“They have a lot of money here: Two cops for each deportation, several times per day, who get payed for a roundtrip. It’s a big budget for a country in crisis!”
“Commerce is going well in closed centers”
In the closed centers
Hunger-strike in Merksplas one month ago: 9 people put in solitary confinement, transferred in other centers or “disappeared”, probably because they were through the back door!
“Social services in closed centers are to persuade imprisoned people to be deported to enrol in the voluntary return program”, explains the Immigration Office:
At first, prisoners fully trust social assistants, who seem very friendly and even nurturing: “Don’t worry, everything is going to be all right!”
Many know nothing about the functioning, and think they are going to be released, in view of the injustice surrounding their imprisonment, until they are brought to the plae!
Social assistance NEVER proposes voluntary return. It doesn’t give any information and seem to have only one goal: deportation at all costs!
Behavioural problems
Some prisoners have been transferred to the Vottem’s new wing. “A new wing dedicated to those who suffer from behavioural or psychic problems”, dixit Maggie De Block. This is a way of “psychiatrise” those who resist against their confinement, who revolt against their deportation, and therefore have behavioural problems!!!
Deportations
Guineans: every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, on Guinean at least is deported to Conakry on an SN Airlines flight. New arrested Guineans promptly replace them in the center.
One Moroccan man deported: his whole family is in Belgium. He told us: “No problem, I’ll be back soon”, and he’s back!
An Albanian woman deported some days after he was arrested: “brilliant system that works fine”, she says! She was told by the social assistant that she had to trust her lawyer, who didn’t sat on his hands!
A Congolese man living in Belgium for ten years, who were regularized in 2009, was arrested with other families during a raid at the NPO “VLOS” in St Niklaas. http://www.tvoost.be/nl/2014-04-03/illegalen-aangetroffen-bij-huiszoeking/#.U3xiZ4avicR. He spent on month inside but he was finally released and received the same day a positive answer to his new application for regularization: it was an “administrative error”.
About double sentence
A huge number of North African people were deported without any mercy. They have to leave their wife, their children and their jobs behind. They are being deported without any warning: 3 hours before departure they are taken from their cell and no one, not even their lawyer, is able to do anything against their deportation! But fair enough, they are offenders!
The police escort uses extreme violence during these deportations.
http://www.gettingthevoiceout.org/emp%E1%BA%BFchons-une-expulsion-ce-26042014-non-a-la-double-peine/ (French)
SMS received on 28 April:
26 April 2014, 2:45 pm: 5 cops made me enter the plane. They forced me to stay on the seat. I started screaming very loud. They began to beat me, they attached my feet to the chair. Another cop throttled me, I couldn’t speak anymore and I thought I was going to suffocate, I couldn’t scream. One cop was holding my hands, and another one was tightening the safety belt and making me writhe. I was in a lot of pain, and I couldn’t breathe anymore.
Double sentence seems to be one of the major priorities of the Immigration Office. And even if they are critically ill and they are going to die in their country, they are deported, because they are “criminals”. No 9ter for a criminal, or one that still allow the person to be deported! That’s it!
