9 Sikh asylum seekers freed from US jail after hunger strike
Thursday, 13/08/2015
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
WASHINGTON: Nine of the 22 Indian Sikh asylum seekers, who were on hunger strike at an immigration jail in Florida demanding that a local court should hear their bond hearing, have been released from the prison.
As many as 22 asylum seekers, who travelled through several countries for more than six months before arriving on foot at the Texas border, went on a hunger strike on July 25, claiming that they had been denied a bond hearing that could have released them from custody.
The demanded that they be released while their asylum cases are evaluated. Nine men were released on August 10 while 13 are still in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody at the Broward Transitional Center, according to civil rights group American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
ICE has been under increasing pressure to release asylumseekers who pose a low flight risk, especially women and children housed in family detention.
ACLU had expressed concern over the deteriorating health of the asylum-seekers, who were on hunger strike, and sought the intervention of the federal government in this regard.
“Things should never have reached this extreme point,” Shalini Agarwal, a staff attorney for Florida unit of the ACLU said in a statement.
In a letter sent to ICE on August 6, the ACLU alleged that some of the Sikh men may have been subjected to forced feeding and solitary confinement, the Latin Times reported.
The 22 detainees went on hunger strike earlier when they learned that the judge who would hear their bond appeal at the Broward Transitional Center (BTC), does not grant bonds to individuals in their circumstances. They were then transferred to Florida based on promises of bond hearing at Krome, but on the day, their cases were transferred back, and hunger strike resumed on July 25.
