Testimony from a man who survived an attempted deportation (to a country that is not even their own), after being tortured by the police on the plane and in the van after being taken off, thanks to the protest of the passengers.
These practices are common and highly concealed, the person has little recourse to file a complaint, and the police allow themselves to act on their violent impulses with complete impunity.
Here is an excerpt:
“Then I saw them talking to themselves, and talking to me as well, that, yeah “You can come back anytime you want.” I said; “It’s not a problem of me coming back anytime I want. The problem is where you’re taking me is not where I belong to. So, it’s really, really, really not good feelings for me.” So, from there, I start to get scared, because of the movement they are doing there.
They start to show me another face, not the same face they had for me when they were with me in the immigration room. I see different faces, all of them. The talking was different.
So, I got scared.“
Transcription:
In that day, I didn’t expect I’m going to face, like, torture. I’m going to be tortured, and I’m going to face abuse and violence. I didn’t think about it, because I was just sitting down in the immigration room, just waiting for them to do what they want to do, because they said they want to take me to a country whereby I’m not belong there, I’m not from there, I’m not born there.
Then I tried to convince them that I’m not from there, but they still say, no, you are from there. And then I say, what shows that I’m from there? Then they could not give me tangible reasons. They said; “Yeah, we have to take you, because, yeah, we have to.”
So, after a few minutes, I saw myself, I saw them holding something like a bag, like bulletproof bag, with a lot of lockers. So, when I saw it, my heart, like, I just breathed in. I just accepted everything that was coming, because, and I was really chill. I was telling them, yeah, if I go, they will see that I’m not from there, they will bring me back. Then they said; “Okay, no problem, let’s do our work.” Then they put that thing on me, like a cloth, they just wear it on me, and they tell me to put my hand in the pocket, I put my hands in the pocket, and they lock it.
But, when they lock it, I was just sitting down, waiting for them, for some few time. Again, I was just sitting down alone, just talking to myself, silence. I said, what is gonna happen here? What, what is going on here? So, after they told me, okay, come with us, let’s go.
I followed them. I sit in their van, they took me around, around, around in the airport. Then we arrived to the plane.
So, I saw the plane, I moved to the plane with them, I sit down. Then I saw them talking to themselves, and talking to me as well, that, yeah “You can come back anytime you want.” I said; “It’s not a problem of me coming back anytime I want. The problem is where you’re taking me is not where I belongs to. So, it’s really, really, really not good feelings for me.” So, from there, I start to get scared, because of the movement they are doing there.
They start to show me another face, not the same face they had for me when they were with me in the immigration room. I see different faces, all of them. The talking was different.
So, I get scared. I really, really get scared, because it’s not something I’m gonna tell people. It’s not funny, it’s really, really, really crazy.
Yeah, it’s like a terrorist thing. Like, when they say somebody is a terrorist, like, yeah, the way they put him, yeah, something like that. So, I didn’t see myself that I am an abuse to the society, or I am a terrorist, or I am a criminal.
I didn’t see myself like that. So, and the treatment they let me pass through, it really make me scary, and make me feel like I am not a human, and make me also feel like, yeah, at the end of all this, I’m not gonna be normal anymore. You get me? So, it really hurt me.
It really get me scared. It’s like somebody put a knife in my… Tie me, my legs, my hands, and put a knife in my neck and cut me. And I said every word, and the person didn’t listen, and still kill me.
This all what I was feeling. I would not like these things to be continue on. It’s really not okay.
Because for human being, actually, our mind is our mind. We move with our mind. That’s why we have mind. So, if this mind cannot think good, like it cannot feel good, like you have only panic, panic, panic, panic, at the end of the day, it’s bad. Because if something is really scary, maybe it’s not the thing gonna kill you, but maybe you can fall in some place, or fall in a hole because you are scared. And to the people, to the whole world, you know, to everywhere, everybody, I would not like anybody to pass through this.
Because it’s life or death. That’s what I see it, that’s how I call it. When I was in the plane, they told me, yeah, you have to, we have to hide you from the passengers.
