People inside immigrant detention centers in The Netherlands (Rotterdam / Schiphol - Amsterdam) are on a hunger strike. Now several are also refusing to drink. We need to show support and make politicians act now!
From: Getting the Voice Out / Deportatieverzet:
CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER AND THIRST STRIKERS IN DETENTION CENTERS IN THE NETHERLANDS
Public indictment against the system of repression we call Fortress Europe
About 60 asylum seekers in detention center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, have been in hunger strike for four days now. 18 of them also stopped drinking since Wednesday 8th of May. They are protesting against the asylum policy that criminalizes refugees: they get thrown out on the streets without money or shelter and they get detained in prisons for up to 18 months. The refugees on hunger strike demand not to be treated as criminals anymore. They clearly statedthey want freedom and protection.
Wave of hunger strikes
Wednesday May 1st, twenty refugees in detention center Schiphol went on hunger strike. While the guards brutally broke down the strike in Schiphol, by putting the hunger strikers in isolation cells, about 80 refugees in detention center Rotterdam started a hunger strike on Monday 6th of May. One day later,fifty women in detention center Brugge (Belgium) also went on hunger strike.
A thirst strike is even more dangerous than a hunger strike: the latter can last for 40 days before people get in a critical situation, whereas a person who does not drink will be dead after one week.
Government arrogance
The Dutch government has shown an unbelievable arrogance in this matter.
At first, they did not respond to the demands of the refugees at all. One parliament member of the ruling party People’s Party of Freedom and Democracy (VVD) even went as far as to say the refugees “were taking the government hostage” by going on hunger strike. Then, as late as Thursday 9th May, they “provided” a worthless “offer”. In return for the end of the hunger strike, the government “offered” to shorten the usual 17 hours a day detainees are locked inside their cell with a few hours.
The hunger and thirst strikers of course rejected this ridiculous proposal and they will continue with their protest.
But things are getting very serious right now. As of Friday the third day without water begins for the refugees who have no other means of getting their voice out than to go on a hunger or thirst strike.
Refugees searching for a better life get thrown into a Kafkaesk bureaucracy of having to provide proof that doesn’t exist in order to get their permit to stay. Once rejected, undocumented refugees get thrown out on the streets and get denied basic human rights, such as food, shelter, work and health care. Racist police hunt them down and jail them. In detention, refugees are stripped from their dignity, their autonomy, their lives and their future. Once deported, no one ever hears from them again.
Right now, refugees in detention center Rotterdam are directly and unmistakeably demanding their rights and their freedom.
The government will have to respond very quickly and adequately, if they don’t want to be held responsible for dozens of deaths.
Call for solidarity
We are strongly calling for solidarity from our friends throughout Europe. Solidarity with the hunger and thirst strikers in special; and with refugees in general. The state is aimed at excluding everyone who is not directly exploitable by capital. Make it known how this insane migration policy of repression destroys the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Show your solidarity by spreading this message.
Print this letter and post it everywhere, preferably to walls that symbolize exclusion by Fortress Europe: parliament buildings, embassies, deportation offices, immigration offices, etc. Letter removed? Glue it again. Everywhere.
TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT FORTRESS EUROPE!
Friday, May 10, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Visitation Guide published by CIVIC to enable awareness for visiting people in immigrant detention facilities
We received this from an active group called CIVIC (Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement), which is the national immigration detention visitation network in the USA.
Visitation, visiting people inside immigrant detention centers, enhances their psychological wellbeing as well as their human need for companionship from outside, and it is also necessary to prevent human righs abuses from taking place or from being easily inflicted.
When people from the outside visit, those inside feel a little safer, knowing that those on the outside know their situation. And they get a break from being forced to be locked up for an uncertain amount of time. Visiting is very important, powerful, and very much needed. Here is what CIVIC wrote:
Everyday immigrants disappear and are detained by the U.S. government.
For example, Ana is a human trafficking victim who was detained for over a year, locked in solitary confinement, and forced by a guard to sleep on the cement floor of her cell until Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) ended this isolation and abuse.
Over 32,000 immigrants like Ana remain isolated in these remote detention facilities today because no
law protects a right to visitation, phone calls can cost up to $5.00 per minute, and 46% of detained migrants are transferred at least twice--often out of state and away from their families.
