21st June 2011
For immediate release

Anti-deportation campaigners are blockading Colnbrook and Harmondsworth detention centres in a last-minute attempt to stop the forcible deportation of Iraqi refugees to Baghdad on a specially chartered flight scheduled to leave London this evening.

30 angry protesters from No Borders, Stop Deportation and other groups are blocking the joint entrance to the two detention centres near Heathrow airport. Six of them have encased their arms in glass and plastic tubes attached to concrete barrels, while others are holding banners and shouting slogans against the 'brutal deportation machine.'

Three coaches carrying over 30 of the deportees to the airport have not
been able to leave the complex. Another 30 are supposed to be taken at the same time from Brook House detention centre at Gatwick airport and Campsfield House in Oxfordshire. In total, it is expected that the flight, scheduled to leave an undisclosed airport at 11pm today, will carry
between 60 and 70 deportees, accompanied by twice as many private security guards and immigration officers.

Update at 8.30pm

Currently 5 Reliance vans are in the Colnbrook/Harmondsworth complex preparing to transport the detainees out of the rear entrance of the complex. It is unclear where these detainees will be taken.

It is understood that the Immigration Advisory Service has obtained an injunction against the flight but it is unknown whether this applies to some or all of the potential deportees.

The blockade of the front entrance continues. Police are now on the scene.

Final update, 9pm

Great news! It has been confirmed that this evening's charter flight has
been cancelled.

The blockade has now finished and none of the blockaders have been arrested.

Saturday 13th March 2010
midday - 1pm
Demonstrate outside Harmondsworth immigration prison, Heathrow

Detainee Solidarity London is calling for a demo this Saturday at Harmondsworth in solidarity with the 55 detainees on hunger strike since Tuesday 2nd March.

At 9am on Tuesday April 1st about 300 detainees went into the exercise yard in Kalyx-run Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow, protesting against their administrative detention and poor conditions in the centre. They also wrote and signed a petition and sent it to the European Court of Human Rights.

On Wednesday the protest continues with over 100 detainees refusing food. The detainees complain that they are being deported without having their cases properly heard, due to time restrictions and bad legal representation, and that they are detained in the meantime, in very bad conditions, without having committed any crime. A detainee told No Borders London: "The food is disgusting. The medical facilities are appalling.....It is mental torture, people are going mad". A Refugee from Sierra Leone stated: "'We are tired of inhumane treatment. The protest started yesterday and is going to continue. It is a peaceful protest in the courtyard. "

On Saturday 5th, at 6.30 in the morning, police in riot uniform entered the detention centre and removed about 30 detainees according to witnesses. Their whereabouts are unknown so far.

The protest is the latest in a long line of protests at Harmondsworth and the UK's nine other immigration removal centres.

Detainees' Petition | Statements from Detainees | Harmondsworth revolt November 2006: 1 2 3 | Harmondsworth Trials (2008) | Hungerstrike July 2007

For the past month four men have been on trial at Southwark Crown Court for alleged offences during disturbances at Harmondsworth immigration detention centre in November 2006. The Support the Harmondsworth 4 Campaign is holding a demo this Friday outside the offices of Sodexho, whose subsidiary Kalyx runs Harmondsworth.

Friday 22 February 2008, 4:00 - 6:00pm
Sodexho, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH
(nearest tube: Edgware Road)

for more on the Harmondsworth 4, see

SUPPORT THE HARMONDSWORTH 4! Demo 7th Jan

Demonstrate 7 January 2008
9am onwards

at Southwark Crown Court
1 English Grounds (off Battlebridge Lane)
London SE1 2HU

(nearest tube London Bridge)

The trial of four men who were in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre the time of the protest there on 28 November 2006 will open on 7 January 2008 and a demonstration will take place at Southwark Crown Court.

The Support the Harmondsworth 4 campaign is supported by London No Borders, Barbed-Wire Britain, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism, Crossroads Women’s Centre and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

Harmondsworth is run by private company Kalyx, a subsidiary of Sodexho. The protest came the day after the publication of a damning inspection report by Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers into conditions and treatment of detainees at Harmondsworth, and was directly triggered by the attempts of members of staff to prevent a group of detainees from watching a news broadcast about the report. Prison riot squads) were drafted in to batter the protesters into submission. About 50 detainees were left in a courtyard all night and others were locked in their rooms even though parts of the detention centre were on fire.

For more information email harmondsworth4@riseup.net