PEOPLE who have fled to Britain, seeking help and refuge, are suffering horrifying violence at the hands of the British state, it was alleged yesterday.
‘Outsourcing Abuse’, a report detailing allegations of hundreds of assaults, was launched yesterday at a London press conference where independent doctors, lawyers and former detainees of privately-run immigration detention centres spoke out.
They warned that the allegations detailed in the report were just the tip of an iceberg.
One member of the audience broke down in a flood of tears at the disturbing accounts given to the press conference, and had to leave the room.
Dr Frank Arnold, from Medical Justice, said the second section of the report was a dossier of 47 cases, supported by medical evidence, of people ‘who state they have been assaulted by agents of the British state’.
He said that many had suffered the same kind of injuries and that over three quarters had been seen by one or more of 18 independent doctors.
‘I’ve seen about ten,’ he told reporters.
He added: ‘I have seen many serious injuries with long-lasting effects.’
Arnold said the injuries included ‘crushing of nerves at the wrist from forceful pulling on handcuffs, limitation of neck movement by patients whose heads were pushed under aircraft seats, numbness of the face after blows around the cheek and eye.
‘I have also seen a dislocated wrist, giant bruises and swellings the size of my fist.
‘I have also seen abuse far worse but do not have the patient’s permission to reveal confidential medical information.’
Arnold and other speakers at yesterday’s press conference said there was no way these injuries were consistent with ‘the reasonable use of force’.
The press conference was told that many of the alleged assaults took place inside vans taking people to and from detention centres, and even on flights taking people back to the countries they had fled from.
Diane Abbott MP told reporters that the report was a shocking dossier of ‘violence and abuse’ used in the detention and removal of asylum seekers.
She said: ‘The way we treat asylum seekers and the framework in which we deal with asylum has never been worse.’
She added: ‘I think it’s a test of society how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable and I think the dossier and the cases it details really are shameful.
‘They are a shame on our immigration and asylum system, a shame on the Home Office and a shame on those politicians in charge of the system.’
Maria Gurtova, a qualified nurse, spoke about what happened to her husband.
She said: ‘My husband was unable to attend the press conference today due to his poor health.’
She alleged that her husband was thrown down on the floor by guards, pushed face down and one of them put two fingers up his nose and he ‘started bleeding’.
Another former detainee said he had suffered a collapsed lung and another woman alleged that she was almost ‘suffocated’.