DRC: Christmas locked up

On 2 August this year in the UK, thirty police officers, twenty Immigration Service officers and two officials from the Department of Work and Pensions raided a factory near Bolton run by Stateside Foods, a company which makes frozen pizzas. They spent four hours checking the status of workers at the factory and arrested twenty-one people, including Alain Kimolo Kikeni. Most of those arrested were 'failed asylum seekers', from Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), all countries with well-known human rights problems. The government has made it a priority to clamp down on 'illegal working' among migrants, with increasing numbers of raids on workplaces.