Four children imprisoned in a UK detention centre for over a year have won a landmark victory against the British government for unlawful detention. The government tried to limit exposure by settling out of court. This case has once again exposed the horrific – and profitable – nature of the detention and deportation industry.

The Ay family were Kurds seeking asylum in the UK to escape violent persecution in Turkey. Mrs Ay had been imprisoned and raped by Turkish militia, and her family’s lives were in danger. With her husband and four children, she escaped and settled in Kent, where the children attended school and began to learn English.

Mr Ay was quickly deported to Germany and from there back to Turkey where he vanished.

In 2002 Mrs Ay and her four young children were dragged out of their home by immigration officers and taken to Dungavel detention centre in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.

She remained in the private, American-run detention centre with her four children between the ages of 7 and 13 in one small room for 13 months. They were only allowed outside for two hours a day and received low levels of education. This destroyed the children’s hopes of becoming a lawyer and a doctor.

The children, all but one now adults are still suffering the consequences of their incarceration. While detained both daughters suffered hair loss, developed eating and sleeping disorders, while the sons started to display emotional problems.

David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, was determined that the family should be sent to Germany, where they had first claimed asylum. However, the family were fearful that when they arrived there, they’d just be sent back to Turkey, as their father had been.

The fact that Mr Ay had been murdered on his return to Turkey, did not enter into Blunkett’s considerations.

He disregarded various conventions on human rights requirements about not imprisoning children, claiming the only alternative was splitting the parent from the children and placing them in care.

Through the media the children documented the damaging effect that being locked up was having on them. “The government and the police in the UK broke our hearts,” said one of the girls.

The Ay Family lost their appeal against deportation and were deported to Germany where they were granted asylum. This was on the grounds that they were so psychologically damaged by there time spent in a detention centre that they needed specialist medical treatment which was not available in Turkey.

The treatment of Asylum seekers and other immigrants reveals the ugly face of the most liberal capitalist states. While the US and UK go to war to ensure their companies can move into foreign markets, they spend the profits on elaborate systems of racist repression against desperate people fleeing violence and poverty.

REVOLUTION fights for the eradication of all national borders and barriers to movement of the world’s people, because these are the tools which allow a rich elite minority to maintain reserves of cheap labour, reinforce racist divisions and protect the interests of national capitalist classes.

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