Update:Closed centres 21 December 2015
127bis: 17 people still on hunger strike. They met the Director of the Centre this afternoon.
Vottem: 17 people still on hunger strike in the blue wing, several “leaders” as the Office calls them, have been placed in solitary confinement in view of a transfer, among whom Driss, one of the men who had climbed the crane.
Bruges: very few continued the strike. Two women still are striking, ammong whom Rhama.
Merksplas: repression: 5 “leaders” are in solitary confinement. No news on the movement in the different wings! A dozen police officers entered the centre on Monday night and they placed the leaders in solitary confinement.
The two demonstrations in Vottem and Brussels happened smoothly, with a lot of people and a good atmosphere!
Many are from North Africa. The majority have been here for years (some of them for 20 years), they introduced regularisation requests but in vain. They do not understand why they can not continue living here!
SOLIDARITY!
Update:
MANIFESTATION in Vottem this Sunday 20th December at 4 PM (Liege)
GATHERING in front of the Foreign Office this Monday 21st December at 1PM (Brussels)
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A man of Congolese nationality committed suicide this afternoon in the closed center of Vottem near Liege.
His fellow inmates are in shock.
All inmates of three wings of the center in Vottem decided to begin a hunger strike today. Tension is already present for several weeks in the blue wing of the center in Vottem. There had already been a suicide attempt, an escape attempt, a hunger strike …
Very quickly the information passed in the various detention centers and actions are being prepared to protest against migration policies, and “Franckens'” imprisonments
“These are prisons here.”
“We can not lock up people like this”
“Many of us are in belgium for 10 or 20 years and do not want to leave”
“Me, I do not care, but others have women and children here, and others will return to countries at war, others have maps residences in European countries: where is the freedom of movement ? “
The information turned quickly in the centers stoking the detainees anger
HUNGER STRIKE IN CENTRES 127bis, BRUGGES, VOTTEM, MERKSPLAS
DETAINEES CALL FOR SUPPORT, MEDIA COVERAGE, AND MOBILIZATION
Given the rapid repression of protest movements in closed centers, outside support is URGENT!
