by The Trampoline House

In the course of the spring 2012, Trampoline House will be launching and running a political campaign, aiming at two things: Urging the politicians to keep their promise to let ALL asylum seekers work and live outside the asylum centers after a period of six months. And to influence the politicians and the public opinion in the direction of a more just and humane asylum policy

On the day of Friday the 10th of February 3-6 pm, a public hearing will take place, being a mobilizing initiative and the first event in a line of many in a campaign which hopefully will bring about some necessary changes. The public hearing will be divided into different themes, each of them with a small presentation by a user of Trampoline House. The idea is to have people living in camps speak up about their situation and wishes alongside with a common open discussion

▹ 15.00-15.15 Introduction to Trampoline House / Introduction to the Spring Campaign and the Public Hearing.

▹ 15.15-15.30 How do you know you are alive when you are not seen or heard in the society? Discussion on the problems of isolation.

▹ 15.30-15.45 Prisoners know when they are released – how come asylum seekers don’t? Discussion on the problems of waiting.

▹ 15.45-16.00 Coffee break

▹ 16.00-16.15 Why isn’t everyone given the opportunity to contribute? Discussion on skills and resources in the camp.

▹ 16.15-16.30 What if I can’t even say: At least I have my health? Discussion on the problem of health care in the camps.

▹ 16.30-16.45 Coffee break

▹ 16.45-17.15 What would You change? Open discussion on how to reach a more just and humane asylum policy.

▹ 17.15-17.45 Future prospects for the Spring Campaign: Where do we go from now? Make your ideas useful and join the campaign!

The public hearing will be followed by dinner and chill out from 6-11 pm. Everyone is most welcome to stay!

Read the account from last year’s public hearing in The Trampoline House on visAvis.dk: Testemonies from The Trampoline House 

Read about The Trampoline House on http://www.trampolinhuset.dk/

A group of 45 asylum seekers from Kurdistan-Iran tell their story and explain why they are currently demonstrating against the Danish Immigration Service, that has rejected all their cases.

by the refugees from Altash Camp

We are a group of Kurdish asylum seekers from Kurdistan-Iran. A lot of us have been rejected by the Danish Immigration Service, because northern Iraq is seen as our first country of asylum. Therefore, we will peacefully demonstrate in front of the Danish parliament building, each day from Monday the 30th of January till Saturday 4th of February between 10am and 2pm.

With these demonstrations we want to give an account of ourselves, what our asylum motive is, and address the Danish immigration authorities in order to confirm our identity and inform about our condition in the northern Iraq. The Danish Immigration Service has claimed that northern Iraq is our first country of asylum in the light of some observations which a group from The Danish Immigration Service has conducted during a trip to northern Iraq. We do not believe that northern Iraq is our first country of asylum as the country can not protect us as refugees. There is no passed law, administrative supervision, or political decisions that provide us with protection, rights, or protection against being forced to be returned to Iran.

Historical background
We are refugees from Kurdistan-Iran, which is also our origin. We are the so called ‘refugees from Altash Camp’. In 1979 we were forced to escape from Kurdistan-Iran to Iraq due to the war between Iran and Iraq and our political involvement. After two years of settlement in Iraq we were removed by the dictatorial regime in Iraq to Altash Camp. The Altash Camp was a dessert area 120 km from Baghdad. The area was enclosed. The living standard in the camp were far from humane. A lot of people died in the camp due to starvation and diseases.

All the refugees who were removed to Altash Camp lived in the area for about 22 years until the fall of Saddam Hussein and his dictatorial regime. After the fall of the regime, Iraq was chaos. We feared the USA bombings and we feared Al-Qaeda. We fled to the northern Iraq. Here we were divided into three camps. A fourth group settled in the borderland between Iraq, Syria, and Jordan.

Even though we settled down in some of the camps in northern Iraq, we were not viewed as political refugees or regular Iraqi citizens. We were only considered as Kurds from Iran who had settled down in different camps. We did not have access to the health care system like the Iraqi citizens. We could not travel freely in Iraq or out of Iraq as we could not get travel identification cards. We did not have the same access to the educational system and the job market as the Iraqi citizens. We were not protected against being send back to Iran where there was a risk of death sentences and political persecution. In other words, we were a group without affiliation and rights.

Present situation
This, among other things, was the reason for why more and more people escaped from these camps in northern Iraq and fled to the European countries, hoping for a better life where basic human rights would secure their lives. The majority of these refugees arrived in Denmark and we are today about 45 asylum seekers from Altash Camp residing in the different Danish asylum camps. We have all applied for asylum as regular refugees.

