Feature Article

No sanctuary here

Britain, say tabloid newspapers, is a soft touch for refugees. But behind the barbed wire of Haslar?s removal centre, according to people who visit it, asylum seekers endure humiliating treatment in a system worthy of Kafka

?JOHN? is a young Sri Lankan, the son of a shopkeeper in a village that lies between the opposing forces of the Tamil Tigers and the army of that island. Compliant and polite, he twice suffered brutal interrogation. Then he managed to get to England. Dr Tim Bushell, a retired hospital consultant, is careful in his description, and assures me he checked what he saw with experts. ?I spoke to a chest physician who told me it is possible, though difficult, to hit someone so hard that he spits blood.? This had happened to John, and his eardrum had also been ruptured by beating. ?By ?torture? standards, this is nothing,? said the doctor, smiling wanly, ?but for a gentle 19-year-old, it was absolutely terrifying.? John managed to get to Britain, yet he saw nothing of the country. After three years at the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre, he was returned to Sri Lanka. Nobody knows what became of him.

Unless (or even if) you live nearby, you might not have heard of Haslar. Once a barracks, later a military prison, it is still owned and run by HM Prison Service, its high walls surmounted by rolled razor wire. In among the confusing and contradictory surroundings of a busy port, a sparkling marina and the bristling military and naval base of Portsmouth, it contains 160 men ? the majority of them seeking asylum and now locked away for 12 hours a day, awaiting either removal or, less frequently, the hearing of an appeal.

But none of these men are in Haslar because they have committed a crime.

There was a time when those who sought refuge, or asylum, were welcomed with sympathy and kindness. It was seen as nothing less than a Christian duty, and a privilege to boot. Now, however, the very vocabulary is debased and there is widespread mistrust and resentment. Much of this is based on glaring misconceptions, largely fuelled by the long-term and persistent scare-mongering of irresponsible newspapers, particularly the Daily Mail. ?Britain is seen as the softest of soft touches?, runs a typical headline. The truth is very different. Under pressure, the Government has pledged to cut the number of asylum claims, crack down on claims for benefits, and tighten border controls. At the last count, Britain was accepting just 2 per cent of the world?s refugees. In terms of asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants, it ranks only ninth in Europe: many other countries offer far more generous support.

The crackdown wins most people?s approval, yet there are others in Britain concerned about the treatment of refugees, and the way they are dealt with. In Portsmouth one such group monitors the Haslar centre.

At the Dolphin pub, just outside its gates, four people were waiting, members of the Haslar Visitors? Group. I had already met their coordinator, Michael Woolley. A Quaker by conviction and a teacher by profession, he is an orderly man, careful, precise and, one feels, scrupulously fair. His indignation simmers beneath a measured, moderate vocabulary. The men, he says, spend on average five-and-a-half months in Haslar, although some can be held for years. While they are there they may attend classes in English, information technology and art; there is some medical provision, a gym and a small library; they are allowed an hour?s exercise every day.

But for 12 hours a day they are locked into big dormitories, divided into what he can only describe as ?agricultural? stalls, each containing three beds. The space is so small that the beds often touch. There are no tables or chairs and no privacy at all, even in the lavatories. Often the men are from different countries from the people they lie so close to and cannot communicate with them. Most of them are bored; many are depressed; some are seriously traumatised.

Also at the Dolphin and ready to corroborate and expand on these views was Dr Tim Bushell, the group?s medical adviser.

The doctor spoke, shockingly, about another young man who had become very frightened and was unable to sleep. Some of the staff at Haslar, he said, had exercised old-fashioned control/restraint procedures on this man, which involve twisting and stretching the joints: in full view of the other inmates, the man had been screaming in pain. Bushell saw him six months later, and he was still suffering from severe injuries to his knees, shoulder and neck. Who, you might wonder, is the torturer here?

And Bushell added, as a rider, that he had been visiting another prisoner who had been badly beaten (before coming to England). The doctor looked at the man?s shoulder and took his hands to examine the scars, only to receive an official reprimand. By touching him, he was told, he had violated the man?s human rights. Such incidents are beyond irony. But they are not unique.