CIVIC is changing this reality by building and strengthening community visitation programs that are dedicated to ending the isolation and abuse of men and women in immigration detention. Visitation programs connect persons in civil immigration detention with community members. These volunteer visitors provide immigrants in detention with a link to the outside world, while also preventing human rights abuses by creating a community presence in otherwise invisible detention facilities.
CIVIC recently released A Guide to Touring U.S. Immigration Detention Facilities & Building Alliances, designed for communities across the country hoping to start a visitation program using ICE’s new Visitation Directive.
The benefit of this resource is that the general guidelines are tailored to the unique request of using the Visitation Directive as a tool to establish contact and set up a permanent visitation program. In addition, this manual provides an overview of some of the successes and roadblocks visitation programs have encountered in the first year of the Visitation Directive's existence.
CIVIC is setting in motion a national movement to combat the isolating experience of immigration detention. To get involved or for more information, please visit their website at www.endisolation.org.
Also please visit this blog with a lot of information about immigration detention, made to make people aware of immigrant detention and visiting people inside these prisons: Detentiondialogues.blogspot.com
The Visitation Manual/Directive can be found here (PDF).
Here is a YouTube about CIVIC and visiting:
Visitation, visiting people inside immigrant detention centers, enhances their psychological wellbeing as well as their human need for companionship from outside, and it is also necessary to prevent human righs abuses from taking place or from being easily inflicted.
When people from the outside visit, those inside feel a little safer, knowing that those on the outside know their situation. And they get a break from being forced to be locked up for an uncertain amount of time. Visiting is very important, powerful, and very much needed. Here is what CIVIC wrote:
Everyday immigrants disappear and are detained by the U.S. government.
For example, Ana is a human trafficking victim who was detained for over a year, locked in solitary confinement, and forced by a guard to sleep on the cement floor of her cell until Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) ended this isolation and abuse.
Over 32,000 immigrants like Ana remain isolated in these remote detention facilities today because no
law protects a right to visitation, phone calls can cost up to $5.00 per minute, and 46% of detained migrants are transferred at least twice--often out of state and away from their families.
CIVIC is changing this reality by building and strengthening community visitation programs that are dedicated to ending the isolation and abuse of men and women in immigration detention. Visitation programs connect persons in civil immigration detention with community members. These volunteer visitors provide immigrants in detention with a link to the outside world, while also preventing human rights abuses by creating a community presence in otherwise invisible detention facilities.
CIVIC recently released A Guide to Touring U.S. Immigration Detention Facilities & Building Alliances, designed for communities across the country hoping to start a visitation program using ICE’s new Visitation Directive.
The benefit of this resource is that the general guidelines are tailored to the unique request of using the Visitation Directive as a tool to establish contact and set up a permanent visitation program. In addition, this manual provides an overview of some of the successes and roadblocks visitation programs have encountered in the first year of the Visitation Directive's existence.
CIVIC is setting in motion a national movement to combat the isolating experience of immigration detention. To get involved or for more information, please visit their website at www.endisolation.org.
Also please visit this blog with a lot of information about immigration detention, made to make people aware of immigrant detention and visiting people inside these prisons: Detentiondialogues.blogspot.com
The Visitation Manual/Directive can be found here (PDF).
Here is a YouTube about CIVIC and visiting:
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
New Detention Centre opened in Amsterdam: Schiphol-West: join the Demonstration against this!
On January 13th there will be a demonstration at the latest detention centre where peopel without papers are imprisoned. In The Netherlands, the authorities choose to call such detention centres "border-hospices". Those who are opposed to locking up fellow human beings because of them having crossed 'borders' without the 'right' papers are calling to "Let your guests go free!":
Website for this demonstration:
http://laatuwgastenvrij.nl/
Find them on Twitter
The demonstration is organized by the Amsterdam Catholic Worker, Time To Turn, and is supported by Amnesty International.
Flyer text:
ZONDAG 13-01-13:
LAAT UW GASTEN VRIJ!