The Iraqi authorities could not protect us socially or economically. There was no real asylum procedure. Iraqi citizens could get economical support, whereas we were left to ourselves, to find roof over our heads and money for livelihood.
We want to inform you that each of us from Altash Camp got positive from the Danish Immigration Service. But unfortunately, since March of 2011 when the Danish group visited the north of Iraq (Kurdistan), everyone of us got rejected.

We want to inform the Danish authorities about our situation and need all the support we can get!

Read more about refugees’ own struggles on visAvis.dk:
Statement from Afghan Asylum seekers
Report from the Afghan asylum seekers’ demonstration the 10th of November in Copenhagen
“We need you, but I think you also need us”
Read the article Det uheldige drama i Flygtningenævnet on Information.dk

Organisation meeting for No Borders Camp 2012 Saturday 21 January 2012 at 6.30pm in the Trampoline House.

No Borders groups meet every year to make actions against the structures that keep up illegalisation of movement, this year the meeting is in Stockholm and on Saturday 21 January people from the Stockholm group come to Copenhagen to discuss with us how we can contribute to the organisation of the camp.

EU’s five-year-plan for internal and external security and migration “the Stockholm plan” has reached half it’s lifetime. In connection to this The No Border Camp will focus on, seek out and attack the places and structures that are the physical manifestation of a program for the total hegemony of whiteness norms. This applies to governments, institutions and all companies that in some way benefit from the implementation of the deportations, construction and operation of detention centres and all the people who are “just doing their job “.

Come to the Trampoline House and share your ideas and hopes about how we can make the No Borders camp 2012 effective and not least pleasant to participate in.

Read the account from the No Border Camp 2011 which took place in Hungary on visAvis.dk HERE!

Below we bring the CALL OUT from No Border’s website:

No Border Camp 2012 – CALL OUT:

We invite you to the transnational No Border Camp in Stockholm summer 2012: a week of civil disobedience, discussions, film screenings and direct action against the European migration policy.

In the last 15 years No Border Camps have been situated in border areas and conflict zones around the world. They have functioned as autonomous zones for the international movement for the abolition of all Earth’s nation-states. It has been a part of the work for a world where no one has the right to oppress others because of where they were born. To struggle against and question a world which at birth, sorts people into categories of nationality, gender, class, race and functionality. categories of below and above the order; authority and obedience, right and wrong. The exclusion following the borders of these categories are not limited to around geographical territories, but also runs within states, in the middle of cities, between and through people. This is the policy needed to maintain an authoritarian and capitalist social order:

• Frontex border guards stationed in the east and south, with a military budget soon to be 150 million Euros.
• Police seizing people without legal documents, in collaboration with ticket inspectors on the subway.
• Refugees imprisoned in “detention centers” for an indefinite period, for undetermined cause, while waiting for “removal” by forced deportation or what may as well in some cases be called murder.
• The EU’s development agency maintaining radar installations in the Libyan desert to “Manage migration flows”.
• Restaurants and nightclubs exploiting migrants’ insecure and desperate situation and through that separating us even more.
• You will never be a part of the nationally unifying ‘we’ called citizenship. if you do not deny yourself, customize yourself, makes you a white blank page in the service of capital.

It is these borders, the deeply anchored structures of systematic racism that are made clear in the “Stockholm Programme”, EU’s five-year plan for the mixing of the problem areas’ internal and external security and migration. According to the EU, free movement of people are a security problem. The Stockholm Programme is, as the borders it has at its directive, not connected to a certain place. Its shadow which falls upon us all creates barriers in our daily lives, between those who get to influence, the lucky ones who are included and those that are deprived of the right to exist.

Next summer, the Stockholm Programme has reached half its lifetime. In connection to this we will focus on, seek out and attack the places and structures that are the physical manifestation of a program for the total hegemony of whiteness norms. This applies to governments, institutions and all companies that in some way benefit from the implementation of the deportations, construction and operation of detention centres and all the people who are “just doing their job “.

We organize this camp because we believe that humanity is worth a vision of another life, an existence of mutual trust, love and helpfulness. We want to gather, to share each other’s creativity, to live our vision and to turn our anger against that which makes these things impossible. For a world where local and global compassion and responsibility are not opposites. Therefore we invite all organizations, groups, individuals and public to participate and contribute in what ever ways they are able to.

The movement for global solidarity and freedom from oppression in the past years has shown that we will not take no for an answer: if you don’t step down, we will step it up.

/ Noborder camp stockholm 2012

You can be sure that you will hear from us again — for what we do is important, and you are needed.

