Call To End Immigration Detention

Around 400 campaigners have called for an end to detention in the immigration system in a demonstration at Dungavel.

Trade union groups, human rights campaigners and religious organisations held the protest outside Scotland's only immigration removal centre in South Lanarkshire.

Organisers said around 400 people gathered for the demonstration with many carrying banners and some leaving flowers at the gates to the centre.

Police said the event passed off peacefully with no arrests.

Speakers including Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) president Lawrence Wason, Rev Sally Foster Fulton from the Church of Scotland and human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar addressed the crowd outside the centre.

Mr Wason said: "We want to see an end to detention. We want to see a different, more humane immigration system, and we want to see the UK living up to its global responsibilities and providing safe haven for those who need it.

"The people behind these walls are not a threat to our country. They are just people looking for a better life. We can have an asylum system without the need for detention."

The STUC have recently called for meetings with detainees over concerns that some of them may be on hunger strike, and in March wrote to the Home Secretary with the request.

The STUC said it is worried about reports of ''large numbers'' of detainees at the South Lanarkshire centre refusing food and said any such situation would ''reflect a level of desperation which must be investigated''.

It came after figures obtained by BBC Scotland revealed that dozens of detainees have been held at Dungavel for many months and, in some cases, for more than a year.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "Detention and removal are essential parts of effective immigration controls. It is vital these are carried out with dignity and respect and we take the welfare of our detainees very seriously.

"That's why the Home Secretary has commissioned an independent review of detainees' welfare to be conducted by the former prisons ombudsman Stephen Shaw. This is expected to be completed in the autumn.

"Detention is only ever used as a last resort, and for the shortest time possible, after all attempts to encourage individuals to leave voluntarily have failed."