This Saturday MFJ will lead another mass demonstration at Yarl's Wood detention centre, Britain's central battleground in the fight for the rights of women, immigrant rights and human rights. Over 22 coaches from cities across the country - from Leeds to Bristol, from London to Liverpool - will bring close on 2000 people to Yarl's Wood, led by ex-detainees & asylum seekers and joining with current detainees to demand freedom. We are building the movement to end detention and celebrating a year of major victories.

The Government is beating a disorderly retreat on detention. In the last 12 months would-be 'Iron Lady' Theresa May has abandoned the unlawful Detained Fast Track system in asylum cases, dropped plans to double capacity at Campsfield, and closed Dover & Haslar IRC's. In the last few months numbers in detention have fallen 25%. The government commissioned report by former prison ombudsman, Stephen Shaw has now dealt another blow to the detention system.

Faced with the rising strength of a movement inside and outside detention centres the Home Office has reversed two decades of unremitting expansion of detention. We celebrate these victories for human rights AND we demand more; the whole system of immigration detention is rotten, racist and abusive - ALL detention centres must close.

On 17th february 2016 Moroccan Jewish Detainee Amir Siman Tov died in Colnbrook IRC. He was on suicide watch but he died nonetheless, at the hands of a system that routinely detains people with mental health difficulties. Stephen Shaw condemned the detention of people with mental health difficulties as  "an affront to civilised values" (4.36 of the report). And this week another report emerged from Yarl's Wood of a brutal assault on a woman detainee, dragged naked from her room by nine guards.

The Shaw Report is the latest in a string of reports, inquiries and exposures making it clear that detention is a blot on the UK's stated commitment to human rights. Last week an unannounced inspection of Harmondsworth found it "dirty & rundown", "overcrowded" and "seriously insanitary". In April 2015 a similar inspection concluded that "Yarl's Wood is rightly a place of national concern"

A year ago the parliamentary inquiry on detention chaired by Sarah Teather called for a 28 day time limit and no more detention of pregnant women, victims of torture & trafficking, and the mentally ill, disabled and elderly. The Shaw report echoes many of these demands, but implementing the requires the movement to grow stronger, inside detention and in our communities. It must keep growing and shut down every last detention centre.

"The time for talk is done; we are fighting for action. We will not stop until the travesty of justice and human rights that is immigration detention is ended once and for all.

We promise there will be more demonstrations, more disruption of business-as-usual in detention and more action by detainees demanding their freedom".

Antonia Bright, Movement for Justice

12th march will be the seventh demonstration at Yarl's Wood led by Movement for Justice and supported by numerous other organisations [1 ]. Previous demonstrations have seen the outer perimeter fence breached as demonstrators pushed forward to get closer to the women who joined the demonstration from inside, waving handmade signs and flags from their windows.

Just 4 days after International Women's Day, our demonstration will make it clear that no woman is free till the women of Yarl's Wood are free.