No Border Stockholm

by Søren Rafn

In his groundbreaking work Modernity and the Holocaust from 1989 the Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman describes the Holocaust as a distinctly modern phenomenon that was unthinkable without modern bureaucracy and instrumental rationality. The Holocaust cannot be explained as a relapse into barbarism, or a manifestation of Hitler’s madness. It is rather a phenomenon that our civilization has not yet rejected. The more advanced technologies and control mechanisms of the modern civilization are still perceived as the shield that defends us against barbaric violence and insecurity. Modern civilization does not eradicate violence at all, however, but only removes it from sight and moves it into what Bauman describes as the violence of ‘the twilight zones’. And by monopolizing violence it gives way for developing the means of violence with out restriction.

Stop Deportations is the name of an asylum actvist group. It consists of a loose network of alternating people who focus on ‘civilized’ society by zooming in on its violent twilight zones. They focus on the asylum camp, for example, where asylum seekers are not only hidden from the public, but where arrests of rejected asylum seekers are typically disguised by the darkness of night. Likewise they focus on the airport where borders are not just a matter of airport detentions and the migration control of airlines, but where deportations also take place as covertly as possible. The group can be said to challenge the state’s monopoly of violence in the hidden zones of violence by means of civil disobedience and direct actions. The declared goal of the group is to stop the deportations or make them as difficult as possible. However, their actions can just as well be understood as symbolic events with the underlying aim to make the invisible violence visible.

Stop Deportations wants to eliminate the passivity that maintains the structural violence of society. The group maintains that their reactions are emotional; based on impulses of helplessness, anger and frustration. They take place on basis of information about future deportations that are available to the group in one way or another. The feeling of helplessness does not lead to pure aggression however (actions have never caused an injury). It intensifies both spontaneity and professionalism. The group plans everything thoroughly; necessary equipment is provided, maps are drawn – and the unthinkable outcome is considered in the action: What is to be done if the freeing of the deportees becomes a real possibility? But the fact that a freeing may rarely be a reality is also considered. Actions are primarily understood as nonprogrammatic manifestations beyond the logic of utilitarianism. They are thus driven by a basic ethical attitude rather than instrumental rationality.

The actions are concretely manifested in barricades, or other attempts at intervention, near the detention centre of Camp Sandholm, Ellebæk. Once the group made a bonfire on Ellebækvej and threw themselves atop a police car before they were pushed away. But it is the airport operations that have become the trademark of the group. Here barricades are made in front of check in, and members of the group chain themselves to the counter. Meanwhile airport staff and passengers are informed of the goings on. In one action the group booked two tickets on a flight with a rejected asylum seeker. This action was a particular success: The two ‘activist tourists’ refused to get on the plane, encouraged by the other activists who informed them that a deportation was going on. This created great awareness of the situation among the staff and in the airport generally. The emotional impulse of the group must be understood in connection to an uncompromising political critique of existing social structures. Stop Deportations took its name from a former anti-fascist group and established itself in 2007. At that time several of its activists had begun to spend time in the Danish asylum camps and became aware of the deportation system that was carried hidden from the public. In particular the group found reason to protest against the deportations because many convicted Iraqis, including people who had atoned their sentences, were administratively expelled. These cases showed a clear legal disfavorment, but they also induced the group to take action against what it perceived as a racist asylum system. The group focused on fundamental rights issues regardless of individual backgrounds. The protests were supposed to express opposition to the deportations as such and thus also to the existence of national borders – rather than just the behavior of the Danish state.

In my opinion the relationship between emotions and criticism built on principle can be seen as follows: Stop Deportations does not react on the basis of specific human suffering, or on the basis of human compassion. It reacts as a matter of principle – and through its actions underscores the existence of an unjust system. But the group still reminds us that it is humans who are affected by the systemic violence through the act of responding to specific expulsions. In this context emotions can be seen to be caused by structural and systemic injustice, but they do not abstract from the concrete human fates involved. In this way Stop Deportations moves beyond both scientific coldness and the nonscientific compassion.

With its fundamental opposition to deportations Stop Deportations addresses the nation state and the nation-state demarcations in a globalized world where borders are increasingly contended and constantly have to be moved and renegotiated. The group focuses on the fact that Danish border control to a great extent is carried out within a European framework; at the borders of Europe – and that the border control of Europe has been moved onto the African continent. Here it is carried out by non-state airlines and other private actors, at least until very recently also in cooperation with North African dictators. All of this happens in a global economic landscape where migrants might be unwanted, but are paradoxically also necessary labor in maintenance of national economic sovereignty. In this light the boundaries between ‘them’ and ‘us’ become more and more indistinct and constantly have to be reinforced if the notion of national identity shall be maintained. Migration seems an inevitable ‘threat’ that makes the nation state act more and more desperately.

