We are relaying the voices of activists involved in supporting pro-Palestinian struggles. They have launched a petition calling for the resignation of the Minister for Asylum, Migration and Social Integration, Anneleen Van Bossuyt (N-VA). This petition follows the treatment of Palestinians detained in closed centres and the death of one of them, last September in the 127bis closed centre in Steenokerzeel.
We support these demands. We call for the permanent closure of all detention centres, the release of all those detained there, and freedom of movement and settlement for all!
To demand the resignation of the Minister for Asylum, Migration and Social Integration, Anneleen Van Bossuyt, and the repeal of the measures and laws established under her authority since 3 February 2025.
Two key events:
> On 7 October 2025, Mahmoud Farjallah, a 26-year-old militant refugee from Gaza, died at the 127bis detention centre in Steenokkerzeel, adjacent to Zaventem airport.
Mahmoud’s body was found by staff at the detention centre. He was declared to have committed suicide by hanging himself. No detainee can confirm this version of events. They had to literally fight with security staff in order to see their companion’s body and pay their last respects.
Before being detained in this centre, Mahmoud had overdosed on Lyrica (pregabalin, used in the treatment of epilepsy and neuropathic pain and known to be the drug of choice for many refugees due to its euphoric and disinhibiting effects) and the Immigration Office was aware of his toxicological and psychological distress.
There were then several suicide attempts at the detention centre. The minister and the centre’s staff assure us that they did everything in their power to help him, but we know that that after each suicide attempt, he was placed in solitary confinement and excessively sedated, and that the only psychological support available at 127bis is a psychologist employed by the Immigration Office who is often unavailable, offering consultations with Google Translate and advising detainees to ‘play billiards’ to resolve post-traumatic stress and suicidal tendencies. The medical and psychological services provided in closed centres are crude and inadequate. Many detainees report excessive distribution of drugs with severe addiction risks, such as Tramadol (an opioid analgesic) and Lyrica. When we try to bring in trusted, high-quality healthcare professionals from outside, such as MSF doctors, visits are obstructed or sabotaged.
Note from the Ulysse mental health service on the pathogenic effects of events related to the war and invasion of Gaza on people of Palestinian origin living in Belgium (20 June 2024): ‘In November 2023, our department published an open letter to alert the authorities to our concern about the blatant deterioration in the psychological state of Palestinian patients since the start of the war.’
‘At the time, we already emphasised the urgent need for solutions to be put in place in terms of accommodation, psychosocial support and the right of residence for these people, which are essential conditions for us to be able to carry out our care missions.’
‘The latter present the most serious and worrying clinical pictures. There is serious concern about a series of mental breakdowns, psychiatric decompensation, endangerment and suicidal acts.’
Two days before his death, Mahmoud made another suicide attempt. As usual, he was punished and placed in solitary confinement. He emerged in a state of alarming stress and panic, according to his fellow inmates.
– Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt, questioned on this subject by four members of parliament in the Home Affairs Committee on 21 October 2025, said that ‘forty “contacts” had been recorded, including ten consultations with the centre’s doctor’. We therefore request medical certificates and contact reports attesting to the veracity of his statements.
– The Immigration Office ensured that Mahmoud Farjallah’s funeral took place as quickly as possible. An autopsy should have been performed to check the level of drugs in his blood. We demand the truth about Mahmoud Farjallah’s death through legal action. What can we expect from the internal investigation conducted by the Immigration Office?
> On 14 October 2025, during the national mobilisation, the Immigration Office was targeted by demonstrators. Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt’s argument is that of a reaction without cause: ‘thugs’ came to attack this building and cause unacceptable material damage.
On that day, the police had been deployed in force at the Immigration Office and the closed centre at 127bis because the minister knew that she would be targeted and incriminated for her choices and relentless efforts, which had led to the recent detention of a number of militant Gazan refugees and the death of one of them.
The surrealism was such that the Minister immediately set up a ‘psychological support unit’ to assist the employees present in the building that day, but did nothing to provide psychological support to the detainees at 127bis after the shock and grief caused by the death of Mahmoud Farjallah. She even withheld information, endangering the lives of others, by denying journalists the existence of the hunger strike undertaken by some of the detainees.
Foreigners are disparaged and animalised.
It is the word of the detainees against that of the minister and the Immigration Office. The aim is to weaken and destabilise prisoners so that deportation appears to be the only positive outcome to their situation.
Anas Hmam, a Moroccan refugee and political prisoner at the Vottem detention centre, who has been transferred numerous times, was a fellow prisoner of Mahmoud Farjallah and had publicly raised the alarm about his companion’s distress: «The silence weighs heavily. This silence is a weapon; it is what allows detention centres to exist. It is what allows deportations to take place in the shadows.‘ ’When you fall ill, it is not a doctor who awaits you, but indifference. When you collapse, when you want to end it all, it is not the hospital that opens its doors to you, but the dungeon. The dungeon as a response to pain. The dungeon as punishment for agony: that is the inhuman treatment reserved for the undesirables.»
Reprisals against detainees who speak out are immediate: isolation, transfer to another closed centre, confiscation of telephones, harassment, beatings, deprivation of visits, being tied up naked for 24 hours, sexual abuse, deliberate and punitive medical negligence, incorrect identification numbers on medical certificates, medical certificates with minimised or false content to hinder asylum procedures, etc.
– The minister is covering up these practices: failure to assist persons in danger. We want European and international attention to be focused on the conditions of detention in closed centres in Belgium and elsewhere.
Investigations must be launched immediately into the methods used and the varying degrees of cruelty from one centre to another.
– We call for an end to this carnage and demand compensation for the moral and physical damage caused by the policies pursued by Minister Anneeleen Van Bossuyt, in particular through the release of militant Gazan refugees still in detention, the return of those already deported to Greece, and the immediate acceptance of their refugee status in Belgium.
