Detention

The UK is the only country in Europe which does not have a statutory limit on immigration detention. This is known as “Indefinite detention“ and due to the uncertainty of the period in detention, it is arguably the most mentally harming element experienced in detention.

Immigration detention is most often registered as a systematic problem. “Structural violence” is “structural” only when one holds some form of intellectual or emotional proximity to the structure itself; However, for those subjected to the structure, the violence is landed directly on their bodies and minds. In an immigration detention centre, the body as the last realm of autonomy, becomes intensely political. People who have experienced detention have been protesting by threat of self-harm and hunger strikes.

Reflecting on the body as a political space, we aimed to put our own bodies in this process of resistance. . On 10th of March, we held a silent sit-down protest in front of Home Office and amplified the recorded audio testimony of two people who had previously experienced detention. Their voices were heard, as home office employees and the “general public” walked over hundreds of copies of a single document that was a testament to how Home Office breaches human rights.