One can object that Stop Deportations confirms the structure they supposedly challenge, however; by always re-acting, by always running after, by routinely occupying a permanent space linked to deportations as if in a theater play. Thus they confirm the eternity of the system. Rightfully it should be mentioned that Stop Deportations does actions other than spontaneous reactions to deportations. The group held a demonstration against the EU border agency Frontex, for instance. As an example of a different kind of action it may also be mentioned that the group in one case prevented entry to the Immigration Service from outside. They did this by means of simple tools such as glue and matchsticks leaving the following message on the door: “Closed due to racism.” The reason for this action was that a 52-year-old Iraqi woman had been lured into a trap and arrested after an interview at the Immigration Service – as Farhiya Khalid describes February 10 2010 on Modkraft.dk. Stop Deportations wants to explore alternatives to airport operations and in the future react earlier in the deportation process. The group also expresses a desire to work closely with the transnational asylum movement in Europe.

Stop Deportations also wants to connect more to the public and to the broader political asylum protest movement in Denmark. This undoubtedly requires that strategies are reconsidered and new ones invented. This is far cry from saying that the group should assimilate or be deradicalised. Rather, Stop Deportations has a momentum due to their focus on borders – since the border violence in the twilight zone moves closer and closer. As mentioned the demarcation will be harder due to the increased pressure on the nation states by globalization. The nation state can no longer put a simple divide between them and us. Potentially the divide cuts through all people: The status of the undocumented migrant changes between legal and illegal, unaccompanied minors are deprived of their residence when they turn 18 – and Danish citizens may lose basic rights like the ability to bring a foreign spouse to the country. This may occur if the spouse does not have the ‘right’ educational background and adequate language skills. Today we are all potential losers in the casino of global capitalism.

The question is what a group like Stop Deportations can expect from the broader public and the media. When Klaus Rothstein from the newspaper Weekendavisen tried to conceptualize the perhaps upcoming asylum activism in Denmark on Aug 20 2010, he did it by drawing a clear line between a ‘noble project’ like visAvis, who had received the Peace Foundation’s Initiative Prize, and some ‘foolish offenders’ who had thrown paint on the Integration Ministry in protest against a deportation the same day. Thus Rothstein dismissed violence or vandalism as noise; as a nonlanguage that does not require analysis. He did this in favor of a communicative project, visAvis, that conversely found itself dismissed as non-violent and sympathetic. Doing this he forgot to ask himself one important question: Could the people from visAvis who received the Peace Foundation’s prize on a warm summers day in Christianshavn not have been some of the same people who went to the awards ceremony after washing the stains of their clothes from that same morning’s action?

There is a connection here: The demarcation between ‘them’ and ‘us’ – as the simplified theory of the clash of civilizations, of cultures, tries to sum up, instead of drawing the far more complex picture of a global civilization of clashes – this simplification is played

out in the media in the form of a dualistic division of peaceful volunteers and violent activists. Also, among the more humanistic journalists, it seems there is little hope that the the media can and will let go of the safety of demarcations. Rather the question is whether a broader political asylum movement and a new public can and will let go of this safety? As mentioned, there is no doubt that Stop Deportations must connect to the broader political public that works with asylum issues, and that perhaps begins to merge in civil society. But if a political movement shall have more than symbolic significance it is equally important for a broader asylum public to connect strongly to a phenomenon such as Stop Deportations.

Read the visAvis article  by  the Swedish activist group Aktion Mot Deportation HERE

Cases:

L and her three children R (22), A (17) and S (15) were arrested three o’clock the morning of the 26^th of October 2010 and imprisoned in Ellebæk at Camp Sandholm. They were released a few days later with orders to stay near Sandholm.

In August 2010 the three police officers appeared in an apartment that belonged to an Iranian girl. They arrested her 70-year-old parents whom the girl took care of in the apartment. The family was sent to Ellebæk. The woman got her arm twisted by the police. Subsequently she had to stay home from work with pain in the shoulder and arm. The father, who has a heart disease, had chest pains, but the daughter was refused to call 112.

Monday the 16th of August 2010 a 52-year-old Iranian mother was deported by force to Iran. She came to Denmark two years earlier after she had been active in the rebellion against the Iranian regime. Her asylum application was refused, and she was arrested and placed in Ellebæk for two months. Three weeks earlier the Danish authorities had tried to deport her, but she protested loudly against it at the airport, and the stewards refused to take her on board. After this episode the woman was finally placed – against her will – on an aircraft from Iran Air. According to another passenger she was overpowered by the stewards and forced into silence on this aircraft.