Deze winter wordt het nieuwe Justitieel Complex Schiphol in gebruik genomen. Er
bevinden zich binnen de metershoge muren ook afdelingen met tweepersoonscellen voor
honderden mensen die niet in Nederland mogen (ver)blijven omdat ze niet over voldoende
papieren beschikken én voor mensen die oorlog, vervolging of armoede zijn ontvlucht en
in Nederland asiel aanvragen.
Maar God gebiedt ons bij monde van Mozes juist om de vreemdeling lief te hebben. Daarom roepen de Catholic Worker Amsterdam, Time to Turn en kerken uit de Haarlemmermeer op om dit gebouw symbolisch ‘om te smeden’ tot een gastvrije herberg. Amnesty International steunt deze aktie.
Programma:
13.15 u. - Verzamelen in de de Pelgrimskerk, Havikstraat 5, Badhoevedorp.
13.30 u. - Morrend Volk zingt en er is koffie en thee.
14.00 u. - Start van de MARS VOOR GASTVRIJHEID (3 km) naar het nieuwe gevang.
15.00 u. – Aankomst bij het Justitieel Complex Schiphol, Duizendbladweg 100,
Badhoevedorp. Toespraken door diverse sprekers, onder andere oud
burgemeester van Amsterdam, Ed van Thijn.
15.45 u. – Ronde om het gebouw heen lopen om te wuiven en de gevangenen een hart
onder de riem te steken.
16.15 u. - Heropening tot gastvrije herberg: Uitrollen rode loper, overhandigen van
verzoek aan de directie met bloemen, woordenboeken en spelletjes voor de
gasten en een sleutelbord vol sleutels – sleutels naar een gastvrije toekomst.
16:45 u. - warme chocomelk
17.00 u. - einde & vertrek bus
Geweldloosheid in woord en daad: Als je aan dit getuigenis voor een gastVRIJere
wereld mee wil doen, dan verzoeken we je om dat te doen in de geest van Jezus, Gandhi
en Martin Luther King, door geen verbaal of fysiek geweld tegen politie, marechaussee of
bewakers te gebruiken, niets te beschadigen en de aanwijzingen van de organisatoren op
te volgen.
Transport en catering: Voor wie niet zo goed ter been is, rijdt er een bus heen en terug
vanaf de Pelgrimskerk. ‘Rampenplan’ zal ons van warme koffie en thee voorzien.
Breng in goede staat verkerende spelletjes en (woorden)boeken mee voor de gevangenen
en sleutels voor in het sleutelbord, sleutels naar een gastvrije toekomst!.
Voor meer informatie: WWW.SCHIPHOLWAKES.NL of bel 06 - 3029 5461.
Website for this demonstration:
http://laatuwgastenvrij.nl/
Find them on Twitter
The demonstration is organized by the Amsterdam Catholic Worker, Time To Turn, and is supported by Amnesty International.
ZONDAG 13-01-13:
LAAT UW GASTEN VRIJ!
Deze winter wordt het nieuwe Justitieel Complex Schiphol in gebruik genomen. Er
bevinden zich binnen de metershoge muren ook afdelingen met tweepersoonscellen voor
honderden mensen die niet in Nederland mogen (ver)blijven omdat ze niet over voldoende
papieren beschikken én voor mensen die oorlog, vervolging of armoede zijn ontvlucht en
in Nederland asiel aanvragen.
Maar God gebiedt ons bij monde van Mozes juist om de vreemdeling lief te hebben. Daarom roepen de Catholic Worker Amsterdam, Time to Turn en kerken uit de Haarlemmermeer op om dit gebouw symbolisch ‘om te smeden’ tot een gastvrije herberg. Amnesty International steunt deze aktie.
Programma:
13.15 u. - Verzamelen in de de Pelgrimskerk, Havikstraat 5, Badhoevedorp.
13.30 u. - Morrend Volk zingt en er is koffie en thee.
14.00 u. - Start van de MARS VOOR GASTVRIJHEID (3 km) naar het nieuwe gevang.
15.00 u. – Aankomst bij het Justitieel Complex Schiphol, Duizendbladweg 100,
Badhoevedorp. Toespraken door diverse sprekers, onder andere oud
burgemeester van Amsterdam, Ed van Thijn.
15.45 u. – Ronde om het gebouw heen lopen om te wuiven en de gevangenen een hart
onder de riem te steken.
