Asylum seeker who escaped from Iran

*Asylum seeker who escaped from Iran says Dorset barge will be another "jail".*

This might seem like an exaggeration, because the articles which say where the barge has been moored don't explain the implications of "Dorset" and "Portland". They expect readers to be British and know already.

Portland is an island which trains don't reach. It is in Dorset, a mostly rural county whose population is under half a million people. Hardly any of the refugees will know anyone there.

There are buses to Weymouth on the mainland, but it may take a long time to walk to a bus stop from the dock. Weymouth has a train station, but it is a long way from there to London or any other large city. Once there it probably takes an hour to reach whoever the refugee wants to see.

I cannot access the timetable web sites, because they impose the use of nonfree Javascript, but I suspect it is not feasible to go to any large city and come back in a day. In effect, the refugees forced to live on the barge will be quite isolated from everyone they know, including friends and support organizations.

This is a gratuitous cruelty, since it would have been perfectly easy to put the barge in a less isolated place. I am sure this was an intentional part of the "hostile environment" which is the stated basis for the UK's policies towards people who are waiting for asylum hearings or come from countries too unsafe to deport anyone to.