Bail for Immigration Detainees invites you to attend 'Immigration detention and the right to liberty: pressing concerns for 2010'

and BID Annual General Meeting

Tuesday 26 January 2010 at 6:30pm

At: Amnesty International UK

The Human Rights Action Centre

17-25 New Inn Yard

London

EC2A 3EA

Speakers:
Hindpal Singh Bhui, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons
Simon Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey
John Vine CBE,  Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency
Final speaker - tbc

Nearly 30,000 people every year experience immigration detention in the UK - men, women and children. Detained for the administrative convenience of the government, they are held without automatic judicial oversight and without time limit. Because they are detained behind barbed wire, most of the British public knows nothing of their incarceration in the name of immigration control.

The government has pledged to increase detention capacity by 60% and celebrates the increased use of detention as a measure of its 'tough' stance on immigration. Those who have experienced immigration detention tell a different story.  Of trauma, hurt, despair and fear caused not overseas in countries of war or persecution, but in the UK as the result of a deliberate government policy. Their stories, and BID's own experience, are at odds with the often dehumanising description of immigration detainees put out in the popular press and in government rhetoric.

What is the impact of detention on those who are forced to experience it? What are the pressing issues in 2010 for those concerned by the increasing use of immigration detention and the erosion of the right to liberty?

These and other questions will be discussed at BID's 2010 AGM.  Hindpal Singh Bhui will give his views as HMIP's immigration detention team leader; Simon Hughes MP will talk about his experience supporting constituents affected by immigration detention; John Vine CBE will speak from his perspective as UKBA's Chief Inspector; and a further speaker will give their first-hand experience of immigration detention.

Programme:

The venue is close to Old Street and Liverpool Street stations and is wheelchair accessible. Travel expenses payable for unwaged asylum seekers or migrants by prior arrangement -please contact Kamal on 020 7650 0722 to discuss.

Please confirm your wish to attend by emailing [log in to unmask]" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask] as we will allocate seats, with priority given to members, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Bail for Immigration Detainees

www.biduk.org

I've signed up to the OutCry! campaign to end immigration detention of

 children www.outcrycampaign.org.uk