16.15 u. - Heropening tot gastvrije herberg: Uitrollen rode loper, overhandigen van
verzoek aan de directie met bloemen, woordenboeken en spelletjes voor de
gasten en een sleutelbord vol sleutels – sleutels naar een gastvrije toekomst.
16:45 u. - warme chocomelk
17.00 u. - einde & vertrek bus
Geweldloosheid in woord en daad: Als je aan dit getuigenis voor een gastVRIJere
wereld mee wil doen, dan verzoeken we je om dat te doen in de geest van Jezus, Gandhi
en Martin Luther King, door geen verbaal of fysiek geweld tegen politie, marechaussee of
bewakers te gebruiken, niets te beschadigen en de aanwijzingen van de organisatoren op
te volgen.
Transport en catering: Voor wie niet zo goed ter been is, rijdt er een bus heen en terug
vanaf de Pelgrimskerk. ‘Rampenplan’ zal ons van warme koffie en thee voorzien.
Breng in goede staat verkerende spelletjes en (woorden)boeken mee voor de gevangenen
en sleutels voor in het sleutelbord, sleutels naar een gastvrije toekomst!.
Voor meer informatie: WWW.SCHIPHOLWAKES.NL of bel 06 - 3029 5461.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Detention Watch Network Expose and Close Reports on 10 of the Worst Immigrant Prisons in the US
From: Detention Watch Network
November 2012
Detention Watch Network has coordinated the release of ten reports which detail the acute and chronic human right violations occurring in immigration detention in the United States today.
A group of advocates, community organizers, legal service providers, faith groups and individuals personally impacted by detention, who together have deep experience and understanding of the detention and deportation system in the U.S., have identified these ten prisons and jails as facilities that are among the worst where immigrants are detained by the U.S. government.
Detention Watch Network demands that President Obama take a first step towards ending inhumane detention and close these 10 immigrant prisons cross the country as a down payment on a complete overhaul of U.S. immigration policies and practices.
On November 28, 300 national and local organizations sent a letter to the White House, calling on President Obama to close ten of the worst detention centers in the country while making immediate changes to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of immigrants held in detention.
Read the letter to Obama here.
For media inquires contact Silky Shah at sshah@detentionwatchnetwork.org
The Expose & Close Report on this website
Executive Summary of the Detention Watch Network Report
Also read the article on ABC News with a Map of the prisons.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
New Report Calls for End to Use of Solitary Confinement in Immigrant Detention
From: SolitaryWatch
September 28, 2012 By
“Are you broken yet?” Each day Rashed spent in solitary confinement at the Tri-County Detention Center in Illinois, the warden asked him this question.
An observant Muslim, Rashed had tried to advocate on behalf of another Muslim who could not speak English well. That was the “offense” that earned him his second stint in solitary, where he remained for 30 days. The first time, Rashed had asked the guards at the Dodge County Detention Facility in Wisconsin to excuse him from meals so that he could fast for Ramadan. Instead, they placed him in solitary for the remainder of the month-long observance.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had placed Rashed in detention when he arrived in the United States from his native Yemen, seeking asylum. For three years he remained in detention, transferred among several ICE-contracted facilities, as he awaited resolution of his asylum claim.
Both times Rashed was sent to solitary, it was without any formal charges being filed, any hearing, or any opportunity for review from a higher authority. “It was crazy,” he said in a press teleconference on Tuesday. He had fled Yemen to escape persecution, only to arrive in the United States and face more persecution.
This is but one of the instances of abusive and discriminatory use of solitary confinement described in a new report produced in partnership by the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Invisible in Isolation: The Use of Segregation and Solitary Confinement in Immigration Detention asserts that the use of solitary confinement for ICE detainees is unnecessary, costly and harmful to detainees’ physical and psychological health. It calls for an end to the practice of solitary confinement for immigration detainees.
In preparing the report, investigators interviewed detainees in segregation and solitary confinement at 14 of the 250 detention facilities, state and federal prisons, and county jails where the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detains more than 400,000 individuals per year. Many ICE detainees are actually lawful permanent residents and asylum-seekers awaiting adjudication of their cases. Their numbers include survivors of human trafficking, LGBT individuals, the elderly, and people with mental health conditions. Many do not speak English.
