Collective flights

Testimony by a man in the group of people deported to Guinea

http://www.gettingthevoiceout.org/testimony-by-a-man-in-the-group-of-people-deported-to-guinea-on-the-24th-of-april-2013/

 These flights are not divulgated to anyone by the authorities and seem to be state secret.

Nevermind, information is gathered on these acts of repression which were disapproved both by the deported people and by several associations/NGOs.

http://www.liguedh.be/espace-presse/les-communiques-de-presse

Here is an overview of the information compiled regarding the development of a collective deportation.

THE WEEKS BEFORE

Arrests in public places of undocumented people of a targeted nationality, detention in closed centres, maintaining of the people already detained in closed centres and/or having been the subject of deportation attempts, imprisonment in 127bis of the people seeking asylum at the airport and fast analysis of their files.

THE DAYS BEFORE

Transfer from the Belgian closed centres to the 127bis Centre of all the people designated by the Office.

THE HOURS BEFORE

Isolation of the candidates to deportation, including an unknown number of reservists for the flight.

AND FROM 4 TO 5 HOURS BEFORE THE FLIGHT

Boarding of the candidates to deportation in trucks and buses, sometimes from the army. The prisoners are handcuffed and each one of them is accompanied by two or three police officers wearing a uniform or plain clothes.

The recalictrant and those who refused the previous deportation and who are therefore considered as dangerous deserve a special treatment: isolation, getting undressed, flexions in front of the police officers, tied and accompanied by a special escort.

http://www.gettingthevoiceout.org/five-months-in-a-detention-centre/

This boarding generally takes more than two hours and is sometimes accompanied by violence.

Departure of the caravan to the military airport of Melsbroek in Chaussée de Haecht, boarding on to a military plane. The deported remain handcuffed during the flight, some of them trussed up, and each one of them is surrounded by two or three police officers and/or soldiers.

Upon landing they are handed over to the authorities with their asylum file.

The flight to Congo was very violent and the deported people were detained for 48 hours in a prison of Kinshasa.

http://www.gettingthevoiceout.org/expulsion-collective-de-congolais/

During the flight to Guinea, the detained people (11 according to our sources) remained handcuffed all the time and they were left abandoned on the streets, not knowing where to go (many of them had been living in Belgium for several years and only have a few acquaintances in Guinea).

During 2012 Belgium organised 11 collectif deportations from Brussels

tp://www.emnbelgium.be/sites/default/files/publications/be_emn_policy_report_2012_-_final.pdf

page 30
« In 2012, Belgium organized 11 secured flights to remove illegal immigrants to DR Congo, Guinea, Kosovo, UK and Albania. Other European countries participated in 2 of these 11 flights. In March 2012 Belgium organized a flight to Kinshasa in which the Netherlands also participated. 18 people were removed from Belgium and 1 person from the Netherlands. Another flight was organized to Kinshasa in December, this time with the participation of Ireland and Germany. This flight removed in total 17 persons. Belgium also participated in one secured flight organized by Germany in cooperation with Frontex, with destination Serbia »