Anti-detention action during JHA Ministers meeting
01 August 2002
On 12 September this year, around 25 activists organising under the name of Global Roots (Globale Rødder) staged a protest at the Sandholmlejren detention centre, near the city of Hillerød. The detention centre was targeted one day before the informal Justice and Home Affairs meeting in Copenhagen.
The Sandholmlejren detention centre has been seriously criticised in the past by Amnesty International as well as the local authority health officer. Apart from being imprisoned without having committed any crime, five inmates have to share a room of 15 square meters, with toilet and kitchen. The activists brought ladders and forced their way through the fences of the detention centre and to occupy the roof of the prison for about three hours with banners and slogans before leaving peacefully. To publicise the conditions at the centre and in criticism of the EU's asylum and migration policies, the occupation coincided with the JHA ministers meeting, during which asylum and migration policies and strategies are discussed and decided by EU government ministers. A Global Roots press release states that:
Only people who can prove themselves to be victims of political persecution can dream of getting asylum in Europe. In our opinion people fleeing conditions of poverty have the same right. Peoples must have the right to live wherever they want. At the same time we must commit ourselves to a fair distribution of the world's wealth, thus ensuring that nobody is forced to flee their homes
Some activists were arrested and held for eight hours after the occupation.
Between the 13-15 December, Global Roots together with the Initiative for Another Europe is planning a series of workshops and seminars as well as civil disobedience actions and parties against xenophobia and racism and the restrictive EU asylum and migration regime. Various other Scandinavian groups and initiatives are involved in the three-day programme which includes demonstrations and rallies. Information and updates on counter summit activities can be found on the internet.
See http://www.disobedience.dk/ for information on the counter summit, the English section is still under construction & also see http://www.cph2002.
org/english/calendar/ for information in English