08/05/2011 – Testimony of a young Iranian woman by telephone, closed center 127bis
Listen to the interview (ENG) :
[audio:http://gettingthevoiceout.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/two-twins-sisters-of-nighteen-in-closed-center.mp3|titles=two-twins-sisters-of-nighteen-in-closed-center]– When did you arrive here in Belgium?
We arrived on the 24th of March. The moment we arrived we asked for asylum and since we have been in Belgium we have been in jail. We didn’t see any streets, any people, just jail.
– How did you arrive in Belgium?
By aeroplane yes. We didn’t know that our visa was wrong or anything. We were really shocked when we were arrested. Then they sent us to this ‘closed centre’.
– And you’re still there in the same centre?
Yes, since the time that we arrived we have been here.
– When did you get the right to call somebody?
After one day in the centre. We have to have money to buy a telephone card to use it and call our family.
My family in Germany rented a lawyer for us. Not the centre.
– And you’re there with your sister?
Yes, my sister is with me in this centre. The employees here don’t treat us well. They think that we are rubbish or animals. They don’t think that we are humans.
We are nineteen years old. Another girl slapped my sister in front of two police officers and they didn’t do anything.
– Do you know which detention centre you are in?
I don’t know the name but I have a number, 127b.
– And you’ve been there for more than a month already?
One month and twelve days.
All night we can’t get sleep, we can’t get good food. We are stressed, shocked.
– Are you with a lot of people there?
Yes, a lot of people. But some of them have are very badly behaved. We don’t want to have contact with them. I just want to study, I didn’t come here just for a good life or good equipment, good technology. I just came here for our freedom and to have a better life.
– Do you see a lot of police?
Yes, there are always police. They work here and they come to our room just to watch us, watch what we do. In case maybe we want to kill somebody else in here! It’s not good having somebody always observing and watching you!
I want to tell the Belgian people that in Iran I heard that in European countries there’s this word “human rights” and from the first day that we came here we really didn’t see these human rights. We just want to claim asylum, we ask you to help us, but nobody hears us.
The other Iranian woman who’s staying in our room, she’s forty years old. In the aeroplane, they separated her from her family – it’s against the law. And she doesn’t have a lawyer. Her daughter is under 18 years old.
– Where is her daughter?
She’s in the open centre in Tubis. They separated the family. Her daughter has heart pain and she must live with her mother but they separated them. She’s shocked and stressed. She says: “If something happens to my daughter the Belgian government is responsible.” She’s very sick.
