Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

4 RESISTANCE
RESISTANCE IN BRITAIN
The protests and hunger strikes by detainees themselves at Campsfield and
other refugee prisons have done more than anything else to draw attention
to the plight of refugees and other migrants. They have received a good deal
of media coverage, some of it sympathetic, and attracted support from
campaigners and other members of the public. Those who are locked up
inside prisons and detention centres are driven to desperation, and, although
they demonstrate great courage, perhaps feel they have little to lose by
protesting. On the other hand refugees who are outside, on temporary
admission and waiting for the results of their claims, and even those who
have been granted refugee status, are hesitant about engaging in protest and
demonstrations and any form of public activity which might land them back
in detention or, they fear, damage their cases and make deportation more
likely. An Algerian released after his hunger strike at Campsfield in early
1994 was detained again after he was interviewed on television at a demonstration
outside Campsfield; the same fate befell a Ghanaian who spoke on
television. The document granting refugee status states that the refugee may
be deported ‘if during your stay in the United Kingdom you take part in
activities involving for example the support or encouragement of violence
or the conspiracy to cause violence, whether in the United Kingdom or
abroad, so as to endanger national security or public order’. In addition
refugees may be reluctant to draw the attention of the authorities in their
own countries to themselves in case they are later deported.
There are some exceptions to this reticence, among both individuals and
groups. The Algerian who was falsely accused of setting fire to a toilet and
removed to Winson Green (see p. 126) has been determined to publicise his
treatment and not to let Group 4 get away with it. Some of the Campsfield
Nine have been willing to speak publicly at meetings and to come to demonstrations.
The Onibiyo family conducted a sustained public campaign to save
Abdul and his son Ade from deportation; although Abdul was deported to
Nigeria and imprisoned and tortured, he eventually escaped and won refugee
status after more campaigning, and in spite of the Onibiyo family’s frequently
stated belief that Straw and O’Brien reneged on pre-election promises they
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