Jane Smith was at the Dolphin, too. A strong and confident young member of the visitors? group, she was urged to tell me about her friend ?Jack?, but ? suddenly overcome by tears ? she couldn?t. It transpired that the boy was only 16, had been sexually abused and had seen his father shot and his mother raped. Though he certainly trusts Jane, he has never been able to bring himself to tell her what happened to his sister. Jack was given bail for a while, then his tiny allowance was stopped. His appeal papers were sent to the address from which he had already been officially evicted by those who sent the papers (he is, incidentally, illiterate). Consequently, he failed to attend the hearing and he must now go ?home?. ?He would have committed suicide?, Jane said quietly ?if he didn?t believe that it was a sin.? He would certainly not be the first to take that comparatively easy way out.

A recent opinion poll suggested that most people believe that Britain takes in 25 per cent of the world?s refugees when the truth is that the figure is closer to 2 per cent. Those who are finally accepted have to negotiate the myriad, arbitrary rules supporting Britain?s Kafkaesque asylum system. It is beyond the scope of this article to plunge into that labyrinth: it is way beyond the comprehension of most of those people, frightened and desperate, who come to Britain for help.

The fourth person in the Dolphin that day was Mary George, until recently secretary of the Haslar Visitors? Group. Highly articulate and well informed, she was ready with some fine examples of Home Office reasoning. Its refusal letters, she said, include some remarkable opinions: ?You say that you were in a room into which soldiers sprayed bullets indiscriminately?, one begins. ?The Secretary of State does not, therefore, consider you to be an individual target.? Another is even more bizarre: ?You say that there is a sentence of death against you: the Secretary of State considers that this has not been carried out.? Well no, actually, it hasn?t. Not yet. It would be funny, if it were not so sad.

My intention was to accompany Michael on a routine visit to his friend ?Anthony?, but I was not allowed in. Later, however, on the telephone, Anthony told me his story. After being abducted and tortured by a brutal regime, he escaped through a neighbouring country on a false passport. On arrival in England he was immediately ?fast-tracked?. This may sound like a good thing, but it is not. Anthony was unable ? within the requisite 10 days ? to muster documents to convince the tribunal of his integrity: his application was refused. His desperate hope is that his case might be reopened and given a fair hearing. Meanwhile, he says, he is confined for no reason. A lawyer and a Catholic, he kneels by his bed and he prays.

Anthony used to visit prisons himself, in his earlier life, and he knows what he is talking about. When he dares to imagine his future, he hopes to return to the law so as to improve the lot of those who find themselves in his position. He mentioned many examples of the casual, pointless harassment in the system. Here is just one: at Haslar the dormitories have wooden floors. Four times each night, officers fling open the gates, rattle their keys and stamp up and down. ?Asylum seekers are vulnerable people?, says Anthony ?We do not need this treatment. We have done nothing wrong.? Whatever euphemism is officially employed, he speaks the truth when he says: ?We are indeed in prison and the world should know that.?

What is to be done about all this? The answer given by the Dolphin Four is, like everything else about this situation, far from simple, though several objectives are clear. At the moment, 10 per cent of applicants are immediately given refuge in Britain, and 30 per cent more are allowed in on appeal. This is costly and wrong, they feel, and Britain should work towards a system that reverses these statistics. They believe it would be far better if the immigration service were run as it is in other countries, where the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (under independent supervision) takes responsibility for the consideration of asylum applications. Meanwhile, the medical system should be removed from the remit of the prison authorities, medical reports should be freely available (as once they were), and much more time should be allowed for the sensitive and careful questioning ? by well-trained and responsible doctors and lawyers ? of those who claim to have been tortured.

The Home Office, says the group, should accept and publish a list of countries to which it is simply not safe to return anyone: Somalia, Zimbabwe, the Congo and, of course, Iraq are among them, And, until the procedure is radically improved, there are many other smaller ways in which life could be made, immediately, just a little easier for the detainees. The telephone system, for example, could be improved: at the moment detainees receive ?4 per week. A phone card costs ?5 and buys (at Haslar) 15 minutes of time, for overseas calls.

But something, at least, is being done in Portsmouth, as in several other cities in Britain, where magnificent people give time ? and often money, expertise and shelter ? to some of the loneliest and saddest people on earth. What the Haslar group has done is to accord them help, safety and a proper acknowledgement of their human dignity and of their plight. What these refugees need, in a word, is sanctuary.