The second of March 2011 two officers arrived at The Female Center in Kongelunden to escort a 32-year-old rejected asylum seeker from Georgia out of the country. The woman had received a letter three days in advance, but it was said that she was familiar with the letter. The woman asked for a few more days of suspension and tried to explain why she can not return to Georgia, but she was told to follow. The woman then attempted suicide by pulling a knife and stabbing herself twice.

The 5th of February 2010 52-year-old K was arrested in Immigration Service in Copenhagen. She had been asked to show up with her passport here in order to talk about her stay. According to K’s son, A, who was present at the arrest, they waited for several hours while the staff smiled at them and gave them fruit. After closing time the door to the room was locked, the police called. K was arrested and taken to Ellebæk.

The Kurdish-Syrian asylum seeker A, one of the Kurdish Syrians who went on hunger strike in 2010, was deported to Syria on 8^th February 2011. He was returned to Denmark by the Syrian authorities the same day. A had been handed over to Syrian authorities by three Danish officers. Since then he was handed over to men from the Syrian intelligence service and whipped as pictures of his back filled with red marks from the beatings showed clearly.

We are doing everything we can to reach a broader public. Therefore, we  have decided to make the next issue of visAvis, which is scheduled to be published in February, free. In doing so, we hope to reach broader, and have more people involved in the fight of a more just asylum system.

At the moment we are busy fundraising for the next issue. But we still need money in order to publish the next issue. And we need your help. You can donate through the following account:

reg.nr. 7851
konto.nr. 3285805

The payometer at the right sidebar shows how much we have already raised and what we still need in order to publish!

Another way to support us is by showing up in the Trampolinehouse (Skyttegade 3, Nørrebro) and buy the old issues of visAvis. Here we sell issue 3, 4, and 5 for only 100 kr.

Support this rare and ambitious project and help indtroduce a new way of speaking about asylum and migration. Be a part of including the voices of people living in the asylum camps in the public debate. Read more about visAvis HERE! 

Thanks!

Danish legislation complicates traumatised refugees’ attempts to obtain asylum and residence permits. Researcher Edith Montgomery has published a report that reveals the problems in a system that does not make allowances for human aspects.

By Paula Nimand Duvå, Laura Na Blankholm and Nicoline Sylvest Simonsen

Faster asylum application processing and shorter waiting time.This is but one of the improvements that researcher Edith Montgomery demands of the Danish asylum system on the basis of her report ‘Trauma, Exile and Mental Health in Young Refugees,’ that was published in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Supplementum vol. 124 in September 2011.

Edith Montgomery is a specialist in child psychology and was formerly head of research of the RCT rehabilitation and research centre for victims of torture in Copenhagen.

In the report she describes how refugee children and young refugees’ health conditions are in some cases made worse in Denmark. The cause of this is the fact that prolonged asylum processing locks them in a waiting position during their long stays in asylum camps.

The long periods in which they stay in the camps are, among other things, due to tightening of national immigration laws. These laws mean that fewer families are given asylum in Denmark on the basis of having been subjected to torture or other kinds of human rights violations.

The reason for this is, among other things, that only rarely are allowances made for the mental health of the traumatised refugees through the phases of the asylum application procedure.

Traumatised people’s memory suffers

When you arrive in Denmark as a refugee seeking asylum, the first step in the asylum application procedure is an interview performed by the police. The interview focuses on why you have fled and is done to uncover why you are seeking asylum in Denmark.

However, many asylum seekers have been subjected to torture and persecution and are therefore seriously traumatised.

According to Edith Montgomery, the traumas often prevent asylum seekers from being able to remember the details of events they have been through.

Edith Montgomery explains to visAvis: “It can be complicated for people who are traumatised to provide a coherent explanation of what they’ve been subjected to. This means traumatised people may not be deemed trustworthy, and trustworthiness is essential to obtaining asylum.”

Contrary to this, the Danish Immigration Service, that makes decisions in asylum cases, believes special allowances are made when cases relating to this vulnerable group of people are being decided.

Jacob Dam Glynstrup, head of the Danish Immigration Service’s asylum office, says to visAvis:
“We’re fully conscious of the special allowances that must be made in relation to traumatised asylum seekers in terms of training of our staff and a continuous focus in our processing of cases. We agree entirely that allowances must be made for the reactions and cultural backgrounds of asylum seekers.”

Legislation that makes no allowances

Unfortunately, Danish legislation prevents the Danish Immigration Service from doing what it aims to do.

