Emergency Demo // Solidarity with Yarl’s Wood hunger strikers

SOLIDARITY PROTEST TO MARK A WHOLE MONTH SINCE PEOPLE INSIDE YARLS WOOD BEGAN THE HUNGER STRIKE

Demands and statements from the hunger strikers are being published on the Detained Voices website, http://www.detainedvoices.com.

Here are a number of ways those of us on the outside can support the protests:

1. Share this & be there on Wednesday

2. Send ANOTHER letter to you MP outlining what the strikers are calling for, using the template here (but change it to the fact people have been on strike for a month now!) & ask your MP to request that the Home Affairs Select Committee meet with the hunger strikes asap : bit.ly/2CKfe3o
More details here https://soasdetaineesupport.wordpress.com/
Use https://www.writetothem.com/ as it’s super quick & free.

3. Tweet Solidarity photos – tweet, retweet and share photos holding signs of support for Yarl’s Wood strikers, and share using hashtag #HUNGERFORFREEDOM

4. Sign the petition, which lists the demands of the #HungerForFreedom Yarl’s Wood strikers, and share with your contacts: bit.ly/2HKfxiy

5. Donate to soas detainee support https://soasdetaineesupport.wordpress.com/help-sds/

What’s been happening so far…
Since Wednesday 21 Feb, 120 people in Yarls Wood, an immigration detention centre in Bedfordshire (which holds mainly but not only women) started a 3-day hunger strike. It has gathered momentum and has escalated into work strikes, occupations, and a refusal to co-operate with the mechanisms of detention from the inside. ???

More about detention centres
Over 30,000 people are locked up in prison like conditions every year with no time limit on how long they can be held. They have committed no crime and are left waiting in limbo for the outcome of an immigration or asylum claim. The majority of people are eventually released but many never recover from the trauma. This inhumane racist prisons cost the UK taxpayer £125 million every year. Most are run by private companies such as G4S and Serco who profit from keeping as many people as possible locked up. Immigration detention is a wholly unnecessary, unjustifiable practice,one of the most harmful aspects of the ”hostile environment” for migrants and a shameful civil rights abuse than cannot be ignored. Join the campaign to shut down Yarls Wood & all detention centres!