Solidarity Hunger strike in The Hague

On Thursday, May 16th, 10:00, a two-day solidarity hunger strike will start at the Plein in The Hague, to show our support to the hunger- and thirst strike in detention center Rotterdam. We want to draw attention to Dutch asylum policy which aims to exclude refugees from society and call for an immediate policy change. Descent asylum policy ensures that people in emergency are guaranteed safety and a future.
Currently there is one thirst striker in the hospital; his situation is very serious. Our thoughts go out to him and to the 23 hunger strikers who, despite the repression that detention Rotterdam applies to break the strike, continue their protest against the inhumane asylum policy. The refugees who are on hunger strike demand freedom and want protection instead of being treated as a criminal. We stand with them and support their demands.

Asylum policy

Refugees are entitled to protection and safety. They want to build a secure existence in the Netherlands, after they have fled war, famine, persecution or other life-threatening situations.
The Dutch government does not care about this. Asylum requests are massively rejected, regardless of the stories of refugees; every day refugees are being put on the street. Without the right to shelter, work or care, they beg for their food and have to survive on the streets. They have to flee the police who engage in random ID checks to arrest undocumented people, so their “illegal quota” is being met. Some 10,000 refugees a year are being locked up in prisons esspecially built for them. This is inhumane, this is unacceptable. Now refugees themselves have started protesting to claim their fundamental rights, it is up to the rest of society, people with and without papers, to support them in every way possible.

Repression detention

On Wednesday, May 1st twenty refugees have gone on hunger strike in detention Schiphol. Guards oppressed the hunger strikers in a scandalous manner in an attempt to break the protest by putting them in isolation cells. On Monday, May 6 there were over a hundred refugees on hunger strike in detention Rotterdam. A day later fifty women in detention Bruges (Belgium) went on hunger strike as well.

In Rotterdam the management even used harsher methods of repression than in Schiphol. The thirst strike leader of a group of hunger strikers, Sayam Nessar, was removed from the group on Thursday night and put in a department with empty cells. Afterwards they threatened the group with isolation, after which a great deal of hunger and thirst strikers gave up. Nessar was being kept awake at night and put in a cold cell. Tuesday he won a lawsuit, which stipulates that he was unlawfully detention. Thankfully he is now free.

But the rest of the refugees are not free yet. We will continue to support their call for freedom and we call on the government to change the asylum policy in a manner in which refugees will finally find a safe place in the Netherlands.

Arrogance government

The government has been arrogant and cold towards the situation of the hunger strikers. At first they did not even respond to the demands of the refugees. A member of Parliament of the VVD even too it as far as delcaring that the hunger strikers “took the government” with their protest. But who is really taken hostage? Who is deprived of any chance of existence? Who is suppressed by the Dutch state? Who is hunted by the police? Who is confined to 18 months, without anybody to tell them when they will be released again? Who have been deprived of their dignity and autonomy? The refugees. They are being treated as trash and they have now courageously taken a stand against it.

Show your support for the refugees! Come to The Hague on Thursday and Friday. Even if you do not join the solidarity hunger strike, you are more than welcome to support the action! Organizations which are in solidarity with the refugees or want to join are welcome as well.

Independent physician Elcke Bonsen, who has acted for various hunger and thirst strikers, will come to speak.

Workgroup Deportation Resistance
PRIME