Double documentary screening explores asylum in the UK

Trailer for Hamedullah: The Road Home

An anti-deportation campaign group is hosting a documentary screening on detention and deportation in the light of recent news that G4S security guards will not face charges for the death of Angolan refugee Jimmy Mubenga, who collapsed while being escorted on a flight from Heathrow airport in London.

The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCDAC), who will host the free event this Tuesday 24 July at 93 Feet East on Brick Lane in East London, laments the decision not to bring a charge of corporate manslaughter on the private security firm and believes that accountability for the insitutionalised abuse of those seeking sanctuary in the UK seems further away than ever.

Lisa Matthews of NCDAC said, “This incident is just one of many examples of the detention and deportation machines being used to silence the voice of migrants, divide communities and try and make us forget that asylum seekers and other migrants are individuals with human stories to tell.”

Outside an Immigration Removal Centre

NCDAC will screen two documentaries; Hamedullah: The Road Home and How Long is Indefinite?, which both claim to highlight injustices of the asylum and immigration systems. The screenings will be followed by a panel discussion with the directors of the documentaries, young people from Afghanistan, ex-detainees, Lisa Matthews of NCDAC and Kate Blagojevic of Detention Action.

Hamedullah: The Road Home, which won Best Short Documentary at the London Independent Film Festival, tells the story of a young Afghan who claims asylum in the UK, and his struggle to cope after being deported on a 'ghost' charter flight back to Afghanistan.

UK film director and screenwriter Sue Clayton filmed Hamedullah and his friends up to the day he was deported. Clayton gave Hamedullah a small video camera when he was deported, hoping to find out whether he would survive in Afghanistan.

Hamedullah in Afghanistan

Clayton has made over 20 award-winning films for BBC and Channel 4, including The Disappearance of Finbar with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. “A lot of my films are about people who go on journeys, and what people are looking for in their lives and how they change. Are they running to something or from something and who do they become when they go on a journey?

“I thought about these unaccompanied children; who do they grow up to be, do they feel Afghan, do they feel British? So my real inspiration wasn’t even the political side at first, it was more about how you put your identity together every morning, what makes you you, is it your friends, your music, do you really cling onto your family and your past or do you have to let that go? So it was a sort of emotional interest in how they keep themselves going, because a lot of them are very positive, so how do they face each day with all that difficulty behind them?”

How Long is Indefinite?, directed and produced by Alexis L Wood, claims to be the first documentary to expose detention without a time limit being exercised on thousands of immigrants in Britain every day.

Reconstruction of a detention centre from How Long Is Indefinite?

The film follows the lives of three people caught in immigration limbo and detained for almost four years between them. They cannot be removed from the UK, yet they remain detained in prison at an average cost of £40,150 each, per year to the taxpayer.

Wood, assistant producer at DocHouse in London, said she made this documentary because she wanted to represent the main issues leading to detainees caught in detention limbo.

Aissata, one of the characters in How Long Is Indefinite?

“I made a film for people to actually see the faces, the families and the lives of people detained which is so easy to forget when we are given statistics of people removed, told that they are illegal and without rights. In fact the case is not so simple and many are never removed from the country but held in detention indefinitely.

“The longest case we know about is someone being detained for 8 years. Many are held for several years wondering each day if they will ever be released or be removed to a regime in which they fear for their lives. I want my film to make people empathise with the people in this situation and realise that it is happening to thousands of people every day.” 

City of Sanctuary fears for welfare of asylum seekers as housing contract is awarded to private security firm

Protests outside the UK Border Agency HQ in Sheffield after G4S won contracts to house asylum seekers. Photograph: South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group

Since the Chileans arrived in the seventies, the Kenyans in the eighties and the Kosovans in the nineties, Sheffield has developed a long tradition of offering sanctuary to those seeking asylum from war and persecution in their own countries.

The Sheffield council has played a large role in offering accommodation and support to these new arrivals. They have established an asylum team to deal with accommodation and a drop-in centre to offer advice. They have also set up a multi-agency forum representing the various organisations and charities that support asylum seekers and refugees in the city.