Despite the fact that they have not been convicted of any crime, most detainees held in facilities that “were built, and operate, as jails and prisons to confine pretrial and sentenced felons,” according to a former Homeland Security official quoted in the report. “ICE relies primarily on correctional incarceration standards … and on correctional principles of care, custody, and control. These standards impose more restrictions and carry more costs than are necessary to effectively manage the majority of the detained [immigrant] population.” Lacking adequate guidance from ICE, the report found, the guards in these facilities tend to apply their own local correctional practices by default. In a country where 80,000 people are in solitary confinement in prisons and jails on any given day, these practices include a liberal use of solitary.
The report does not attempt to estimate how many detainees may be in isolation in total in all ICE facilities. (ICE does not maintain such figures, and after investigators submitted requests for information to all 250 facilities in the country, just seven of those facilities provided information about ICE detainees who were held in solitary confinement.) Based on their sample of facilities, however, researchers found that ICE’s failure to enforce consistent standards regarding solitary confinement has led to the arbitrary and excessive use of the practice. There is no oversight, nor is there any due process for detainees, leaving them without any recourse to seek review of facilities’ decisions to place them in solitary.
According to the report, ICE detainees are particularly prone to solitary confinement. Facilities often deem segregation of certain ICE detainees necessary for safety purposes, in particular those who are LGBT individuals or mentally ill. However, the investigators found that segregated detainees faced the same conditions as those in disciplinary solitary confinement. Many of the ICE LGBT detainees had left their homelands because they faced persecution and discrimination because of their identities, only to face more discrimination in detention. According to the report, when one individual asked a corrections officer at the Theo Lacy Facility in California why he reduced the recreation time for LGBT detainees from two hours to 45 minutes, the officer told him, “Because you need to learn not to be faggots.”
Discrimination against immigrant populations is another cause the investigators identified as a reason for the excessive use of solitary confinement. According to the Nobles County Jail (Minnesota) Facility’s inmate rules, “Failure to speak English when able, watching Spanish channel on the TV” are violations that are punishable by a sentence of solitary confinement. Other “disciplinary” infractions that led to time in isolation at various facilities included trying to translate for another detainee, complaining about the quality of the drinking water, having an extra blanket, and playing cards instead of attending church services.
Read the rest here:
http://solitarywatch.com/2012/09/28/new-report-calls-for-end-to-use-of-solitary-confinement-on-immigration-detainees/
September 28, 2012 By
“Are you broken yet?” Each day Rashed spent in solitary confinement at the Tri-County Detention Center in Illinois, the warden asked him this question.
An observant Muslim, Rashed had tried to advocate on behalf of another Muslim who could not speak English well. That was the “offense” that earned him his second stint in solitary, where he remained for 30 days. The first time, Rashed had asked the guards at the Dodge County Detention Facility in Wisconsin to excuse him from meals so that he could fast for Ramadan. Instead, they placed him in solitary for the remainder of the month-long observance.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had placed Rashed in detention when he arrived in the United States from his native Yemen, seeking asylum. For three years he remained in detention, transferred among several ICE-contracted facilities, as he awaited resolution of his asylum claim.
Both times Rashed was sent to solitary, it was without any formal charges being filed, any hearing, or any opportunity for review from a higher authority. “It was crazy,” he said in a press teleconference on Tuesday. He had fled Yemen to escape persecution, only to arrive in the United States and face more persecution.
This is but one of the instances of abusive and discriminatory use of solitary confinement described in a new report produced in partnership by the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Invisible in Isolation: The Use of Segregation and Solitary Confinement in Immigration Detention asserts that the use of solitary confinement for ICE detainees is unnecessary, costly and harmful to detainees’ physical and psychological health. It calls for an end to the practice of solitary confinement for immigration detainees.
In preparing the report, investigators interviewed detainees in segregation and solitary confinement at 14 of the 250 detention facilities, state and federal prisons, and county jails where the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detains more than 400,000 individuals per year. Many ICE detainees are actually lawful permanent residents and asylum-seekers awaiting adjudication of their cases. Their numbers include survivors of human trafficking, LGBT individuals, the elderly, and people with mental health conditions. Many do not speak English.
