A risk of inhuman and cruel treatment of migrants detained in Poland: the warning does not come this time from the European Union but from the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights, an independent national body. Marcin Wiacek, who is in a way the equivalent of our Defender of Rights, is worried about the situation of exiles placed in guarded centres. They are more than 1,600 to be locked up there after crossing the border with Belarus and asking for asylum.
The Wedrzyn closed center for foreigners is the one that attracts the most criticism. This military base, near the border with Germany, was transformed last summer into a center for migrants. The conditions there are more than deplorable: 600 men live there, twenty occupants per room, or two square meters per person, less than in Polish prisons.
Ahmed, originally from Yemen, arrived in Poland at the beginning of October after a difficult crossing of the Belarusian border: “There is almost nothing to do in this centre, neither entertainment nor educational activities. We asked the guards several times to provide us with Polish lessons, but they refused saying: ‘You don’t need any’ learn Polish because you’re all going to try to go to Germany anyway.’ We only have one hour of internet access a week and they only allow us to have Nokia phones which can only call or send text messages.”
“It’s not a closed camp, it’s a prison. We are treated like criminals, not refugees.”
Ahmed, Yemeni detained in Polandat franceinfo
Access to doctors and psychologists is, moreover, very insufficient, despite the traumas that migrants have sometimes suffered. The Human Rights Commissioner is also concerned about the consequences for children, placed in these centers without suitable infrastructure, with their families.
In theory, migrants should not stay more than six months in these centers, the time to have an answer within the framework of the asylum application procedure. But in reality, it can take much longer depending on the case, sometimes up to two years. According to Agnieszka Matejczuk, a lawyer with the NGO Stowarzyszenie Interwencji Prawnej (SIP, “association for judicial intervention”), there is a big problem with the transmission of information in these centers, where access to lawyers is very limited: “Very often, these migrants have no information about their situation, sometimes they don’t even know that their asylum application has been accepted, or no one tells them that their application has been registered, or on the contrary, they think have applied for international protection but this is not the case, because no one has registered their applications.”
“Sometimes they are handed a packet of documents to sign, they sign without knowing that by doing so they can no longer appeal an eviction decision.”
Agnieszka Matejczuk, lawyerat franceinfo
According to Polish law, placement in a closed center for foreigners should only be authorized if there is a risk that the person will escape and it is prohibited if the person has suffered violence in the past. Legislation that is not enforced. Last year, 7,700 people applied for asylum in Poland, including many Afghans and Iraqis. Nearly 300 applications from Iraqis have already been refused.