Expulsions stopped at the closed center in Bruges

The activists, chained to concrete blocks and attached at the top of the entrance door, prevent the transfer of people to another closed center or to the airport for an expulsion. They are determined to stay as long as possible, while seeing to it that visitors still can walk into the center through a secondary door.

One of the participants explains why he blocks the closed center: "Last mounths, we've been inundated with new Secretary of State to asylum and migration Maggie De Block's decisions: restrained access to asylum; restrictions on regularizations for medical reasons; arbitrary arrests and expulsions. An expulsion policy so-called 'fair and humane' (according to Prime minister Di Rupo) that is, in reality, made possible by isolation, seclusion, criminalization and abuse."

The closed center of Bruges is one of the many centers where migrants are locked up, where they suffer physical and psychological pressures that make them stand for their expulsion. Locked up migrants' testimonies show what the Belgian government means by a "humane" policy: blackmail and lies towards the migrants, authorities' refusal to communicate about the abuses in the centers...

We refuse imprisonment of people, only because the were born in the 'wrong' place. We struggle and will carry on struggling for freedom of movement for all, and for abolition of closed centers. This is, to us, the only conceivable migratory policy.

Individuals against all closed centers.

No to closed centers.
Freedom of movement and of establishment for all.



Notes

1 :: gettingthevoiceout.org 1 :: 2

2 :: openaccessnow.eu, :: =open%20access&as[mode]=title_head_body&as[case]=2&as[fm]=10&as[fy]=2011&as[tm]=10&as[ty]=2012&l=1&d=i&art_id=22343&lqtc=1&lqtcd=2012_10_8_17_51]alterechos.be