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hands holding sign saying solidarity with the hunger strikers

4 actions you can take to support the Yarl’s Wood strikers

On Wednesday 21st of February a large group of women and men held in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre organised a coordinated 3-day hunger strike. The demands have been posted on the Detained Voices website. This post first appeared on the SOAS Detainee Support website. The demands of the strikers include: Amnesty for those who have lived in the UK 10 years and above End indefinite detention – Detention periods shouldn’t be longer than 28… Read more »

Yarl’s Wood women protest

Around 100 women in Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre are protesting at their continuing incarceration. Their demands are listed below. The protest coincided with a visit to the notorious centre by Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abboot MP. You can read a report of that visit at the Guardian here. For up to date info and news, follow @detainedvoices on Twitter and check the website. 1. Shorter bail request periods Legally it should 3-5 days, however… Read more »

charity pot lids

Your chance to support the campaign AND treat that special someone! ❤

This weekend (9th-11th Feb), Right to Remain will be at Lush Oxford Street raising money for the These Walls Must Fall campaign! In the run up to Valentine’s Day, we will be in the largest Lush Shop in the world explaining our work and selling special edition Hand & Body Moisturiser Charity Pots. A key aspect of These Walls Must Fall is having migrants impacted by detention to be front and centre of campaigning. These… Read more »

take action

Manchester action

Back where it all began… In November 2016, These Walls Must Fall hosted their first open meetings at Cross Street Chapel, to discuss, plan and start building a new kind of local campaign against detention in Greater Manchester. This was just over a year ago, and under the shadow of the detention local activist Dianne Ngoza*, people discussed the open-source, decentralised, non-directive approach of the campaign, and explored what the challenges and opportunities might be… Read more »

amnesty report

Amnesty report on immigration detention

On January 10, Amnesty UK officially launched their new report ‘A matter of routine – the use of immigration detention in the UK’. Right to Remain writes about the launch: In launching this report, Amnesty UK  has further strengthened the consensus – including most major political parties, human rights groups, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons – of those condemning and calling for serious change to the UK’s indefinite immigration detention system. [Amnesty’s] research examined Home… Read more »

“Here, the religion is football”

On a cold snowy night in Newcastle last week, there was a great turnout for our These Walls Must Fall training session.  There were students, activists and experts-by-experience on detention in the room – and some were all three. After equipping people with some basic facts about detention – what it is, who it affects and why its wrong – the session turned to local action against detention. There were great suggestions made on thinking… Read more »

This Council believes …. These Walls Must Fall!

Yesterday, Manchester City Council become the first local authority in Britain to pass a motion condemning immigration detention.  You can read the motion here. The motion, proposed by Councillor Mahadi Sharif, was passed unanimously by the council. Here’s how it happened: Councillor @kelly4labour seconding the #TheseWallsMustFall motion at #Manchester council. We must send a message to the government: "enough is enough!" #unlocked17— Right to Remain (@Right_to_Remain) November 29, 2017 Final #mcc business is @MahdiTaarwale, who came… Read more »

“Why destroy instead of mending the broken?” These Walls Must Fall members respond to Yarl’s Wood inspection report

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, who conduct independent inspections of both prisons and immigration detention centres, have today released its report on its June 2017 unannounced inspection of Yarl’s Wood detention centre.  You can read the report here. Yarl’s Wood is perhaps the most famous of the UK’s sites of detention (find out more about the others through the Unlocking Detention project), and holds around 300 people – mostly women, but also adult family groups and… Read more »

Manchester group photo

“When you see injustice – speak out!”: These Walls Must Fall in Manchester

Last Thursday human rights campaigners, union members, migrant rights groups, political representatives and other members of the public met in Manchester to campaign against immigration detention. Setting up for the big event at the historic Mechanics Institute.Follow us, @wallsmustfall and #TheseWallsMustFall for updates! pic.twitter.com/EAcln0LgrG— Right to Remain (@Right_to_Remain) November 2, 2017 Gathering at Manchester’s historic Mechanics Institute, at a campaign launch meeting organised with Uniet the Union Greater Manchester Social Action Branch, over 120 people… Read more »

The murals on the wall: local action against immigration detention

By Lisa Matthews, Coordinator at Right to Remain Immigration detention is a national policy, but we believe change will come from local communities calling for change at a local level. It is local communities that are being damaged and divided by detention, and it is from local communities that people are snatched and taken many miles away, locked up in detention centres indefinitely. Local people – constituents – have the power to influence their MPs… Read more »

“A place where one can be forgotten for a long time” – on the closure of The Verne

Last week, the government quietly announced that they will be closing the Verne – one of the nine immigration ‘removal’ centres (IRCs) sprawled across the UK. Luke Butterly of Right to Remain writes here about the closure in the context of the ongoing campaign to end detention. At anyone time around 3,000 migrants are held in these centres, and around 30,000 people pass through each year. People can be detained for months and sometimes years,… Read more »