IMMIGRATION rights campaigners have sentenced the Home Office to a week of direct action for “murder, rape, rampant racism and upholding neocolonial power.”

After the guilty verdict was reached by the People’s Trial of the Home Office on Tuesday, London’s Marsham Street, where the government department is located, was shut down by protesters this morning to end “business as usual.”

Two activists were arrested for criminal damage and Home Office staff were forced to wait outside alongside fountains dyed blood red to represent the “cruel and inhumane violence” of the government’s policies.

Activists also sprayed “guilty” onto the doors of the building.

Kent Christian Peace Activists tweeted: “There is blood on the hands of the Home Office, blood of the innocent.

“We demand an official investigation into what’s happened to people who have been deported. We demand a world without borders.”

Activists also want immigration detention to be abolished, an independent investigation into allegations that women held at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre have been subjected to rape and sexual abuse and an end to all charter flights.

Campaigners are also fighting to stop the deportation of migrants who have committed minor offences in this country.

An End Deportations spokesperson said the Home Office detains people “who’ve committed no crimes or served time for them if they have” and deports them into situations of danger and to countries that they have no connection to.

“They seek to strip people of their dignity for the offence of seeking to exercise freedom of movement whilst being black or brown,” the spokesperson added.

“In many cases, people are fleeing the war or climate disaster or poverty we caused in their countries of origin through colonial exploitation. In all cases, they are human beings who deserve our welcome, compassion and respect.

“We dream of a world without borders, [with] freedom of movement not just for Europeans and Westerners. Meanwhile, we call for the worst violences of the UK border regime to be stopped.”

While the protest was taking place, an Iraqi refugee was denied readmission to Britain on “unsubstantiated national security grounds,” according to a tweet from the Black Activists Rising Against Cuts campaign group.

He is being held in administrative detention in Moldova and is facing deportation to Iraq today.

Protesters will continue to gather outside the Home Office today and tomorrow.