Despite the fact that they have not been convicted of any crime, most detainees held in facilities that “were built, and operate, as jails and prisons to confine pretrial and sentenced felons,” according to a former Homeland Security official quoted in the report. “ICE relies primarily on correctional incarceration standards … and on correctional principles of care, custody, and control. These standards impose more restrictions and carry more costs than are necessary to effectively manage the majority of the detained [immigrant] population.” Lacking adequate guidance from ICE, the report found, the guards in these facilities tend to apply their own local correctional practices by default. In a country where 80,000 people are in solitary confinement in prisons and jails on any given day, these practices include a liberal use of solitary.
The report does not attempt to estimate how many detainees may be in isolation in total in all ICE facilities. (ICE does not maintain such figures, and after investigators submitted requests for information to all 250 facilities in the country, just seven of those facilities provided information about ICE detainees who were held in solitary confinement.) Based on their sample of facilities, however, researchers found that ICE’s failure to enforce consistent standards regarding solitary confinement has led to the arbitrary and excessive use of the practice. There is no oversight, nor is there any due process for detainees, leaving them without any recourse to seek review of facilities’ decisions to place them in solitary.
According to the report, ICE detainees are particularly prone to solitary confinement. Facilities often deem segregation of certain ICE detainees necessary for safety purposes, in particular those who are LGBT individuals or mentally ill. However, the investigators found that segregated detainees faced the same conditions as those in disciplinary solitary confinement. Many of the ICE LGBT detainees had left their homelands because they faced persecution and discrimination because of their identities, only to face more discrimination in detention. According to the report, when one individual asked a corrections officer at the Theo Lacy Facility in California why he reduced the recreation time for LGBT detainees from two hours to 45 minutes, the officer told him, “Because you need to learn not to be faggots.”
Discrimination against immigrant populations is another cause the investigators identified as a reason for the excessive use of solitary confinement. According to the Nobles County Jail (Minnesota) Facility’s inmate rules, “Failure to speak English when able, watching Spanish channel on the TV” are violations that are punishable by a sentence of solitary confinement. Other “disciplinary” infractions that led to time in isolation at various facilities included trying to translate for another detainee, complaining about the quality of the drinking water, having an extra blanket, and playing cards instead of attending church services.
Read the rest here:
http://solitarywatch.com/2012/09/28/new-report-calls-for-end-to-use-of-solitary-confinement-on-immigration-detainees/
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Nauru detainee scarred by his five years in hell
From: Herald Sun
Aug. 20th 2012
Mohammed Sagar, 36, whose last five months of a five-year stay on Nauru were spent mostly alone, warned Prime Minister Julia Gillard she would be "stealing people's lives" after Labor's "horrible" policy backflip to reopen the detention centre it had campaigned against.
Claiming that he was still suffering from his years in detention, Mr Sagar said: "I remember when we were on Nauru, when there was an election we were hoping for a Labor Party win because they would take over and change things. Labor said there were human rights issues and Australia needed to have sympathy for people in need but this now just looks like political bullshit."
Mr Sagar, who has lived in Sweden since 2007 after the nation granted him residency, was intercepted on the "children overboard" boat in October, 2001, and was sent to Manus Island before arriving at Nauru in late 2002.
Herald Sun Digital Pass
ASIO then found him to be a security risk.
After he was granted refugee status by Sweden he unsuccessfully fought to find out why Australia deemed him a risk.
Mr Sagar said he fled Iraq fearing persecution, but the conditions and treatment on Nauru were far worse.
He said his accommodation was "worse than tents" in 30C-plus temperatures and he "almost died" on the island as he repeatedly suffered malaria, dengue fever and psychiatric problems.
He was later diagnosed in Sweden as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Inside it feels as terrible as it was five years ago," Mr Sagar, an IT specialist living in Stockholm, said.
"It is the worst experience. The damage is extremely severe and deep. You are dead. You do not feel alive.
Read the rest here: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/nauru-detainee-scarred-by-his-five-years-in-hell/story-fndo317g-1226453666581
Aug. 20th 2012
THE last asylum seeker to leave Nauru said life in the island detention camp was worse than living in war-torn Iraq.
