Misery of asylum-seekers 'illegally held in detention'

Thousands of asylum-seekers are being unlawfully locked up and left to languish in detention, a report from Amnesty International warns today.

Thousands of asylum-seekers are being unlawfully locked up and left to languish in detention, a report from Amnesty International warns today.

The human rights organisation accuses the Government of "inappropriate and disproportionate" use of immigration detention centres, intended for failed asylum-seekers prior to their removal. Detainees have been incarcerated for up to two years, resulting in "untold suffering".

Amnesty uncovered accusations of inmates being treated inhumanely and shunted around between Britain's 10 detention centres. Some had been jailed in their home nations, only to experience the same treatment in the UK.

It calculated that more than 25,000 asylum-seekers were locked up last year, even though refugee law stipulates that detention should be left as a last resort and the Home Office has pledged they would be held for as a short a period as possible.

Amnesty said the Government was failing to keep its promise to reserve detention for people judged likely to abscond. It registered alarm at claims that the authorities were "targeting for detention" claimants who were complying with reporting requirements, and called for asylum-seekers to be locked up only with the approval of a judge.

"Detention was protracted,unnecessary and, ultimately, in many cases failed to fulfil the authorities' stated purpose of removal and was thus unlawful," Amnesty concluded.

Some of those held in the centres were put on a "fast-track" for consideration of their applications on the assumption that their claims were unfounded, which Amnesty condemned as unfair. It said: "Speeding up the decision-making process is beneficial only if it is not at the expense of fairness and quality."

It also warned that the lack of legal advice in detention centres left asylum-seekers unable to pursue their claims or appeal against a rejection.

"The remote location of some of the places of detention was having a deleterious effect on people's ability to maintain contact with the outside world, including with family members and legal representatives."

Kate Allen, Amnesty International's UK director, said: "Seeking asylum is not a crime, it is a right. Thousands of people who have done nothing wrong are being locked up. We found that in many cases there was no apparent reason to detain people."

A Home Office spokesman said: said: "The power to detain an individual is an essential part of protecting the integrity and effectiveness of our immigration controls. It is also central to our drive to increase the number of failed asylum-seekers we remove and ensuring the public can have confidence in a system that is both robust and fair."