Confusion reigns over hunger strike

The hunger strike has triggered a war of words

Doubts have emerged over a hunger strike being carried out by immigrants at a Scottish detention centre.

The Home Office said the action is almost at an end and the vast majority of detainees at Dungavel immigration detention centre near Strathaven are eating meals.

But Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan said he believed the action was still continuing.

Mr Sheridan said official sources at the Home Office and the Scottish Executive have failed to answer his questions about Dungavel.

There is no hunger strike at Dungavel

Home Office
statement

The home secretary has been urged by the Scottish National Party to set up an inquiry into the incident.

It said David Blunkett should conduct an investigation into the immigrants' grievances and conditions at the centre.

More than 40 detainees at Dungavel went on hunger strike on Tuesday.

They were protesting at the length of time it takes for their cases to be heard.

Tommy Sheridan: Wall of silence

A statement from the Home Office said the majority of detainees were now eating meals and the situation was returning to normal.

It read: "There is no hunger strike at Dungavel. A brief and peaceful protest which involved some detainees refusing meals has now ended and the centre is operating normally.

"Detainees have been attending activities and classes, staff and detainees are on good terms."

'Desperate measures'

However, the SNP's home affairs spokeswoman, Annabelle Ewing, has tabled questions to the home secretary in the Commons.

Ms Ewing said no-one really knows what has been going on inside the centre.

"The fact that some 40 asylum seeker detainees have reportedly resorted to such a drastic course of action as a hunger strike is deeply worrying," she said.

David Blunkett: Urged to hold an inquiry

"It indicates that there is something far wrong with conditions and arrangements for asylum seekers at Dungavel, including young children."

Those within the centre should be treated with humanity and justice, Ms Ewing added.

"Instead of that, they are being treated like criminals in detention centres, and are clearly being driven to desperate and dangerous measures to their own health and well-being."

One of the immigrants, Eduardo Shanchez, from Peru, said the centre felt more like a prison and some detainees had been there for more than a year.

Solicitor Cameron Fyfe said he had spoken to Mr Shanchez, who insisted the hunger strike had not ended.

"He (Mr Shanchez) confirmed to me that he and some 40 others had been on hunger strike since Monday, living on cigarettes and water," Mr Fyfe said.

"He intends to keep up this hunger strike - he means business."

Dungavel, a former category C jail, was closed in 2000 as part of £13m cutbacks by the Scottish Executive.

The new centre houses up to 150 immigrants who are set to be deported. It opened in September last year.