Foreigners — mostly Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis — are demanding the right to leave their detention facility in Bela pod Bezdezem, Czech Republic, so that they can continue their journey to Germany. They have also demanded the return of their mobile phones and money.

The detainees managed to remove two smaller gates in the facility yard, but failed to damage the outer fences surrounding the facility and no one fled. Police intervened after the foreigners disobeyed orders to return inside the facility and started vandalizing the facility property.

Following the incident, the Czech interior minister announced that police units would be relocated from several other counties to Bela in order to increase security at the facility.

Prison or reception center?

According to a press release issued by migration and legal experts, the media's portrayal of the event, which strongly reflects the government and police views and largely ignored the voices of those living in the center, was biased.

In a statement, the Czech NGO Association for Legal Immigration Issues (ASIM) made it clear that it believes the facility in Bela resembles a prison:

Foreigners who are seeking international protection in the Czech Republic have to be placed in a reception center, or subsequently in a residential facility. The detention facility for foreigners in Bela is intended mainly for foreigners who are to be expelled from the Czech Republic after having resided here illegally. This facility has also been adapted for this purpose. Basically it is a prison-type facility: detainees reside there for weeks or months, deprived of their liberty, locked in their quarters overnight, and their phones and cash are taken away from them and they are allowed a limited number of visitors and letters per week. The regime in the Bela facility is completely unsuitable for persons seeking asylum, which are often families with children and people from countries like Syria and Afghanistan, where their lives were in real danger. The Bela facility also had, until recently, a limited capacity of about 270 people, but the current number of detainees significantly exceeds this.

Constructive approach

ASIM also pointed out that asylum seekers often face a desperate and vulnerable situation upon leaving facilities, in large part because their belongings and money had been confiscated be immigration authorities:

Czech authorities do not deal with the situation of the detainees at all and just wait until the border states like Hungary or Italy take them back. These states are not able to admit all asylum seekers, and they remain therefore without any practical purpose, stripped of their personal freedom in Bela, and, very often, released from the facility after a period of maximum permissible time (i.e. after a few months). Then they will find themselves penniless, because all the cash they had was confiscated by Czech authorities. This creates a very vulnerable situation and another endless circle of illegal stay within the EU, without any hope of getting an asylum in a proper manner.

Instead of a repressive approach and talking about the necessity of compliance with laws and closing the borders, the authors of the press release and others in the nonprofit sector call on the interior minister to take a constructive approach to this issue, including more objective coverage in the media.

According to ASIM, the acceptance of applications for asylum, their processing, and an effort to integrate the applicants into Czech society would significantly contribute to solving the current situation, and, from a broader perspective, this would also help deal with the situation in the countries from which the applicants come.