“YOu CAn’t IMAGInE WhAt MY lIFE IS lIKE In thE CAMp. I WOulD lIKE tO tAlK tO YOu

AnD MAKE YOu unDErStAnD”

Demand the right to live and work outside asylum camps — for everyone!

OUT OF THE CAMPS!

About the Campaign

We demand the right to live and work outside the asylum camps

— for everyone!

In October 2011 the Danish government declared as a part of their political platform that “refugees must be treated with dignity” and that asylum seekers therefore shall have the opportunity to live and work outside of the asylum centres. A commission has been appointed to work until May 15 to investigate the practical possibilities for a change of law. It is a nice initiative – a step in the right direction. But if we more closely examine the declaration as it is written now, it becomes clear that it will not apply to rejected asylum seekers unless they cooperate with the police about their deportation. This implies – among other things – that he or she must sign an agreement to voluntarily return home. The greater majority of people who have already lived for far too long in Danish asylum camps, are the exact same people who cannot be deported, and who – according to the police – do not cooperate. This means that the people who are in the most desperate need of a life outside the camps, are already excluded from the right to live and work outside the camps.

In reaction to this, the Trampoline House has initiated a political campaign for the right for all asylum seekers to live and work outside asylum camps. As an independent and open community where asylum seekers leave the isolation and victimization of the camps and create activities together with other residents, we think the time is ripe to more directly influence the politicians and the public. In the Trampoline House we hold knowledge and a practice of inclusion and cooperation across cultures, language and religion, which we would like to share with you. We know that concrete changes towards a more humane and more just asylum system are necessary. Our campaign therefore has two aims:

1. We want to ensure that every person seeking asylum in Denmark has the right to live and work outside asylum camps after a maximum of six months

2. We want a new way to think and speak about refugees. We want to be a part of building solidarity, consciousness and understanding among the Danish population about the urgent need for a humane and just refugee and asylum policy in Denmark, as well as in Europe and around the world.

We invite you all to participate – and hope, among other things, that we will see you at the demonstration Walk Out Of The Camps on May 13.

—The Trampoline House and friends

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olinehouse.dkOm kampagnen

Vi kræver retten til at leve og arbejde udenfor asyllejre

— for alle!

Regeringen bekendtgjorde i oktober 2011 som del af sit regeringsgrundlag, at “flygtninge skal behandles værdigt” og at asylansøgere derfor skal have mulighed for at bo og arbejde udenfor asylcentrene. Der er nedsat et embedsmandsudvalg, som frem til den 15. maj undersøger de praktiske muligheder for en lovændring. Det er et rigtig fint initiativ – et skridt i den rigtige retning. Men kigger man nærmere på grundlaget, som det er formuleret nu, fremgår det klart, at det ikke vil komme til at gælde for afviste asylansøgere, med mindre de samarbejder med politiet om deres hjemsendelse. Dette indebærer blandt andet, at han eller hun skriver under på frivilligt at ville vende hjem. Størstedelen af de mennesker, som i forvejen alt for længe har levet i danske asyllejre, er netop folk som af forskellige årsager ikke kan udvises, og som efter politiets vurdering ikke samarbejder. Det betyder at de mennesker, som har mest desperat brug for et liv udenfor lejrene, på forhånd er ekskluderet fra retten til at leve og arbejde udenfor lejrene.

Trampolinhuset har som reaktion iværksat en politisk kampagne for samtlige asylansøgeres ret til at leve og arbejde udenfor asyllejre. Som et uafhængigt og åbent fællesskab, hvor asylansøgere træder ud af lejrens isolation og offergørelse og skaber aktiviteter sammen med andre borgere, finder vi at tiden er inde til mere direkte at påvirke politikere og offentlighed. I Trampolinhuset ligger vi inde med en viden og en praksis for inkludering og samarbejde på tværs af kulturer, sprog og religion, som vi gerne vil dele med jer. Vi ved, at vi har brug for konkrete forandringer hen mod et humant og retfærdigt asylsystem. Kampagnen har derfor to formål:

1. Vi ønsker at sikre, at alle asylansøgere i Danmark har ret til at leve og arbejde udenfor asyllejre efter højst seks måneder

2. Vi ønsker en ny måde at tænke og tale om flygtninge på. Vi vil være med til at opbygge solidaritet, bevidsthed og forståelse blandt den danske befolkning for det presserende behov for en human og retfærdig flygtninge- og asylpolitik i Danmark såvel som i Europa og på verdensplan.

Vi inviterer jer alle til at deltage – og håber at vi, blandt andet, ser dig til demonstrationen Walk Out Of The Camps den 13. maj.

