Republican News · Thursday 26 June 2003

Maghaberry asylum seekers begin hunger strike

Asylum seekers who are being held in Maghaberry prison are so desperate to draw attention to their plight that they are going on hunger strike.

Algerian asylum seeker being held in the prison is ending his first week without food in protest at the delay in processing his case. He is the second detainee to refuse food at the jail, where asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are being held while their applications for refugee status are being processed.

The Algerian man, who is in his twenties, has no family or relatives in the North and is understood to have been held in the prison for the past two months.

Amnesty International's Six-County programme director, Patrick Corrigan, said the Algerian man had started his hunger strike on the morning of Tuesday, 17 June.

"This is a desperate action by a desperate man," he said. "All he wants is a decision on his future. It's so bad that he would nearly prefer being returned to Algeria to the interminable stay in Maghaberry."

Lawyers acting for another detainee - a man from Ghana - have had to issue a writ of habeas corpus to see their client after they were prevented from meeting him on two separate occasions this past week. The man is understood to be receiving treatment in the prison hospital.

Ritchie MacRitchie, a solicitor at Madden and Finucane who is acting on behalf of the Ghanaian man, said he had been forced to apply for a judicial review and for habeas corpus proceedings after he was unable to see his client.

"I have not yet been able to discuss this matter with my client in person to determine if he is in lawful custody, " he said. "The refusal of the prison service to permit a legal visit leaves us with no choice but to aske the court to determine the matter."

At present, eight asylum seekers are being held in the prison, including a Nigerian man in his forties who had to be treated in the City hospital in Belfast after he went on hunger strike two weeks ago. The detainees are being held on the same wing as unionist paramiltary Johnny Adair at a cost of £75,000 a year each.

"Clearly the government should seek alternatives to holding these people in prison," Corrigan says. "They could live in hostels or be allowed to live in the community but report to the police regularly."

Campaign groups have branded the policy of holding asylum seekers behind bars as a breach of human rights, but a British Home Office official insisted there were not enough detainees in the North to warrant any change to the current arrangements.

The spokesperson added that the Home Office was obliged to hold asylum seekers in custody and that it has no plans to stop holding them in Maghaberry.

"There are not sufficient numbers of asylum seekers detained in Northern Ireland to warrant a separate facility," said the spokesperson. "Everyone detained at Maghaberry is offered the option of being transferred to a purpose-built centre in Britain. They would then be in the same position as anyone else seeking asylum in the United Kingdom."

But Patrick Corrigan rejected the Home Office's defence of its policy.

"For most of the people seeking asylum here it's not really a viable option to be brought to holding centres in Britain. They seek asylum in the North for a reason. Maybe they have support networks here or friends, but they come here instead of going to Britain."