Week 9: #Unlocked17 visits Dungavel
In the ninth and final visit of #Unlocked17, the focus was on Dungavel, Scotland's only detention centre.
Life After Detention: A Film
The harm caused by detention does not end once a person is released. For many, the trauma of detention, and the struggles with uncertainty, continue. This is the subject of 'Life After Detention', a new film made in collaboration with the Life After Detention group from Scottish Detainee Visitors. The group filmed aspects of their life in Glasgow on their mobile phones [...]
If only everyone could be welcomed as warmly as Paddington…
Jawad Anjum and Steve Rolfe are activists with Global Justice Glasgow, a group of committed people who campaign to tackle the root causes of global poverty and injustice as part of Global Justice Now, a democratic movement in the UK which campaigns in solidarity with people in the global South. They write for Unlocking Detention about a lively campaign that is [...]
Visiting Dungavel for another year…
This week, #Unlocked17 is visiting Dungavel, Scotland's only detention centre. In this blog, Kate Alexander, Director of Scottish Detainee Visitors (SDV), reflects on another year of visiting Dungavel, and takes us on the journey that visitors make twice a week. Visitors also prepare a report after every visit, which Kate reviews. Here, she highlights the patterns she sees in these reports: of [...]
Week 9: #Unlocked16 visits Dungavel
This was the final week that Unlocking Detention 2016 visited a specific detention centre, ahead of the round-up final week next week. And the final visit went to Dungavel, Scotland's only detention centre, and the subject of lots of news and campaign activity recently. https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/806777841262018560 https://twitter.com/SDVisitors/status/805703510801010688 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/807878845416280066 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/805693948073123840 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/807558232466145284 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/805769445486444544 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/807550681150328832 https://twitter.com/DetentionForum/status/806831194184761344 https://twitter.com/SDVisitors/status/805716092643479552 https://twitter.com/SDVisitors/status/805709552117252096 https://twitter.com/SDVisitors/status/805708543961792512 https://twitter.com/SDVisitors/status/806864662859956224 https://twitter.com/SDVisitors/status/806862146566881280 https://twitter.com/EiriOhtani/status/806825844660465666 As part of [...]
Live Q&A with Gil, detained in Dungavel
This week Unlocking Detention has been ‘visiting’ Dungavel detention centre, the only detention in Scotland and a site of much contention after the government announced plans earlier this year to close it and open a Short-Term Holding Facility in Glasgow - you can read Scottish Detainee Visitors' analysis of the situation as it stands, here. On Friday afternoon, Ben from Detention [...]
The closure of Dungavel? The fight must continue
By Pinar Aksu. Pinar works with Migrant Voice as a Community Development worker in Glasgow and with Active Inquiry using Theatre of the Oppressed methods and is also a member of Right to Remain's management committee. She has been involved with asylum and refugee rights since a young age. I’m experiencing mixed feelings. As much as I am very happy that [...]
Unlocking the future of detention in Scotland
By Kate Alexander, director of Scottish Detainee Visitors. It’s been a funny few months. Just a month before the beginning of this year’s Unlocking Detention tour of detention in the UK, the Immigration Minister, Robert Goodwill, announced that Dungavel, the only detention centre in Scotland would close ‘towards the end of 2017’. You might think that this would be a cause [...]
I’ll never forget . . .
Scottish Detainee Visitors asked their volunteer visitors to write a few sentences about a memorable experience they had while volunteering with them - visiting people detained in Dungavel detention centre. They asked them to start with the phrase ‘I’ll never forget….’ Here’s what they said. I'll never forget a conversation I had with a young Afghani man. He was telling me [...]
Unlocking Detention 'visits' Dungavel
Last week, Unlocking Detention visited Dungavel, Scotland's only detention centre and the final stop of the #Unlocked15 tour. Also last week, Human Rights Day was held, a stark reminder of the rights being denied to those detained - over 30,000 people every year, deprived of their liberty, indefintely. Dungavel was an appropriate centre to end our tour on - one of [...]