BY TIM RIGBY
MANCHESTER, United Kingdom - A month-long hunger strike by 17 imprisoned immigrants seeking asylum in Britain gained wider publicity in recent days. One man, Ejike Emenike, received medical treatment after he and five other hunger strikers at the Rochester jail refused to take liquids as well. The protesters are demanding that they not be treated as criminals.

Emenike, a Nigerian who says he was tortured by that regime's security police, is a Pentecostal pastor. Emenike condemned the Nigerian Government in a sermon following the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader of the fight of the Ogoni people against the destruction of their land by the oil baron Shell Oil. Shortly after, Emenike was detained and beaten in a Lagos police station. The torture included having a heavy weight placed on his chest and stood upon. In February 1996 he fled to Britain and has been locked up fighting for the right of asylum ever since.

On January 27 Emenike and five other hunger strikers began to refuse to take liquids. Three days later, persuaded by David Haslam, of the Churches Commission on Racial Justice, Emenike ceased his refusal to take fluids and was transferred to a hospital after being told that legal proceedings would start towards winning him bail and temporary residence in the United Kingdom. Emenike has maintained his hunger strike, though, demanding an end to the treatment of the asylum seekers as criminals.

A joint appeal issued by the hunger strikers on January 4 stated that many of them had already been held for over two years. The appeal went on to declare that "numerous suicide attempts, hunger strikes and official complaints by individuals have gone unheard.... The response of the authorities is forceful removal to prison conditions without a trial."

Emenike is the only one of the hunger strikers about whom many details have become public. The names and physical condition of the other protesters are unknown. In an emergency question and answer session in Parliament, Minister for Prisons Ann Widdecombe was only willing to reveal a few details of the alleged criminal record of one of the hunger strikers. She also claimed that all the protesters have received their full legal rights. On a separate occasion Widdicombe had asserted, "Quite clearly we cannot arrive at a situation, however distressing it is, that people can get round the law by threatening to harm themselves."

In response to Widdecombe's statements, Nick Hardwick, chief executive of the Refugee Council, declared, "People are starving themselves to death and we are not even being told who they are. It is important that these people's families and friends know their lives are on the line. We need to know the names of all those involved."

The press has reported that the strikers come from a range of countries, including Russia, Somalia, Algeria, Nigeria, Jamaica, and Yugoslavia. The 17 are among 200 asylum seekers held at Rochester prison. The government had intended to move all 200 to a new prison ship moored off the south coast of England. However, in her parliamentary statement, Widdicombe announced this plan had been abandoned.

In all, 750 of the 44,000 annual asylum applicants are currently in prison or detention centers around the United Kingdom. According to immigration rights organizations, between 6,000 and 10,000 are confined in prison or detention centers at some time in a given 12-month period.

Referring to the increasingly frequent government practice of confining asylum seekers, Claude Moraes, director of the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants, stated, "The government is making arbitrary decisions, often at the stroke of the pen of an immigration official who does not like the look of somebody."

Since January 31, little has been reported on the hunger strike in the British press. BBC radio news programs have given some coverage to actions taken outside the Rochester jail by asylum rights and antiracist organizations, but the most recent BBC radio coverage has mostly attempted to discredit the story of Ejike Emenike.

Tim Rigby is a member of the Transport and General Workers Union.  
 
 
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