—Trampolinhuset og venner

12 Sad Facts

DidYou

Know?12 Sad Facts About

the Danish Asylum System

1 Definition — “Asylum” means protection. An asylum seeker is a person who applies for the right to reside in a foreign country and to be protected as a refugee, but who has not yet been recognized as a refugee.

2 Distance — Asylum camps are generally located in the countryside far away from bigger cities, where access to public transport is limited. The average distance to the nearest bigger city is 52 kms. The most remote camp is placed 83 km from the nearest bigger city. The nearest camp to a big city is Center Kongelunden, 14.5 kms from Copenhagen.

3 Living conditions — In some of the asylum camps four people share one room of 11m2. People do not have a say in who they share their room with, and they are often relocated to other camps for administrative reasons.

4 Suicides — The Red Cross has registered 41 attempted suicides within the asylum camps in 2011 alone. On March 9, 2012, one young asylum seeker from Afghanistan lost his life after setting himself on fire out of desperation (in the Center Holmegaard on Langeland).

5 Numbers — In 2001 over 12,000 people applied for asylum in Denmark. In 2011 the number was 4,000. In 2010 the rate of asylum seekers in Denmark was 95 asylum seekers per 1 million inhabitants. In Sweden and Norway the rate was 635 and 400 per 1 million inhabitants. During the last 10 years the amount of people seeking asylum in Europe has been reduced by 50%. According to UNHCR, no more than 10% of the world’s refugees end up in Western countries.

6 Waiting time — As an asylum seeker there is no official maximum waiting time for your case to be tried. Currently 68 people have spent more than 10 years in a Danish asylum camp. The average completion time of an asylum case process is 600 days.

7 Work and education — Asylum seekers are not allowed to take a paid job – and their access to education is very limited.

8 Translators — Translators play a crucial role in asylum interview situations (with the Police, Immigration Service, and the Refugee Council). Asylum seekers are very vulnerable in these interviews. They are strictly demanded to recount their refugee story in exact details, and small inaccuracies in the chain of events can be decisive for the outcome of the asylum case. However, no specific professional requirements are fulfilled by the translators. Unskilled translators can easily make mistakes in interviews, and neither client nor authority can verify whether the translation is accurate.

9 Allowance — The basic allowance for an asylum seeker whose case is being processed is 51.48 DKK/day. This has to cover all sorts of living expenses such as food, transportation and phone cards. However, many asylum seekers in the initial phase and rejected asylum seekers do not receive anything except food tickets; 3 meals a day in the cafeteria of the camp they live in. According to Eurostat’s 2010 & 2011 surveys, Denmark is ranked as Europe’s most expensive country in terms of costs of food and public transportation.

10 Rejected asylum seekers — When an asylum seeker is rejected, his or her life becomes a police matter. At this point ‘cooperation’ is a major issue. It is the task of the police to determine whether the individual asylum seeker is cooperative. Currently, cooperating means e.g. showing up at police interviews, inform about names of family members, and providing the necessary travel documents from the country of origin. The vast majority meet these requirements, but are met with a further demand: the demand to sign an agreement of ‘voluntary readmission’. If a person refuses to do this, he or she is subjected to the so-called ‘motivational measures’ by the police.

11 Motivational measures — Apart from transfer to a deportation center, motivational measures consist in removal of pocket money or the cancellation of a possible internship. Moreover, the motivational measures include in-depth interrogations by the police once or twice every week. Many are also imprisoned for months in the Ellebæk Prison, neighboring Center Sandholm. According to the police, these measurements have a very limited effect. Asylum seekers flee from torture, persecution, and insecurity. Taking these circumstances into consideration, the demand to sign such an agreement seems meaningless.

12 Deportations — Deportations are very often carried out by the police in the middle of the night. The deported person is escorted to the airport and most often boards a commercial airplane with regular passengers. Every captain has the right to decide whether or not to take off.

Teksterne findes på dansk på hjemmesiden — These texts are available in Danish on the website: www.outofthecamps.dk

Six Obvious Reasons

Everyone Should Mean Everyone!

Six obvious reasons why the right to work and live outside the asylum camps should also

apply to rejected asylum seekers who do not wish to assist in voluntary repatriation

One There are about 900 rejected asylum seekers in Denmark, of whom the police estimate that about 150 persons are cooperating in returning to their country of origin. If the right to live and work outside asylum camps is limited to this small group of people, then the majority of rejected asylum seekers will be excluded. A majority of those who have lived in asylum camps for many years – in some cases up to 17 years – will be excluded. The same is the case for rejected asylum seekers whom the authorities have classified as ‘non-deportable’ – such as those coming from countries that have no readmission agreement with Denmark – and therefore are locked within the asylum system.

