A PROTEST outside Valencia's immigration internment centre will continue until 12.30 midday today (Sunday) after a 24-hour lock-in yesterday as campaigners call for it to remain shut.
The Zapadores centre has been closed for four months because of an infestation of bed-bugs,but the pressure group CIES No (internment centres no) does not want it to reopen.
Spokeswoman Gema Síscar says it is not fair for asylum-seekers to be shut in prison-like conditions when 'their only crime has been choosing to find a better way of life'.
She says the group wants the whole of the Valencia region to be 'free from internment centres, racist round-ups and deportations', and that the 'only possible and effective way of guaranteeing human rights' in the area is to close down the Zapadores complex.
Asylum-seekers in Spain are kept in these centres, known as CIEs or CETIs, until their application for refugee status is approved or rejected, and are not allowed off the premises, meaning their lives are spent inside cramped cell-like rooms for months.
Little control is exerted over trouble between inmates, meaning fights often break out, and with so many migrants under one roof, infectious and contagious health conditions spread easily.
CIEs No says these centres 'continually and systematically violate human rights' by 'treating migrants as prisoners when they have not committed any crime'.
Yesterday (Saturday), interactive games and activities were held in Valencia inside the Zapadores centre, where CIEs No barricaded themselves in, to teach the public what CIEs or CETIs are and why they exist, what happens when a person is deported and why this occurs, as well as the truth about what goes on at borders.
Spain is the only European country which has a land border with Africa – two, in fact – and most migrants enter by climbing their fences, whilst others travel on flimsy rafts or rowing boats across the open sea, risking their lives.
A homage to 15 migrants who died on El Tarajal beach in Ceuta – one of the two Spanish-owned city-provinces on the northern Moroccan coast, along with Melilla – will be shown as a documentary.
CIEs No calls for anyone who is in the area to join in their open meeting this morning, and to 'reflect and propose actions' towards a 'society free from racism and xenophobia'.
