Government & State

4WardEverUK

War, Prisons, and Torture in the US & UK

Barbed Wire Prisonoriginally by: Infoshop News
6th March 2011

Richard Haley is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has been active in Britain’s anti-war movement since 2003. He is a member of the Stop the War Coalition and is currently Chair of Scotland Against Criminalising Communities. Last December, on Human Rights Day, Scotland Against Criminalising Communities initiated a “Stop Isolation” campaign with an online statement arguing that solitary confinement is a form of torture that must be abolished.

The petition states that “We call upon the countries of the world to enact legislation that prohibits long-term prisoner isolation, and prohibits the transfer of prisoners to countries where they would be at risk of such treatment. Dungeons should not be tolerated in the 21st century.”

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4WardEverUK

Licence to sell taser guns to British police under scrutiny

originally by: Sky News
14th February 2011

The Home Secretary is being asked why her department was apparently unaware of links between the new supplier – TSR Ltd – and the firm stripped of its licence to sell Tasers last year. Sky News has discovered that the men in charge of the two firms jointly own a third company, G3i Ltd, which has played a key role in selling millions of pounds worth of Tasers since 2002.

A spokesman for the Home Office admitted it was not aware of G3i or of its joint ownership until Sky News alerted them to it last week – but he refused to elaborate.

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4WardEverUK

New centres ‘to detain child asylum seekers’ and families

Refugee & Iron Wire Fenceoriginally by: The Independent
4th February 2011

The Coalition is accused of watering down its promise to end the detention of child asylum seekers by setting up new centres to detain families refusing to leave the UK. The new “pre-departure accommodation facilities” will be run under a more lax system than the current imprisonment of failed asylum seekers and their offspring.

But the families will still be kept in “secure” units behind high fences for up to a week, reigniting concern over the Coalition’s flagship policy of ending child detention, announced by Nick Clegg in a fanfare of publicity last year.

Campaigners have long warned over the physical and mental impact of detention on children, 1,000 of whom were being held in British centres at the height of the practice in 2009.

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