Doctors and human rights activists have stepped up pressure on the British government to change its policy of incarcerating asylum seekers in prisons alongside criminals. The move follows the month long hunger strike by refugees detained at Rochester prison in Kent.

The BMA has written to the home secretary, Michael Howard, objecting in the “strongest possible terms” to the “inhumane” practice of holding refugees in prison while their applications to remain in Britain are processed. The association says that prison is an inappropriate place to detain people who are neither convicted nor suspected of criminal offences.

The BMA council chairman, Dr Sandy Macara, says in the letter that …