Then I said, why? I’m also a passenger. Oh, what’s wrong? He said; “Yeah, because the way we put you, we lock you up. Yeah, you have to bend your head down to the seat.”
And I said, okay, it’s no problem. So, I bend my head down to the seat. Then, after a few minutes, after maybe five minutes, it was not enough.
The guy told me, the policeman told me, you have to go down more. I said; “I cannot go down, I have problem in my back. I can’t go down more.”
It’s enough, because I was like this for some few minutes. Now you tell me, no, I have to go down again. I cannot.
So, from there, he said, let me show you. He hold my head. The other one sitting beside him also hold my back, push me down, till my head was down.
Down, down, in between my legs, down to the seat, front seat. I tried to resist a little bit, but afterwards I could not again resist. I said, please, I cannot breathe.
It’s too hard for me. My back is really hurting me. He said; “Yeah, just for a few minutes, when the plane is full, we’re gonna let you up.” Or when the plane is in the air, we’re gonna let you. Yeah, he said; “When the plane is in the air, we’re gonna let you up.” And imagine, it’s almost 30 minutes, or how many minutes? And I’m like that.
So, I could not, till I had the blood come from my mouth to the jeans that he was wearing. That was the right side, the person who was holding me. Then I said, please, please, I cannot.
Just let me come up and breathe a little bit, and I go back again down. Or you put me in the position before, not now, this position, this position I cannot. So, from there, the other person uses elbow.
How can you use your elbow to push somebody’s back? It’s not possible. That means you are hitting the person. So, I only feel back.
Somebody is hitting me from the back of the elbow and pushing my neck at the same time. Whilst my hands are being locked across my waist, close, tied across my waist, and the seat belt also of the plane is being put in my body. And the two side where you have to bring it down, where if you sit in the plane, you can relax yourself.
If it have two side where you can relax your arms. Also, that one was pulled down. So, I was really suffering.
And people saw me because I see people walk towards that side where I was, both right and left side. I hear people’s footsteps. I see their legs, but I cannot see their face.
So, I hear people say; “Ah, why, why, why this? Why this? Why are you doing this? Why are you treating this boy like that? I pass here to go to toilet. I come back. This boy is still like that. He’s suffering there. He’s not a baggage. He’s not a bag that you have to try to push it down. He’s a human being. He cannot bend like that. If you bend like that, you think you can walk? No, bring him up. Let him sit.”
Then I hear talking, blah, blah, blah. They go.
Another people come. They see me. They talk.
Another people talk, talk. A lot of people. And from there, they said, no, they don’t leave me.
So, me too, I try to raise myself up. They push me down. I try to raise my head up.
They push me down. Then at the end, they strangle my neck with their arms. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I try to talk, but I think when I talk, my sound, my voice is not coming out. Because I was really, my voice was gone. So, when the people hear that, because before my voice was different, then my voice changed.
So, they try to come back again and talk to them. And they’re still insisting. So, they try to fight them.
They try to, yeah, attack the police in the plane. And the police see that, no, it’s too much. So, that time, the plane is full and everything is closed.
And the plane wants to take off. So, the pilot has to stop and open everything, open the doors back. Then from there, they take me up.
When they take me up, I could not stand. I was bent down. I was bent because when I stand, I feel too much pain.
I could not. I have to bend sideways. So, they hold me on the steps to go down.
Then I fall down. So, I said, ah, I shouted. I said, ah, why I’m falling down? You guys holding me and you push me.
They say, yeah, we didn’t push you. Well, they pick me up again. We finished the walking on the steps.
Coming down, push me in the car, step on me. I said; “Ah, you want to kill me?” Then they sit down, talk bullshit to me, insulting me, telling me how bad it was. I was just looking at them because I was not really on myself anymore.
I didn’t know where I was. Because when they were talking, I could not say anything. I was quiet.
I want to talk, but when I try to talk, my talk is not coming out. So, I just be there like that, lying down in the car. So, they took me back to their office in the airport.