In 2007, with the support of the council, Sheffield became the UK’s first ‘City of Sanctuary’ for asylum-seekers and refugees. City of Sanctuary is a movement to build a culture of welcome and hospitality for refugees and asylum-seekers. There are now more than fifty City of Sanctuary groups all over the country.

Change for the worse

However, many asylum seekers and voluntary sector organisations in Sheffield are worried that this is all about to change. From May 2012 the private security firm G4S will take over the housing contract from Sheffield City Council. In a bid to cut costs the UK Border Agency (UKBA) will give £203m to G4S to house asylum seekers across Britain. 

Myra Davies, founder of Asylum Seeker Support Initiative (ASSIST) said, “ASSIST and the Sheffield council have built up organically as a network in which people co-operate for the well being of asylum seekers. What we fear with G4S coming in is that all the mutual respect and understanding we have built up is going to be wiped out.”

Under its new procurement arm, COMPASS, the UKBA have reduced the number of prime suppliers of asylum services from ten to three. G4S and the two other multinational security companies SERCO and Reliance already provide immigration, detention and removal services to UKBA.

These three companies have now won a total of £620m worth of contracts to provide housing for 18,108 people in asylum accommodation. The Home Office claims this will save £150m over the seven years of the contract.

Accused of brutality

This cost cutting venture has been met with widespread opposition from unions, charities and organisations working with asylum seekers and refugees. Campaigners highlight the unsavoury track record of G4S who have been criticised over their treatment of asylum seekers.

On 6^th October 2010, Jose Guttierezz, a Columbian deportee was badly injured and had to receive hospital treatment after being forced on to an aircraft by G4S. In that same month Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan asylum seeker, died as a result of his forced deportation by G4S prison guards. Three guards are facing criminal charges and G4S lost their contract to escort deportees after the killing of Mubenga.

Campaign organisations like South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG) fear that asylum seekers will be subject to further abuse and negligence and that the UKBA is deliberately intimidating asylum seekers by threatening to install prison guard companies as their managing landlords.

Stuart Crosswaite from SYMAAG said, “I don’t think we should be cooperating with these people, I think we should be putting all our resources into monitoring exactly what they are doing and challenging them about the rights of the children they are going to be moving and the housing that will be sub-standard.”

Myra Davies believes that G4S have a profile that is totally terrifying to asylum seekers. “G4S will not have the same sort of brief that the council has had for the well being of people, they have a brief for the profit margins of their company, for making asylum seekers accept poor accommodation because it will be cheaper. They have also got responsibility for removing asylum seekers, so overall G4S is not someone who will want to listen to humanitarian concerns.”

Lowering of standards

But Stephen Small, the Managing Director of UK Immigration and Borders at G4S, said: “We take the welfare of all people who receive our services extremely seriously. We will use housing assessment specialists to drive up the standard of housing provided and employ dedicated social cohesion experts to work with local authorities, migrant support groups, and health and education bodies.”

However, Jim Steinke, chief executive of the Northern Refugee Centre, believes that housing standards will lower once G4S are in control. He is concerned that the loss of local authority influence will destroy the strong relationships that have been built up between the councils, asylum seekers and voluntary sector organisations.

“The level of service has been better in Yorkshire than in other regions and this is why the campaign against G4S has been so acute; the campaign is not only against G4S but also the potential lowering of standards,” said Jim Steinke.

Councils are cornered

Stuart Crosswaite from SYMAAG said, “Sheffield council has a tradition of being humanitarian and we’ve got a pretty good relationship with them. We have spoken to them about G4S and in the end they gave in and agreed that it would be really bad if housing was privatised. The problem is that they said they have to work with these people, so they have to keep a good relationship with them.

“I suspect there will be a lot of unofficial support from the council and a lot of official silence. I hope there will be official support as well because if you allow housing standards to lower for one group it pulls down the level for everyone else. We want to appeal to them on humanitarian grounds to get involved.”

Sheffield Councilor Mick Rooney, responsible for asylum, immigration and migration said, “As a Cabinet Member I will enter into a working relationship with G4S without prejudice. I cannot and will not allow their past record to colour my relationship.”

However, when asked about how this will affect asylum seekers he said, “I believe the COMPASS procurement process showed that this was a cost cutting exercise. Will it benefit asylum seekers and refugees? That remains to be seen.”