CAMPAIGNERS are to picket outside Dungavel Detention Centre to call for the centre to be closed down.

Organised by group We Will Rise, which has coordinated previous protests, hundreds are expected to attend on May 7 to oppose what they brand an "inhumane" facility.

More than 15 detention centres around the UK and several across Europe will see demonstrations as part of Trans-National Day of Action.

Protestors will be demanding an end to the policy of detaining asylum seekers and migrants.

Campaigner Sally Martinez, of We Will Rise, said: “We act in solidarity with those inside Dungavel, as well as the 30,000 detained nationally.

"We are sending a message that detention has no place in the Scotland or the UK.”

Last year a report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) said some people were being held for unreasonably long periods, often because of avoidable casework delays, especially in the processing of asylum claims.

Also last year, 70 detainees went on hunger strike in protest against their indefinite detention and cramped living conditions.

Asylum seekers and ex-detainees will be among those protesting on May 7.

One former detainee, James Mbeke, said: “We should welcome asylum seekers, not throw them in jail. It is such a terrible place to be, you have no idea when you will be released.

"It is inhumane, you are treated like an animal.”

The Shaw Review, an independent review commissioned by Westminster this year, raised concerns over accommodation and the damaging use of open-ended detention, with three of those held at Dungavel, said to have been there for more than one year.

Campaigners are expected to travel from all over Scotland, with buses transporting people from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Transnational Day of Action Against Detention promises to be the largest ever UK and Europe wide mobilisation of people against detention.