Campaign to Close Campsfield
The Oxford-based Campaign to Close Campsfield was set up in 1993, when a ‘state of the art’ 200-place immigration detention centre was opened at Kidlington, 6 miles north of Oxford. Since the beginning the centre has been run for profit by private companies (Group4, GEO/Wackenhutt) under contract to the Home Office.
The campaign has focused on public campaigning against the detention of refugees and other migrants. For 17 years it has held a monthly demonstration at noon on the last Saturday of the month at Campsfield main gates, and a public campaign planning meeting on the first Tuesday. Sponsored by Oxford Trades Union Council, the campaign has secured the support of national trade unions for the demand for an end to immigration detention. The campaign works with migrant and refugee organizations.
There have been numerous individual and collective protests by detainees since the centre opened. The Campaign led the campaign to defend the ‘Campsfield Nine’ who were charged with riot following a major protest at the centre in 1997: all were acquitted.
In 1994 500 people demonstrated outside Campsfield demanding its closure, and over 100 Oxford University academics signed a letter to The Times calling for the same. Also in 1994 campaign supporters marched from Oxford to London to deliver a 5,000-signature petition to Number 10 Downing Street calling for the centre to be closed.
There have been sleep-outs on Oxford streets, and human rights camps outside Campsfield, public meetings, debates, street stalls, video showings, art exhibitions and street theatre. As well as trade unions, we seek to involve local schools, university students, political and religious groups in our activities.
The local Kidlington Parish, Cherwell District, Oxford City and Oxfordshire County councils have all called for the centre either to be closed or not to be expanded.
The campaign has helped establish local anti-detention campaigns and actions, and the national Barbed Wire Britain Network to End Refugee and Migrant Detention. In 2005, together with groups in other European countries and through the European Social Forum, the campaign helped\initiate the first of three annual European Days of Action against detention and deportation. The campaign’s 3-day Oxford conference on detention in 2000 was attended by over 100 people from 25 nationalities.
The campaign publishes the occasional Campsfield Monitor newsletter (available on its website). Current projects include a Bail Observation Project to monitor bail hearings at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunals.
Aims of the campaign:
· Close Campsfield, other detention centres, and detention wings in prisons;
· Stop immigration detentions and imprisonment;
· Stop racist deportations;
· Repeal immigration laws which reinforce racism.
Contacts: (01865) 558145 / 726804 / 01993 703994 or email info@closecampsfield.org.uk/
Written by Bill McKeith, Campaign to Close Campsfield
