01/05/2015
Returns: their lives are here!
A lot of people who get deported to a country where they transited and who are called “Dublin migrants” are returning back here: they have their life here, their wife, children, work and life ties, sometimes for several years. They will continue living here in clandestinity.
D. who had been expelled on a collective flight to the DRC in 2014 came back after a family reunification request. He had been expelled despite his family ties here. He is a political opponent. He was imprisoned for several days directly after landing in Kinshasa and had to hide after his release. He got his papers following a family reunification request.
Hunger strikers: anticipated disappearances
We hear a lot about hunger strikes in all the centres. Syrians, Pakistanis. In general, hunger strikers are placed into solitary confinement. The codetainees lose all contacts with them, and then they disappear, not a single trace of them anymore: were they deported or transferred??
There is no wanted notice for ‘illegals’!
Suicides or suicide attempts : total neglection of mental suffering because they are ‘illegal’
The mental suffering of the exiled people is enormous. Besides the two suicides known and advertised after the demonstrations of the different collectives for undocumented, other suicide attempts are frequent among this weakened population and they are trivialised by the authorities. A lot of codetainees also tell us about people who are deeply disturbed in the centres, who are walking in the corridors talking to themselves. ‘It’s not his place here, madam, he needs a medical treatment.’ No medical consideration for your suffering at all if you are illegal!
Release: Order to Leave the Territory 100% guranteed
We were very happy to hear about the release of several of our contacts in the closed centres, after several months of detention: one Palestinian whom the Office didn’t know where to send back to: disgusted, he left Belgium very quickly and is pursuing his migration path. Another man who had a Belgian daughter here and who resisted several deportation attempts was taken to the solitary confinement cell in the Vottem centre because of his resistance. He was released and could join his family but with an Order to Leave the Territory without delay in his pocket! After six months detention, a Tunisian man was released for no apparent reason except his resistance: ‘They put my life upside down, I lost my appartment, I lost my job,…’.
On the contrary, no Order to Leave the Territory for a Congolese man and a Congolese young woman six months pregnant for whom the CCE rejected the negative decision by the CGRA, after 5 months imprisonment for the woman. They will have to restart the whole asylum request procedure.
Arranged marriages and cohabitation forbidden to ‘illegal migrants’
A lot of men and/or women are imprisoned because they are suspected of marriages or cohabitations ‘of convenience’. They need to provide evidence that they are in love! Because it is clear that marriages have always happened on the basis of love? Does the officer who performs a marriage ceremony ask you if you really are in love?
It seems that marriages of convenience are forbidden to undocumented people!
Public order offences: double standards
We heard about several women/men who were placed in closed centres in view of their deportation after a ‘public order offence’. For example:
One woman was accused of shoplifting. A guard called the police and the Office decided to imprison her for ‘public order offence’. She was deported quickly after with no other trial.
A man wanted to put himself between two people fighting on the street: he got arrested and has been detained for 4 months in a closed centre waiting for his deportation because of a ‘public order offence’. His lawyer is trying to prove that he didn’t have anything to do with the fighting.
The ‘public order offences’ deserve many other treatments if you are illegal!
Deportations: at any price
Deportations keep going on. The ‘entries’ and ‘exits’ in and out the centres happen daily. The new victims of deportation arrive, replacing those who got deported. Many ‘accept’ their deportation because of fake promises of possible return with no delays made by the social assistants or following blackmail and violence.
A man from Latin America who was arrested while in transit here before going to Spain was the object of 5 deportation attempts (non violent he says…). He simply wanted to go to Spain and didn’t understand why they would prevent him from doing so. He finally gave up and accepted his return. His health was deteriorating (he lost 12kg during his detention) and he didn’t want to die in our Belgian prisons.
Criminals : double penalty
The governement is proud to announce that thanks to their action we will get rid of all these evil criminals detained in our prisons! Very few possibilities of appeal are open to them. They are taken from the prison to the airport to be deported. Many have their families, women or children here. Some of them refuse the deportation and are taken to closed centres, their new prison. This period of time enables them to introduce appeals and assert their rights, others accept to be deported under pression and blackmail.A noter que des charters de criminels annoncés par Francken n’ont plus eu lieu à notre connaissance. Seraient ils tous expulsés? Valait la peine dans faire tout un fromage. ET Certains sont déjà revenus…….!
