Last Sunday (06-05-2012), more than a hundred people took part in a
solidarity-tour passing three detentioncentres in The Netherlands. The
tour was organised in solidarity with the people who are being detained
in immigration detention. Part of the protest was a big banner with the
text ‘tell your story’ next to a phone number. People in detention could
call that number, with the aim of opening up their stories to the
outside world.
At 12:30, two full touringbusses and some cars depart from Utrecht CS
and head to the first stop on the tour: Kamp Zeist in Soesterberg.
There’s a noise demo of 45 minutes, and shouting back and forth with the
detained over the fences. Visual contact is difficult, but we hear
about 6 voices from the other side of the fence. “On the 5th of May you
celebrate your freedom, but what freedom? We are here inside”. There is a
call from inside: a man tells that there’s only 2 seperate hours in
open air a day. He also tells that besides one filthy meal a day, they
receive only half a bread per person every two days. The staff of the
detention centre made clear to the people inside that they could only
watch the protest: a reaction or making noise would be punished.
After 45 minutes we continue our trip and head to the bajesboten
(floating jails) in Zaandam. Accompanied by drums, an air-raid alarm and
a loud “geen vrouw, geen man, geen mens is illegaal” (no woman, no man,
no one is illegal), a group of a hundred people cross a business park
towards a big fence on the other side of the water of the bajesboten. On
the left and right a few dozen illegalized are the outside areas of the
centre. There’s waving back and forth but communication is difficult,
and a police patrol boat is blocking the sight now and then. When
activists start banging the fence to make noise and others climb the
fence to make the banner with the telephone number visible to the other
side, there’s a small confrontation with two workers of the company on
site. From behind the fence they try to get the activists off the fence
by attacking them with steel pipes. They also throw buckets of water at
the activists (and police) and park a trailer in front of the only
opening in the fence. The activists don’t pull back but start to make
even more noise, because that’s why they are here: to support the people
in immigration detention, who are only detained because they don’t have
the right papers to walk as free people in The Netherlands.
After about 45 minutes, the time has come to travel to the last
location we’ll visit on this day: detention centre Schiphol-Oost, where
on the 27th of October 2005 eleven people died in a fire. On arrival
there are still people in the ‘outside’ area. After activists quickly
remove a fence and some nato-wire, it is possible to communicate
directly with the people inside. Only a few meters and the fences
separate us: it’s an impressive experience to be able to look each other
in the eye and communicate. We talk with a male journalist from Togo
and a woman from Bangladesh, but soon two guards appear who force the
people to go back inside. The people continue to wave from their cells
and put notes up against the windows reading ‘help’ and ‘freedom’.
Then we stop at the monument for the 11 deceased from the 2005 fire.
Suddenly a fire truck appears on the spot. Later we learn that people
inside set off the fire alarm. As a closer to the day, the band Zibabu
plays and a recording of a call from inside earlier that day is being
played back. After a last noise session we leave.
There have been 8 calls on Sunday, the recordings will be published
very soon on the soli-tours website. The idea is to use the telephone
number more often to get more stories into the open. We’re looking back
on a succesful day, but as long as there are people being detained for
nothing in immigration detention it is necessary to take action against
this inhumane policy.
No one is illegal! Solidarity to those without papers!
A videoreport from the tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV6ACT43Rmk
The soli-tour was broadcasted live by Pinknoise. The broadcast will soon be made available through their archive at http://pinknoise.puscii.nl/
More info at http://solitours.wordpress.com/
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