Alois Dvorzac had taken a plane from Canada to Gatwick to visit his daughter in Slovenia, his birth country in January of 2013. Upon arrival he could not provide officials with her married name, phone number or address, which he was planning on obtaining form a friend in Austria on his train ride to Slovenia. That was all it took for officials to lock him in a holding cell in Harmondsworth Dentention Centre while arranging to send him back to Canada against his will. He had been held in shackles for five hours when he began having chest pains and was taken to the hospital like a murderer in handcuffs between two officers. After 20 short minutes, when a nurse removed his chains in an effort to …show more content…
find a pulse, he had died.
His body was never claimed and he was cremated, the verdict was death by natural causes, however the jury had found 'failings in the way he was treated'. "It is a tragic indictment of the system that such a frail and vulnerable man should have spent his final days in prison like conditions of an immigration removal centre" "It is particularly shameful that he should have spent his last hours chained to a custody officer without justification, and the Home Office needs to ensure such a situation cannot reoccur"-the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Nigel Newcomen. In the late 70s, these detention centers were set up just for this purpose, a 'holding point' thought to be more suitable than prison for people while applications are processed for them to be sent back to where they came from. They are really no different then prison by the treatment of
the detainees. At least 30,000 people are detaned every year, including pregnant women, victims of rape, trafficking, and torture, which is more than any other country in Europe.
Because these detention centers are run by private companies, questions are only answered under The Freedom of Information Act, little is said as most information is in commercial confidence. Radical change is being called for by all parties to make the system more humane, such as a 28-day limit of detention. We won't hold our breath. Immigrants are mistreated in detention centers all over the world, when comparing articles about centers in the USA, I can't help but feel ashamed.
In 2012, the US government detained approximately 400,000 people, some held for more than a year, while paperwork and applications are being processed, as if they are unwanted livestock, with the inevitable fate of being bought by McDonalds. Families are separated, sometimes forever, and detainees suffer from poor conditions and some from mental illnesses associated with their past traumas. These are still people, and just because they are from a different setting does not mean that they do not belong with the rest of us. The "holier than thou" attitude must be contagious.