(Article as pdf)

Minister Leers in the picture: “Tragic, but we have made a well advised decision, as usual”.

Wednesday April 6 2011: Kambiz Roustayi sets himself on fire at the Dam square in Amsterdam. Shocked reactions all around. Nobody wants to witness something like that. It reminds people of things they would rather not know about. It is time to smash the cover-up and light a totally different fire.

But first: Leers is having research done to look at alternatives for immigration detention. For that, people from different organizations that offer help to refugees and illegals are being invited to talk about it. The intention is probably not that this will lead to something we are waiting for. The intention is most of all to pretend that criticism is actually being listened to. In the meantime, the opponents that are allured to seriously sit around the table with Leers are being sweetened, and a wedge can be driven between the misused help organizations and (radical) activists that – rightly so – want nothing to do with Leers.

Alternatives for immigration detention? Leers is not really working on it: in silence, enforcement, perfection, and expansion of the possibilities to lock people up are being worked on constantly, the deportation machine is at full blast, and Leers has enough alternatives available to make peoples lives impossible, even to take them away. Alternatives that show the true and barbaric face of the policy.

In a list: the tidings and pursuits of Leers and his accomplices Hillen, Donner and Teeven:

March 14: Minister Donner reports that the detention center in Alphen will be reopened. Another 1300 people can be locked up.
March 16: Minister Leers proudly reports that the Dutch approach for European immigration policy is being appreciated and supported.
March 16: Minister Leers reports that a Dutch airplane of the coast guard has left for the island Pantelleria near Sicily for the benefit of Frontex. The airplane will guard the South Italian border for the next two weeks.
March 17: Minister Leers informs us that he is not planning to improve the asylum policy for gay people . They have to get back into the closet in their ‘own’ country. In her time, [Minister] Verdonk said the same.
March 17: Minister Hillen of Defense opens the Border Security Trainings Centre at Schiphol. The military police will train foreign border guards for Frontex there.
March 21: Minister Leers has calculated that there are 400 ‘Sahars’ [Sahar was a 14 year old school girl who after staying in the Netherlands for almost whole her life was about to be deported to Afghanistan], Afghan girls that have to go back to Afghanistan. Leers finds that Afghanistan is safe, even though Nezam Azimi who was deported by Verdonk has been murdered by the Taliban.
March 23: Minister Leers refuses to use his discretionary power to grant the Kurdish family Yilmaz a residence permit. In 2008, when he was the mayor of the city of Maastricht, he still wrote pressing letters for them because of their distressing situation, and send them a poem at the birth of their second child, the last sentence being: “Wonders will never cease!”
March 24: According to Leers, care for asylum seekers functions correctly. This is why so many people die in detention centers, on the street, and in asylum centers due to the failure, or the total lack of medical care. It is because of this that so many people walk around teethless and have to make due with paracetemol when they are seriously ill.
April 5: Iraqi families, children and all, have been lifted from their beds.
April 6: A 36 year old man from Iran, Kabmiz Roustayi, sets himself on fire at Dam square in Amsterdam. He will die of is injuries later. The man was a desperate rejected asylum seeker. ‘Tragic’ Leers says. He evidently had other plans for the departure of the man from the Netherlands. Namely deportation and torture in Iran. This would not have been noticed in the Netherlands.
April 6: A boat of refugees sinks near Lampadusa. Thanks to Frontex and to The Netherlands because of its contributions to Frontex, such as the coast guard airplane sent to Italy on March 16.
April 7: The town council of Zaanstad decides to leave the prison boats ‘Zaanse Shame’ in its harbor until March 7, 2013, instead of the planned closure on september 5 2011. State secretary Teeven has already said that as far as he is concerned the boats can stay there for an indefinite period of time. This means another 576 ‘aliens’ that can be locked up.

From the foregoing list, recorded in only a months time, only one conclusion can be drawn. The responsible ministers and state secretaries, in fact the whole gang in The Hague that decided to turn the capitalist BV The Netherlands into one giant nationalistic and racist law & order camp, are accountable for all the people that have lost their lives due to these plans as a result of murder, suicide and many deaths that have been smuggled away and are never heard of.

But it does not matter what happens to people. Precedent is the magic word in every decision, every part of the policy of Leers and his bandit gang. Imagine, someone might be encouraged to come knocking at the gates of The Netherlands for help, work, care, a life. Imagine, someone might want to stay! This is why another deportation camp is being built at Schiphol, why Camp Zeist is being turned into a fortress even more, and why people are being chased to their deaths. We never hear about it, and if we do, a “well advised decision” has been made, like in the case of Nezam Azimi. Local politicians cooperate to their heart’s content because these prisons are so good for local economy and employment.

Victims to be expected in the near future, and this is only the tip of the iceberg:

– 400 ‘Sahars’.
– 38 Iraqi, amongst which 17 children
– Numerous refugees at sea, stopped by Frontex.
– Many gay people murdered because Leers told them to go back into the closet.
– The Kurdish family Yilmaz.

The ambassador of Iran told The Netherlands to take better care fo its migrants. This hypocrite is evidently right, but he himself represents a murderous regime that makes people flee to The Netherlands in the first place. In fact him and Leers are hand and glove, using people as pawns for their criminal practices. They are colleagues in starvation politics, both murderers.

Alternatives for immigration detention… As you can see, there are enough of them. Driving people to despair and suicide, lifting them from their beds and deporting them rapidly, they are only two examples. Fast, free of charge, extremely efficient. Do we need to talk about this with Leers? The time for talking with this kind of principals of organized government crime should have been more than over already! The only thing we are waiting for is for private entrepreneurs to launch the humane suicide pill for desperate migrants to make money out of this ultimate remedy. For everything else a company can be found already to do Leers’ dirty work. Construction, surveillance, transportation, it will all get done.

Not so long ago Leers complained that companies were refraining from participation in the robbery of liberty. He also claimed that employees of the IND were being threatened. “Let them come to me!” he said. Good idea for a change. It is time we accept this invitation, but not to talk. Because you can not talk about how to blackmail, control, intimidate, lock up and deport people. You can not talk to people that make laws and rules to give torture and murder the appearance of legitimacy, to help them wear their masks. Who wants to join for a visit to Leers?

Joke Kaviaar, April 8, 2011 (translation January 26, 2013)