When the Danish Immigration Service applies the immigration laws that came into force in 2002 and aimed to “limit the number of foreigners who enter Denmark,” it does not make the required allowances.

On the contrary.

Edith Montgomery explains: ”Refugees who suffer from a basic fear of returning to their countries because of traumatic experiences – such as torture or rape – used to be able to obtain a residence permit. The tightening of Danish immigration laws means that residence permits are given only to people who are in direct danger of being subjected to the death penalty or torture if they return.”

This way of deciding asylum seekers’ cases – on the basis of a direct risk of the death penalty and torture – is confirmed by Jacob Dam Glynstrup:

He observes: “The pivotal element in an asylum case is to ascertain if asylum seekers – at the time when they apply – will be subjected to a risk relevant to Danish immigration laws if they return to their countries. Conditions – and possible changes – that apply in their countries therefore play a crucial role. We have, for instance, seen how this risk may be removed completely in a country such as Kosovo.”

As it has been stated earlier in this article, this is the very core of the problem: it is an almost impossible challenge to overcome for traumatised refugees when they have to prove there is a risk which is relevant to Danish immigration laws.

Facts:

- The report documents the exile-related traumas and the mental health of young refugees from the Middle East who have applied for asylum in Denmark

- The report contains a qualitative study of 11 children from families subjected to torture, a study of 14 members of families subjected to torture, a study of 311 three to 15 years old children seeking asylum and a follow-up study of 131 eleven to twenty-three years old refugees.

- The report concludes that psychological problems are frequent in refugee children and that the problems grow due to poor living conditions in exile.

- Living conditions are crucial to refugee children’s ability to recover from the traumas they suffered when they were very young.

Aktion mot deportation is a two year old Swedish campaign in the No Border spirit which forms resistance against the Swedish system of forced deportations, pointing a finger at the unjust and violent treatment of refugees in detention centers and asylum seekers overall.

 by Marcus Regnander, Aktion mot deportation, Göteborg

You might know Sweden as a nation of gender equality, of solidarity, with low levels of corruption and a just legal system. A place where refugees can come, and get asylum as soon as they cross Sweden’s border. These are all myths that more and more people inside Sweden are starting to see through and break down in different ways. While it might be true that some parts of the Swedish system can be more open than that of other countries, this does not mean that immigrant prisons, forced deportations and the splitting of families are not problems that causes severe suffering for refugees coming to Sweden in pursiut of a safer and happier life. Only in these last few weeks one case has caused outrage over the migration system, not because it’s a single case but because media picked up the tear soaked stories of the people involved. The two small kids Deymond and Hiyab from Eritrea, 5 and 3 years old, are about to be deported to Italy according to the Dublin Declaration, but without taking into the picture that they do not have any family or connections there, nor that the older Deymon suffers from developmental disabilities and autism and is in need of constant care. A letter writing and media campaign is up and running for allowing these kids to stay in Sweden with their host family, but at the time of writing it’s not known how this story will end.

This is unfortunately only just one example of the unjust Swedish migation system. Sweden also holds the not so flattering record of being the country that has been found guilty of deporting refugees to countries where they risk being tortured the most times in the UN commitee of Torture. No less than 18 times has Sweden been found guilty of deporting refugees to countries where they after returning have been tortured. In January a person was also deported from Sweden, tortured when returing to Iraq and eight days after his arrival he dissapeared. And the story of Khaled Khodeda is well known both in Denmark and Sweden, a Kurdish man who was deported to Iraq and early in the morning of October 24th was found in his hideout by unknown men and attacked with a hammer and then got his throat cut and died.

Acts of Solidarity
These stories are the reasons for the foundation and growth of the rather new network in Sweden, called Aktion mot deportation. Activists from our network have been trying to block the forced deportations of, amongst others, Iraqi citizens. Finding places to stay, money, food, and giving healthcare to hidden immigrants are older and still very important acts of solidarity that hundreds of people all over Sweden are involved in. Yet, direct action against the detention centers is a newer form for trying to handle the inhumane way immigrants are threated in Sweden. No less than eleven times during 2011 have groups of Iraqi refugees been deported against their will from either Malmö, Göteborg or Stockholm, and thoundsands more are waiting for their call to get on the Frontex planes. Activists have been continusly visiting the five detention centers in Sweden, with a message of solidarity and an aim of connecting and getting information about when the deportations will take place. And everytime a deportation has been known, direct actions in different ways have been set to try to stop the deportation machine. People have locked themselves in the way for the buses and blocking the road with their bodies. In as many ways as possible we’ve tried to bring attention to the violence the Swedish system is forcing upon refugees and asylum seekers, speaking out as much as possible in mass media and in public places, to unconver the deportation system.

