BBC Asian Network produces a documentary looking at the secret world of the UK's immigration removal centres
As protests spread in Britain's immigration detention centres, BBC News today published an article on "the secret world" of such centres. You can read it here.
In addition, you can hear a documentary, The Detained, produced by BBC Asian Network here. It will be on today at 17.00 on BBC Asian Network radio. Newsnight will also feature a report on the documentary tonight at 22.30 on BBC Two.
There are 13 immigration removal centres in the UK and they can hold about 3,000 people at any one time.
BBC News says more than 30,000 people passed through them in 2013
BBC Asian Network says it managed to contact a number of immigration detainees around the country and recorded their often harrowing calls over a period of three months.
In the recordings, says BBC News, "the inmates tell variously of jail-like conditions, of fights breaking out, and say their medical complaints are not taken seriously by staff."
One detainee is quoted as saying: "It is worse than prison. To be honest to you, I want to even go to prison, prison is better than this."
The BBC report comes as anti-detention protests involving hundreds of detainees spread to four removal centres last week.
Politics.co.uk reported that the protests began at Harmondsworth immigration detention centre and later spread to Campsfield, Brook House and Colnbrook.
According to Politics.co.uk, fifty detainees at Campsfield started a hunger-strike.
One detainee said: "We want our freedom. We want our life with dignity … We do not want to be treated in an inhuman way. That's why we are demanding the closure of all detention centres for immigrants in the UK."
Fore more on the initial protest at Harmondsworth, you can read the Independent here.