They hold me with both left hand and right hand because I could not walk. So, they dropped me in the room, the camera room, small room. I was there for a little time, lying down, just trying to breathe.
I said, I need a doctor. Then the doctor came, checked me out. Then after they go, asked me if I cannot breathe for a while.
I said, I don’t know because me, I have a little bit of pain in my back. But I can do many things. My back pain cannot come because it’s not that I have pain every day.
No, I do hard work and I don’t have back pain. So, because of the position they put me, that’s why I could not breathe. The doctor said; “Okay, I should go” and he go.
So, these things is really, really scary. It makes me like, yeah, I am dead and I’m wake up again. Because all that time in the plane, I was really, really tired.
I was tired. I was really tired, really, really tired. I could not do nothing.
I said, what the fuck? What the fuck? You guys want to kill human being or what? What the fuck? What is all this treatment? It was too much abuse, too much violence. Because me, I was already weak. So, when he hits me, I don’t know who hits me.
And I don’t, I only feel pain, then I shout. So, at the end of the day, it makes me really mad. Like, it makes me, I could not think reasonable anymore.
I don’t know what is this. I don’t even know nothing. I was just blacked out.
I was just, this boy is dead already. This boy is dead. I was just, I’m low.
I still have sometimes bad feelings, you know? Like, how to say it? So, like, it’s thinking that flash in my mind, you know? The thing that I passed through every, every, every, I cannot say more than two hours in my life, living here in the Center (Merksplas). Now, it just comes flashing in my mind. Then I try to let it, because it doesn’t make me even to feel.
I’m happy. I thank God, my life. But, you know, the energy I have, me, I’m somebody who, I don’t know how to explain, but I’m really social, you know? But this time around, it’s like I have another energy in me, not good, like scary, scary, you know? So, it makes, I don’t talk to, I don’t talk, I don’t talk to people who want to talk to me.
But sometimes I say one, two, three, four, five things, then I run away, like, I don’t want to continue the conversation. I cannot say it’s because of that, because of him, because of her, no. Sometimes, you know, the politics is always, always corrupted, you know? Because when you are not inside, you don’t see what is inside.
But when you are inside, it’s always, always corrupted. It’s never, never straight. Because there are people in there who, they have given their Soul to something else, you get me? So, when you give your Soul, then you are not in the, in the circle of the other human being, you get me? You are in another circle.
But it’s not all of them. There are some people who are God-fearing, who don’t do that. But most of them, they are like that.
They are corrupt, because they have given their Soul. They have sold their Soul, okay, to another society, whereby, yeah, that circle, it’s like this. They have to do like that, no matter what, okay? But in the other way also, as I’m explaining, this politics is all about money.
Because this immigration thing here, it’s about money thing, okay? I cannot say it’s about racism. I don’t know, but I cannot say that, but it’s about money thing. It’s about money thing.
It’s about money, because money coming, because there are more immigration, okay? But if there is less immigration, money don’t come. So, you have to, they have to show that, yeah, we are working. And for me, it’s really not good.
But I cannot change it. I can try to make something, to change it. But I cannot change it, because why? Why I cannot change it, is because, if every country in the World, sit down and talk about the reality, not the vanity.
Yeah, everybody sit down and talk about the reality and not the vanity. But it’s difficult, because most of these people, they are not president. We don’t call them, me, I cannot call them they are president.
They are evil, let me say that. Because the heart they have is different heart. Because if they do something like; “Oh, what the fuck, what’s going on?” Every country president is doing the right thing.
“Oh, I don’t want you to send my country people. I don’t want this. Don’t do this.”
It’s negotiation. But most of the countries, the president, they are corrupt. Like most countries, they have colonized by other countries.
This thing is the problem that happened today. Because of that, yeah. Because of this, this is the big problem.
Because most countries have colonized from other countries. So it’s like, you are my leader. Oh, I’m your leader.
Okay, this is the problem. That’s why today these things are fucked up.