None of the actions have been successful in the meaning of actually blocking the deportations for any longer time. But we have managed to make the massdeportations to a really expensive process for the migration system, having to bring loads of police each time to be able to pull their awful business through. Our actions are also causing uncomfortable discussions for the responsible migration minister of the Swedish parliament, Tobias Billström (Moderaterna, right wing neoliberal), whom desperately defends their politics by refering to laws and claiming that ”40% of all Iraqies that seek refugee in Sweden can stay”. As if that would be enough.

A new Tactic
A new tactic from our side for interfering with the deportation machine has been very successful and interesting. After each deportation during this fall we have noted which bus companies that have been used to bring the refugees to the airport, and then made campaigns against their involvement in this inhumane process. We have called out to people to call and email the companies involed, telling them what they are a part of and the consequences of this. And this strategy has been a great success, faced with the context of what their buses are helping out with, several companies have taken an open stand against the deportation system. Examples of this are Ingvar Ryggesjö from Swebus who says ”We don’t want to take part in processes that is politically sensitive to the society” or the words from Lars Kronvall CEO on Nettbuss Transfer ”we can’t see this working out with our view on social responsibilty and will not take part in massdeportations again”.

At the time of writing, Iraqi minister Dindar Ndjeman Dosky is pleading to the Swedish minister of migration Tobias Billström that Sweden needs to change it’s implementation of the bilateral agreement between the two nations, and stop with the forced deportations since the Iraqi government can’t guarantee their saftey. Until the inhumane deportations stop we will keep being these uncomfortable clogs in the machinery of the Swedish deportation system. Until we make the deportations stop and we can open up the detention centers – we will keep making the process as expensive, uncomfortable and public as possible. It should at least be expensive to be inhumane.

Read the analysis of the similar Danish initiative Stop Udvisningerne on visAvis.dk HERE

Read more about the initiative at the website of Aktion Mot Deportation

For further information contact amdgbg@gmail.com

Here we bring the story about an abused female asylum seeker. The article was brought on the Italian page »migranda« on the international day against violence against women.

by Migranda, Associazione Trama di Terre

Adama is a woman and a migrant. As we write, Adama is imprisoned in the CIE (Detention center for migrants) of Bologna. She has been imprisoned there since the 26th of august, when she called the Carabinieri of Forlì after having been robbed, beaten, raped and had her throat injured with a knife by her ex-partner. The institutions responded to her request for help with the form of imprisonment reserved for migrants without regular residency papers. Her story was indifferent to them. Her story – which tells of a double violence, which she was subjected to as a woman and as a migrant – is very important to us.

“Abused and threatened with jail”

According to the Bossi-Fini immigration law Adama came to Italy in an illegal manner. For us she came to Italy in a courageous manner, to give her children who remained in Senegal a better future. She found a job and a house through the same man, who initially helped and protected her, becoming her partner, but subsequently became her tormentor. A man who ably used the Bossi-Fini law for the purposes of blackmail. For four years, this man threatened to report Adama to the authorities and have her deported if she did not follow his every command. For four years he robbed her of part of her salary, using her illegal alien status as a weapon of his power over her.

“Help from authorities: prison”

When Adama had to seek the assistance of law enforcement authorities the only response was imprisonment in the black hole of a detention center where she could still have to remain for months. On the 16th of September Adama’s lawyer presented an official request to enter the detention center, accompanied by doctors and an interpreter, in order to verify her health conditions and formally take down her statement regarding the violence she was submitted to. Only on the 25th of October the Bologna prefecture authorized the entry of the doctors and interpreter to the detention center. More than a month had gone by before Adama could formally accuse her aggressor, and we do not know how long it will be before she can be released from custody.

We know, however, that every day of custody is one too many. We know that the violence that Adama has been submitted to, as a woman and as a migrant, affects all women and therefore it is not possible let her be detained one moment more. The CIE is just the most brutal expression of a law, the Bossi-Fini law, that imposes silence and transforms brave women into powerless victims.

We women cannot be silent as Adama fights her battle. For this we are calling on all collectives, associations and institutions to demand her immediate liberation from the CIE and her being granted legal residency to permit her to take back control of her life.

Read the visAvis article about “Rights of women seeking asylum”

Visit the Italian site Migranda

The name of the author is known by the editorial group

Monday May 23 at around 22.45. The Danish Red Cross Centre Avnstrup.

Around 30 people are in the computer room on the ground floor. I am sitting at one of the computers, watching TV on the Internet.

