Original article by Nandini Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
Refugee charity Care4Calais is seeking to sue the government for ‘segregating’ asylum seekers at RAF Wethersfield
Suella Braverman faces a fresh legal challenge over the government’s treatment of asylum seekers held at a former RAF base that has been compared to “a military-style prison camp”.
Refugee charity Care4Calais is seeking to sue the government over its policy of warehousing asylum seekers at RAF Wethersfield, which it claims amounts to a form of “segregation” and “quasi detention”.
The legal challenge comes weeks after asylum seekers at Wethersfield – a remote, 800-acre site in Essex, ringed by security fences, guards and CCTV – told openDemocracy they had been “locked up” in solitary confinement for complaining of depression.
In a private press briefing attended by openDemocracy today, Care4Calais said it is bringing the legal challenge after hearing testimonies from its clients living at the barracks.
A pre-action protocol letter issued by lawyers representing the charity accuses the home secretary of failing to fulfil her obligations of “ensuring an adequate standard of living and health for asylum seekers” under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
The letter states that “measures short of 24-hour physical confinement, where they substantively deprive a person of their liberty, may amount to detention at common law.”
Ali*, 24, who escaped the Taliban earlier this year, told openDemocracy that staff at Wethersfield locked him up in a room for two days after he complained that being held there was causing him to be depressed. “They’ve done this to me twice,” he said, adding that it has “happened to other people too”.
He continued: “If they go and tell [staff] they don’t feel well or they have depression… they lock them in a room for 48 hours and make them quarantine – and they’re not allowed out.
“Wethersfield is like a prison. It doesn’t feel like we’re in any kind of home or hotel room – we’ve just been thrown into a military-style prison camp.”
Two other men living at the barracks told this website of “prison-like conditions” that are affecting their mental health.
Braverman is accused of separating “asylum seekers, all or most of whom are non-British, and many of whom are also from ethnic minorities or non-white, from the wider UK population”.
Care4Calais’ legal challenge also raises the absence of an effective screening process for asylum seekers due to be accommodated at Wethersfield.
Survivors of torture and modern slavery, or those who suffer from serious mental health conditions, are routinely sent to the barracks, the charity said, but are transferred to hotels when their cases are individually raised in individual pre-action protocol letters.
In its press briefing today, Care4Calais said this has happened up to 20 times in the past few months.
Wethersfield is already the subject of a legal challenge from Braintree District Council, which objects to the Home Office’s plans to expand the site’s capacity. A High Court case brought by the council on 31 October will also hear evidence about the inappropriate use of the RAF base Scampton in Lincolnshire – which is due to open in weeks and house up to 2,000 men.
The government has until 7 November to respond to the letter, before proceedings for a full judicial review are initiated.
Original article by Nandini Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
