Hundreds of people have staged a protest rally outside a notorious immigrant detention center in the United Kingdom, calling for its closure, Press TV reports.
Some 1,500 protesters gathered outside the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire on Saturday afternoon, demanding that the government close the facility down and release its detainees.
Activists aboard buses from London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Oxford and other cities arrived at the site to participate in the rally organized by the Movement for Justice group.
The Yarl’s Wood center, which houses up to 400 women and is run by the private security firm, Serco, has been criticized for its treatment of the female detainees.
Large numbers of those kept at Yarl’s Wood are failed asylum seekers, who have not been charged with any criminal offence, but can be held in the center indefinitely.
Protesters hammered on the periphery walls of the detention center, chanting pro-refugee slogans and decrying the dire conditions of the detainees.