A reminder to hosts and visitors of the closed centre:
When peopole who are undocumented or in exile disappear or are arrested during one of several raids, it takes 24 to 48 hours to know whether the Immigration office has decided to free them or send them into a closed center.
These days, most of the exiles currently under arrest are brought to the screening center of the federal police in Steenokkerzeel, within the “127bis” closed center. It is legal for the immigration office to keep them there for 24hrs and sometimes up to 48hrs in order to determine their fates: either freeing them or transferring them to one of the closed centers.
We have noticed that this time limit is often exceeded, and that the continued retention is done under disastrous conditions. It is difficult for us to know whether they are placed in detention or continue to wait for a decision.
Filing an appeal is possible within 5 days, starting on the day after they are officially detained, but very few of them are able to warn their hosts, or even learn whether they are actually held in detention. In addition, some social workers have been telling them that they can’t have access to a lawyer before 4 work days have elapsed (sic).
This illegal procedure makes it all but impossible to file an appeal on time, which is precisely the Office’s aim.
We ask that hosts be vigilant and try to understand the exact situation of their guest(s). If they are in a closed center, they should have been given a document confirming that they are detained or a “OQT” (ordre de quitter le territoire, in French; Bevel het Grondgebied te verlaten in Dutch) if ordered to leave the territory. The type of document they are handed is very important for the next steps in the procedure. Try to call the social worker and get him/her to send you the document by email or fax. (Even better, tell your friend to ask the social worker to send it to you). Visitors to the center could also take the document
This has to be completed within 5 days !!!
Send all information available to the following address: gettingthevoiceout@riseup.net , which will forward it to the forum’s referents and to the lawyers.
Here are the elements that we would need at the “Requests” starting point.avocat listedes demandes
Chin up!
And do ask your friends to let you know if a guy or a girl with no family members is detained, so nobody’s forgotten!
The Referents of closed centers for the platform and gettingthevoiceout/CRER.
Testimony by a host
“I hereby confirm that the person we were looking for has been released today.
His story (his and a friend’s) in a few words:
– caught with 9 other people in Zeebrugges on Wednesday 17 October
– retained in a cell in Zeebruges for 2 days (with 19 people and only 9 beds)
– brought to a centre (which one, it is not clear) on Friday 19 October
– It is from there that he could rapidly ring his hosts before having to hand in his personal effects
– at the centre: threatened with having to request asylum, if not he would be sent back to Italy (where his fingerprints were taken)
– released on Monday 22 October mid-day (i.e almost 5 days later) with a bag with his personal effects, an order to leave the territory, and the following oral information: ‘you are being released because it was the first time, but next time, if we get you, you will have to chose between requesting aslyum or 8 months of retention…’
Notes : quite of lot of aberrations on its order to leave the territory
The birth date indicated is 01/01/1900: wrong
his name is not spelled correctly, he was not even asked to spell it or to check it
an alias is given to him on his order to leave the territory: this name is unknown to him, with an Erytrean nationality although he is Sudanese”
