Residents are protesting at being treated like criminals

Asylum seekers at an immigration removal centre in Hampshire are in the third day of a hunger strike over conditions at the site.

Four men at Haslar Immigration Removal Centre, near Gosport, refused some meals on Monday, while a fifth man joined them on Tuesday.

It is the second hunger strike at the site in less than a month and is expected to last for five days.

Inspectors heavily criticised the centre and its staff for not showing sufficient interest in the welfare of the detainees, in a report published in April.

I think people should be reassured that the conditions in which they are detained are, in my opinion, not unreasonable for the purpose for which they are there Peter Viggers, MP for Gosport

Most of the men being held at the former prison have had their appeals for asylum refused and are waiting to be sent back to their own countries.

Some are awaiting the outcome of appeals.

April's prison inspectors report said residents of Haslar - which is run by the Prison Service - were not shown enough respect and were subjected to "unacceptable and unnecessary" random strip searches after visits from friends and relatives.

An earlier report in March by the Haslar Visitors Group claimed residents lived in "dreadful, bleak dormitories with little dignity".

In January, 42-year-old Mikhail Bodnarchuk, a Ukrainian asylum seeker, hanged himself at the centre on the day he was due to be deported after his application was rejected.

'Not genuine'

Peter Viggers, MP for Gosport, told the BBC that the public should not be alarmed at conditions at the centre.

He said: "The individuals are people who the Home Office believes need to be kept in detention rather than them to be left in the community.

"They are the tiny minority of the very large number that come into this country - less than 5% I think - and having visited Haslar with some frequency over the years, I think people should be reassured that the conditions are, in my opinion, not unreasonable for the purpose for which they are there.

"These individuals are not perceived to be dangerous as such, it's just that the immigration authorities think they need to be detained because they suspect they are not genuine political asylum seekers," he said.

'Terrified and desperate'

He said it has been statistically proved that many people arrive in Britain as economic migrants seeking a better standard of living.

"I would say that their physical standard of living - the food, the accommodation, the cleanliness, the facilities - are in many cases better than the countries from which they've come," he said.

But Michael Woolley from the Visitors Group told BBC Online: "They hang on for months in grim, comfortless places like Haslar - whatever staff do to make things better - because they are desperate.

"It highlights the fact that asylum seekers are not terrorists, but terrified," he said.