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FINLAND: Prison "detention centre" closed

01 March 2002

The Katajanokka prison in Helsinki has been closed for being in breach of international obligations for the treatment of prisoners. Now the Interior Ministry has decided to build a detention centre on the prison site, to be ready for use by the summer this year. In Finland, as in the UK and other EU countries, past court rulings have held that asylum seekers and migrants should not be imprisoned. The government's responses have been the renaming of prisons as "reception centres" and "houses", as was the case at Campsfield in the UK. Ironically, this has often made the situation for immigrant detainees worse, as staff do not fall under legally enforceable prison regulations with clearly defined prisoner's rights. Now Finland is following suite by building an immigration detention centre on a former prison site. Planning provisions include the installation of surveillance equipment, armoured glass, an enclosed "recreation area", the legal possibility of restricting visitors as well as legal powers to use force against detainees.
The future detention centre has been rented from Helsinki Council by the Employment and Economic Development Centre (TE-centre), an institution responsible for "supporting enterprise and influencing and participating in regional development in general", which is answerable to various ministries. The detention centre will closely cooperate with the Helsinki reception centre for asylum seekers. Campaigners are asking for protest letters and faxes to be sent to the institutions listed below.

TE-centre Uusimaa, PL 15, 00241 Helsinki, Tel: 00358-9-2534 2111, Fax: 00358-9-2534 2000, e-mail: uusimaa@te-keskus.fi; Helsinki reception centre for immigrants, Kylasaarenkatu 10, 00580 Helsinki, Tel: 00358-9-310-42900 or 310 42912, e-mail: helsingin.vastaanottokeskus@hel.fi; For more information see www.fi.noborder.orgs