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Netherlands: Asylum and immigration

01 January 1991

Netherlands: Asylum and immigration
artdoc August=1994

Two new asylum prisons

Two new asylum centres are being built in Rijsbergen and the Di-
Dam-Zevenaar region for the fast-track processing of asylum
applications. The process of considering applications will take
no more than 24 hours and just five hours in most cases.
According to the Autonomoon Centre, those asylum-seekers who have
come from so-called `safe countries' will be processed so quickly
that there will be no possibility of a fair process. Furthermore,
the unsuccessful applicant will be either deported immediately,
put into prison, or dumped onto the streets with no means of
support, until a final decision is made. Meanwhile, a special
working party of civil servants is investigating further measures
against refugees, including closing the Dutch borders and making
refugees apply at Dutch embassies for asylum (NN 9.6.94).

Suicide of Turkish asylum-seeker

A 21-year-old Turkish asylum-seeker who feared deportation hung
himself in a police station in Hengelo. According to refugee
groups, the man, one of 40 Christian Turks allowed to stay in
Holland on humanitarian grounds, had not reported to the police
since November `93 as he had been informed he would be sent back
to Turkey where he faced arrest and imprisonment (Het Parool
4.5.94).

Policing

Immigrant death: one officer charged with lesser offence

A Turkish immigrant, Husseyin Koksal, died after being stopped
in his car by police in 1993 (see bulletin no. 3). Now, a police
officer faces a fine and a conviction for physical assault, and
a 1-month prison sentence. No charges of murder or manslaughter
are to be brought (De Volkskrant 22.4.94).

IRR European Race Audit no 9, July 1994. Contact: Liz Fekete
Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS
Tel: 071 837 0041