3/3 This is especially alarming given the serious abuse carried out by staff at Brook House IRC in the past. With men locked in their cells up to 12 hours per day and "weak provision of mental health support", we are deeply concerned about the conditions at these facilities.

2/3 Inspectors report that in many cases the authorities failed to prevent detention of vulnerable men at Brook House IRC and Tinsley House IRC. Five men interviewed were "sufficiently unwell that they were sectioned under the Mental Health Act".

4/4 This raises serious questions about the necessity of their detention and the significant cost to the public. We call on the government to introduce a 28 day time-limit on immigration detention and cease the unnecessary and harmful expansion of detention centres.

3/4 This means more harm done to people in detention, including shockingly high rates of mental health problems, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Recent figures show that 52% of all people detained by the Home Office last year were later released back to the community.

2/4 The government plans to detain up to 400 people at a time at Campsfield and 600 at Haslar, Hampshire. This means more people held in harsh, prison-like conditions, separated from loved ones, with no time limit on their detention and no idea of when they will be released.

3/3 1000s of people are held in detention each year, facing forced removal or deportation, and forced to live in small cells in a harsh, prison-like environment.

Under the new UK-France deal, this includes 100s of people seeking asylum, who came here seeking our protection.

The Independent Monitoring Boards expressed serious concerns over the justification, necessity and proportionality of physical force used against people held in detention.

They also criticised staff attitudes and the organisational culture towards the use of force.

Forcing people into small cells in harsh, prison-like facilities and preventing proper support is cruel and totally unacceptable. We urge the government to change course on this deal and stop harming people who have already lived through war, torture and trauma.

We stand against these calls, and believe that to weaken or withdraw from the ECHR would threaten the human rights of everyone in the UK.

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75 years since the UK helped to create the ECHR, some politicians are now calling for us to abandon those commitments to human rights. Others want to deny those rights to many migrants and people seeking asylum.

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www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/almost...