Inmates in building 2 of the Vincennes detention centre (France) are on hunger strike
articles of 18/02 and 22/02 by abaslescra.noblogs.org
The inmates of building 2 of the Detention center in Vincennes started a hunger strike on Thursday evening. They are protesting against the push-adn-pull between the detention centre and the prison, and the pressure from the police… We publish here the testimony of one of them.
“Since last night we have been on hunger strike. Here people have to take a test to be returned, and if you refuse the test three times, you go into police custody (detention), and then the judge sends you to prison for two or three months, you do one month and then they send you back here to the Detention center. This thing of the maximum 90 days you can spend here no longer exists. It’s a vicious circle that never ends. This is the reason why we are doing the hunger strike, we are full of people with families, children outside, we have our whole life here. The way the policemen treat us is inhuman. For four nights in a row they set off the alarm at 3am, when everyone is asleep, to provoke us, to make us do something so they can beat us all up, because they come with the intention of beating us up. The alarm is very loud, it hurts your ears, the explanation they give is that it is against smoking, but here everybody smokes everywhere and the alarm has never gone off because of that.
This morning at 5 o’clock the police came and picked up a person, a Tunisian, I don’t know where they took him. They started banging on the doors with their sticks, waking everyone up, they’re crazy. They took him like a dog, he was sleeping in his room and they took him like a puppet, they were banging on the doors and waking everybody up, they didn’t even let him take his things, wash his face, tell his family. They started hitting him, we are human, so normally if someone is hit you try to defend them, so we tried to shout and they stopped hitting him, then they took out their telescopic batons and started hitting everyone.
The strike started yesterday and will continue, there are between 50 and 60 people in building 2A, nobody is eating. The police are nervous, they are insulting everyone, they are beating people for no reason, they are coming to get someone and beating them, they are trying to provoke us to hit us. It is very strong what is happening, please inform people about this.
UPDATE – 22/02/2022
“The CRA is mental torture”, in Vincennes, people locked up in building 2 B are also on hunger strike
On Thursday 17 February 2022, the detainees in building 2 A of the Vincennes administrative detention centre began a hunger strike. Since then, they have been subjected to particularly strong pressure from the policemen and all the staff of the administrative detention centre: the policemen wake them up every night, some detainees designated as leaders have been beaten and put in solitary confinement, others have been refused medical treatment as a means of blackmail to break the strike… The hunger strike, which is still going on today, has extended to buildings 1 and 2B. We report here the testimony of a person locked up in 2B.
“In our building there is also a hunger strike. 8-9 people are on hunger strike out of about 50 detainees. We know that in the other buildings, some people are doing the same.
Here the conditions are disgusting. Covid is going around, other diseases as well. There are bedbugs… the showers are not clean… the food always smells the same, there are pills inside. There is only one doctor available for the 3 buildings and he only comes once a week… That’s why there is a hunger strike and also why the CPR is mental torture.
The policemen are trying to push us to the limit. Eight days ago, they did a search, they brought in some trainees who talk badly, provoke, treat us like dogs. Not long ago, a policeman beat up an inmate because he came out of the canteen with food. Since the man did not let the policeman do it, a fight started. The man was then put in solitary confinement, then in GAV (detention) and returned to the CPR. But it was the policeman who started to hit him.
The policemen are racists, the commander is a big racist. He shouts all the time. He cannot speak normally. When he wants to, he goes into rooms without knocking, shouts, wakes everyone up…
There is misery here. And for some it’s even worse, because there are hidden thefts. The policemen come looking for Tunisians because they can be deported without any test or anything, their president agrees. The policemen come at 5:30 in the morning, handcuff the person and take him out of his cell to deport him. For them it is even more stressful because they know that they can be deported like this overnight. So some of them can’t sleep. When I tell you it’s mental torture.”
[Again and again, down with the administrative detention centers! We support the hunger-striking detainees].