in t the 127bis centre in Steenokkerzeel, it has been 6 days that hunger strike movements started to protest against the long and illegal retentions. Some have been retained for more than 8 months waiting for a decision of the Foreigners Office on their fate. A lot have been here in Belgium for years, sometimes for almost 20 years.
Some haven’t eaten for 6 days, others organise rounds in the strikers. In the first wing they are a dozen, in the second the movement goes on too, but with no further information.
On Thursday 28th April, searches were done, body searches, searches in the cupboards, in the bin bags etc. The management is desperately looking for a phone with a camera to find the culprit of the images that were published on the internet. It is indeed forbidden to have a phone with a camera in the closed centres. This phone has become the obsession of the security for several days. Retainees are of course laughing about it and they told us that they would not find it because it does not exist!
Those who are part of the strikes movement are being threatened of confinement, a repressive processus used when protests happen in the centres.
We also learnt that in the centre of Bruges the same movement started a few days ago by around 20 people.
The movement seems to express their fill, with no precise claims, without “heads” nor “responsible”.
What we can hear is “enough”, “let us live our lives”, “enough with prisons”, “acab”.