A while earlier, around 4 o’clock, a Kurdish man came to the reception. A member of staff asked how he could help him. The man asked the member of staff to phone the police because he had mental problems and wanted to be taken away from the asylum centre.

Around five o’clock the police arrive and tell him that he must sleep in his room and that they cannot take him with them because he has not committed a criminal act. A short while later the same Kurdish man turns up at the reception again; he now has a knife. He threatens the staff and asks them why they have not phoned the police and why they are not doing their job. Another Kurdish man takes the knife from the man. The staff phones the police again.

Four police cars arrive. They put the Kurd in handcuffs, take him to another room, hit him and pepper spray his face. Then they put him in a patrol car. One of the officers returns to the reception with a dog. All the people present in the room are watching calmly. The police officer then begins walking towards the exit. A person to the left of me says: “Fuck the Danish police,” and the officer immediately looks at me. He leaves the room and returns together with one more officer. They have brought the dog with them. The officer with the dog stands at the other end of the room. The other one approaches me and says, in an aggressive way: “What are you doing? You have no respect for Danish police. Come on. Come on.” He pushes me four times, and I fall to the floor and land on my back. I try to get up, but the other officer releases the dog. It bites me in my back. I am half-standing and yell several times: “Stop, it hurts, I can’t…” both in Danish, German and English. I grab the officer by his wrist and try to open the dog’s mouth with my other hand. It bites my fingers. Then one of the police officers takes the dog away, and then they take me to the patrol car. They press my head against the car, place my hands on my back and put me in handcuffs. “Excuse me, what have I done wrong?” I ask. The officers move three or four meters away, then they come back and press me against the car. One of the officers opens the patrol car’s door and pushes me into the back seat. After a short while another man, who is from Afghanistan, is put in the back seat of another car. We then drive away.

After around 200 meters we stop at a parking lot. The officers get out of the car and talk about what they are going to do. “What are we going to say to the station?” asks one of the officers. The other officer answers: “One of them has a knife – we’ll bring him along. The other one hit me with his head – we’ll bring him along as well.” Another person approaches me with a torchlight and looks at my back. He gets angry. Then all the cars drive towards Roskilde Police Station.

While we are driving, I ask: “What have I done wrong – maybe you’ve misunderstood something?” The officer in the passenger seat in front of me turns around and bangs my head against the car window. I say: “Maybe we’ve misunderstood one another – I don’t have a conflict with the police.”
“Now you have a conflict,” the officer says and bangs my head against the car window again. He goes on: “Why don’t you go back to your own countries.” He bangs my head against the car window once again, and his nail inflicts a wound on the side of my nose. He praises the dog, who is sitting at the back of the car. “Freddie has done well today.”

We then arrive at the police station. They take me inside and press me down on the floor. The officers pull up my sweater and take photographs of my back, where the wound from the dog bite is clearly visible. I am thrown into a detention cell. After 45 minutes four officers and a man in civilian clothes enter the cell. The man in civilian clothes is a doctor. He examines my back. “It looks okay,” he says. The officers take off my shirt and take photographs of my back. I am allowed to go to the toilet, where I can wash my wounds with hot warm water and toilet tissue. I spend the night in the cell.

The next day an officer comes into the cell and tells me that an interpreter will join us. Around eleven o’clock I am taken to an office together with the interpreter and the officer. I tell my story to them.
“We have a charge against you. You hit an officer with your head,” says the police officer.  I answer: “How can I hit an officer with my head when I am sitting at a computer?” He asks me more questions about what happened. I ask why they do not simply take a look at the CCTV tape, and I tell the interpreter: “I don’t feel like talking to that bastard.” The officer says: “OK, then I’ll just finish the report.” He prints it out and asks me to sign. I ask if I can have a copy of the report, but that is not possible, so I do not sign. I am taken back to the cell. After three quarters of an hour, at 13.45, they give me back my things, and I can leave.

After almost six months I am still waiting for the case to be decided. It is not my fault that I am here. I am a decent human being.

A flag is one of the strongest symbols of the nation-state, and for national identity.

Unknown Border Flag is a flag for the underrepresented, those who are not heard, and those who are not recognized by the system.

A declaration from this generation against the decadency of the political, social and economical system.

In southern Latin America it has become a tradition to bring your pots and pans to the streets. To make noise when you want to get your voice heard.

The noise of the pots hanging under the flag resonate with sympathy, for the people who stand up against their governments around the world.

The sound of a world without borders, where people and ideas roam freely.

Maragarita del Carmen
Unknown Border Flag
Flag, pots and pans.
First presented at the exhibition: PARK LA CRIB 1. – 5. September 2011, Palæ Garagen, København http://copenhagen11.tumblr.com/