government's latest decision to postpone flights till after leadership elections shows they are aware of the controversy they’ve created. We will keep mobilising to put shame on the Tory government, now until September when innocent people's fates will again be debated in court. Together we demand an immigration system where people can exercise their human right to seek asylum freely without being penalised for it.”
Pinar Aksu, human rights campaigner at the Maryhill Integration Network said: "We have had enough. The Rwanda sham is the latest cruel expansion of the Nationality and Borders Act. Sending people to Offshore processing centres should not be an option. It will create a system based on division and criminalise people. We need a compassionate, fair and just system based on human rights and international protection. People belong in communities, not in detention centres and detention-like conditions.”
