Hi,

I just spoke to George Mwangi, one of the detainees at Colnbrook.  He told 
me that the hunger strike has now ended, and the sanctions against those on 
hunger strike (such as no access to IT, chapel, shope etc) have been lifted. 
  But:

- They have formed a movement called 'Cry Freedom' within detention centres, 
to demand an end to detention.
- They had a meeting on Friday with a home office official, who has promised 
to look at all their cases individually, and they will have a further 
meeting tommorrow.
- John McDonnell, the MP for Harmondsworth, has been in touch with Charles 
Clarke's office, who have promised to send a Home Office minister to 
Colnbrook to talk with a delegation of detainees.  They don't know when this 
meeting will be but when it happens they will make a delegation of 5 people 
from each wing.
-  Issues they hope to raise with the Home Office include:
looking at detention system as a whole rather than just individual cases;
the lack of any automatic bail review process;
the fact that immigration courts cannot rule on the legality of detention 
and the home office use flimsy excuses against bail;
the fact that detention is used pre-emptively in case people abscond where 
other measures could be used;
The recent IPPR report which suggests that an amnesty of undocumented 
migrants would benefit the UK economy.
The fact that currently about 2000 people are detained at any one time, and 
many of these for more than 6 months.  If there are currently an estimated 
200,000 undocumented migrants in the UK and the government plan to detain 
and deport all of these people it would take years.  So they would suggest 
an amnesty, where people are given work permits until the situation in their 
home countries improves.

At the moment they don't wish to issue any public statement, but will wait 
for the outcome of this meeting.