Mohammed Sagar, 36, whose last five months of a five-year stay on Nauru were spent mostly alone, warned Prime Minister Julia Gillard she would be "stealing people's lives" after Labor's "horrible" policy backflip to reopen the detention centre it had campaigned against.
Claiming that he was still suffering from his years in detention, Mr Sagar said: "I remember when we were on Nauru, when there was an election we were hoping for a Labor Party win because they would take over and change things. Labor said there were human rights issues and Australia needed to have sympathy for people in need but this now just looks like political bullshit."
Mr Sagar, who has lived in Sweden since 2007 after the nation granted him residency, was intercepted on the "children overboard" boat in October, 2001, and was sent to Manus Island before arriving at Nauru in late 2002.
Herald Sun Digital Pass
ASIO then found him to be a security risk.
After he was granted refugee status by Sweden he unsuccessfully fought to find out why Australia deemed him a risk.
Mr Sagar said he fled Iraq fearing persecution, but the conditions and treatment on Nauru were far worse.
He said his accommodation was "worse than tents" in 30C-plus temperatures and he "almost died" on the island as he repeatedly suffered malaria, dengue fever and psychiatric problems.
He was later diagnosed in Sweden as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Inside it feels as terrible as it was five years ago," Mr Sagar, an IT specialist living in Stockholm, said.
"It is the worst experience. The damage is extremely severe and deep. You are dead. You do not feel alive.
Read the rest here: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/nauru-detainee-scarred-by-his-five-years-in-hell/story-fndo317g-1226453666581
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Thousands wage peaceful protest at Tent City
From: General Assembly Coverage blog of the Unitarian Universalists:
June 24th 2012
Several thousand gathered outside the Tent City jail complex Saturday night to protest inhumane conditions maintained by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The peace vigil was organized by the UUA, and drew nearly 2,000 people, many of whom arrived in busses from the Phoenix Convention Center, site of the UUA Justice General Assembly. People lined the streets in yellow Standing on the Side of Love shirts, waving battery-operated candles. A small nearby counter-protest organized by Arpaio supporters drew less than 100 people.
The crowd sang and chanted, “Shut it down. Shut it down.” “We just got word they can hear us in Tent City,” emcee Dulce Juarez told the crowd.
Complaints of cruel and unusual punishment have been lodged against the outdoor complex since Tent City opened in 1993. In the desert heat, temperatures in the tents have reportedly reached into the 130°s. Tent City has been condemned by numerous human rights organizations, and given rise to lawsuits charging civil rights violation. The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Arpaio and Maricopa County for civil rights violations, including what it said is the long-standing racial profiling of Latinos.
“We have to take it down,” UUA President Peter Morales told the crowd. “I am so sad this can exist in my country today.” He was joined by religious leaders from other denominations, as well.
Read the rest here: http://blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2012/06/24/thousands-wage-peaceful-protest-at-tent-city/
June 24th 2012
Several thousand gathered outside the Tent City jail complex Saturday night to protest inhumane conditions maintained by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The peace vigil was organized by the UUA, and drew nearly 2,000 people, many of whom arrived in busses from the Phoenix Convention Center, site of the UUA Justice General Assembly. People lined the streets in yellow Standing on the Side of Love shirts, waving battery-operated candles. A small nearby counter-protest organized by Arpaio supporters drew less than 100 people.
The crowd sang and chanted, “Shut it down. Shut it down.” “We just got word they can hear us in Tent City,” emcee Dulce Juarez told the crowd.
Complaints of cruel and unusual punishment have been lodged against the outdoor complex since Tent City opened in 1993. In the desert heat, temperatures in the tents have reportedly reached into the 130°s. Tent City has been condemned by numerous human rights organizations, and given rise to lawsuits charging civil rights violation. The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Arpaio and Maricopa County for civil rights violations, including what it said is the long-standing racial profiling of Latinos.
“We have to take it down,” UUA President Peter Morales told the crowd. “I am so sad this can exist in my country today.” He was joined by religious leaders from other denominations, as well.
Read the rest here: http://blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2012/06/24/thousands-wage-peaceful-protest-at-tent-city/
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European borders: controls, detention and deportations
Migreurop, « European borders : controls, detention, deportations », 2009-2010 report (PDF)
Welcome - by John Fromer