Detention, which means to imprison people, is one of the most inhuman steps, that are taken to attack the dignity of those who are straying through Europe and search for a safe place to stay.
We will try to give an overview about the different conditions in detention centres in Europe and it should not be forgotten that even those places are sites of protests, hungerstrikes and revolts for freedom of movement: “Freedom, Azadi…”
Some sources of information about detention in Europe:
http://detention-in-europe.org/
This special website of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) - Europe is dedicated to asylum seekers and irregular migrants in administrative detention in Europe. Those persons who are looking for protection or for ways of trying to survive by undeclared work are literally locked up and guarded as if they were criminal prisoners, and very often their living conditions in detention are even worse than living conditions in criminal prisons. JRS staff in Europe visit and accompany many of these detainees and, building on that experience, JRS in Europe and the Brussels office of JRS-Europe plead their cause. Against that background this website evolved. Its purpose is to inform, to raise awareness and to nourish critical as well as constructive debate.
globaldetentionproject.org
The Global Detention Project (GDP) investigates the role detention plays in states’ responses to global migration, with a special focus on the policies and physical infrastructures of detention. The project, which was initiated in October 2006 with funding from the Geneva International Academic Network, is based at the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration.
The GDP’s goals are threefold: 1) to provide researchers, advocates, and journalists with a measurable and regularly updated baseline for analysing the growth and evolution of detention practices and policies; 2) to encourage scholarship in this often under-studied aspect of the immigration phenomenon; and 3) to facilitate accountability and transparency in the treatment of detainees.
The website includes also maps of the different detention-facilities in various counrties (not only) in Europe.
migreurope.org
The network Migreurop shows a map with detention camps in Europe:
http://www.migreurop.org/IMG/pdf/L_Europe_des_camps_2009.pdfMap in french