The British government has been accused of operating a "swift imprisonment and a swift refusal" asylum system as a privately operated fast-track detention centre, aimed at processing initial asylum applications within seven days, opened in Cambridgeshire.
Seven members from Active Resistance to the Roots of War (ARROW) were arrested yesterday after mounting a protest outside the gates of the new detention centre in Oakington, near Cambridge, which is housed on the site of a former RAF base.
The centre, operated by the Group 4 security firm, aims to process 13,000 asylum applications a year in an attempt to tackle the backlog of up to 102,000 cases awaiting a decision by the Immigration Service.
Asylum-seekers convicted of aggressive begging and suspected bogus asylum-seekers will be held in dormitory accommodation while their applications are processed. Men and women will be separated in sleeping accommodation, but they will be able to mix during the day.
Asylum-seekers whose applications are turned down will have three weeks to appeal before facing deportation and may be removed from the centre and given temporary accommodation, funded by the Home Office, pending an appeal.
The Foreign Office minister, Mr Peter Hain, denied the British government's response to applications from asylum-seekers convicted of aggressive begging pandered to racist sentiments, but a spokesman for ARROW condemned the centre saying asylum-seekers should be offered compassion and support.
Mr Hain said the "tiny minority" of asylum-seekers who brought their children on to the streets to beg even though they were entitled to benefits "and the other normal hospitality offered to them, are actually giving asylum-seekers a bad name".
The centre at Oakington is not the first detention centre for asylum-seekers in Britain, but it is the first to fast-track asylum applications. There are four other "detention camps" run by private security companies for the government.