Two It is absurd to ask an asylum seeker to sign an agreement to return home voluntarily. Asylum seekers have fled from torture, persecution, and deep insecurity. They have often made life-threatening journeys and paid enormous amounts of money in order to escape their home countries. The demand for voluntary repatriation is experienced by most asylum seekers as meaningless, and for that reason obviously very few choose to comply.

Three Rejected asylum seekers have been placed under pressure for many years to sign voluntary return agreements using so-called ‘motivational measures’. Along with being transferred to a deportation-center (Sandholm or Avnstrup), these measures involve the removal of pocket money, cancellation of any potential internship, as well as police interviews once or twice every week. Many are also imprisoned for months in Ellebæk Prison, situated next to Center Sandholm, which Amnesty International has reported on and criticized. The police admit that it is difficult to see the benefits of these actions. Groups of asylum seekers from Iraq and Kosovo were once offered large sums of money to leave voluntarily, but very few accepted. Experience from Norway in the ‘90s has demonstrated, however, that among a group of Bosnians who were immediately granted residence permits, many chose to return home voluntarily after the end of the war. This was not the case for another group of people who had been waiting two years to get a residence permit. Likewise, many of the Iraqi interpreters who got

residence in Denmark without any waiting time in 2008, later decided to return home voluntarily. The message is crystal clear: asylum camps only isolate and pacify asylum seekers and do not motivate them! No matter how much effort is put into making life intolerable for rejected asylum seekers, very few choose to return voluntarily. Motivational measures like these – that result in the exact opposite effect than the one desired – are absurd and degrading.

Four Years of life spent in a camp psychologically destroys human beings. The statistics show that if it has not been possible to deport a rejected asylum seeker during their first two to three years – by which time most people are deported – then that person ends up spending the next 10 years in an asylum camp. The consequence for many is psychological destruction – a condition that takes an enormous length of time and resources to overcome. There are currently 68 asylum seekers in Denmark that have spent more than ten years in a camp. Paradoxically, many are granted humanitarian stays due to the serious mental illnesses that start long after their arrival in Denmark. Surveys show that life in Danish asylum camps does more harm to children than the traumatic experiences they have often left behind.

Five Limiting the right to live and work outside asylum camps to only include those who are cooperating in their own repatriation is a threat to the integrity of the asylum system. No one should be pushed or lured into giving up their asylum case in order to be able to work and live outside the camp. Some rejected asylum seekers manage to have their case reopened, subsequently obtaining a residence permit. This is the case for 74 rejected Somalis who have recently been granted asylum after many years in camps, on the basis of judgment made by the European Court of Human Rights.

Six No reasonable or humane person could claim that asylum seekers are committing an offence against the law by seeking asylum. And who would seriously claim that this is the case for asylum seekers if they are rejected? The Government’s initiative to also allow rejected asylum seekers to work and live outside the camps would be an important acknowledgement of this. But they must go the whole distance. It is natural and logical that rejected asylum seekers do not wish to go agree to voluntarily return home. If the politicians want to keep this group of asylum seekers in isolation and passivity and push them with punitive ‘motivational measures’, it is both pragmatically foolish and ethically wrong. Even though people who have fled carry many scars on their bodies and minds, they are also incredibly resourceful people who have experienced hardships that few people can imagine. To give all asylum seekers the opportunity to live and work outside the asylum camps, allowing them to lead an active life and maintain and develop their skills, would be for the common good, regardless of where the asylum seekers will end up living. It is the least we should demand.

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13

Statements

Statements From a Public Hearing

The following is a shortened version of a transcription of a Public Hearing, held on Friday the 10th of February 2012 in The Trampoline House. The Public Hearing was the starting point of the campaign OUT OF THE CAMPS! which points in the direction of a more just and humane asylum policy in Denmark. The demand is that after six months, every person seeking asylum should have the right to live and work outside the asylum camps. The document is divided into key themes and is a selection of stories and thoughts especially from people living in asylum camps in Denmark. — by The Trampoline House

ON WHY SEEKING ASYLUM?

— “Normal life is when everyone is able to have what he or she needs: a land to cultivate, a school of own choice, a job, a family life, a woman or a man of own choice, a child, physically a good condition and an acceptable social status ... Let’s talk about the invisible thing, which guides us in our daily life and gives us great satisfaction and a sense of inner security: affection, tenderness, family dialogue, love, education, freedom of choice, participation in a society, being regarded as a human being, having a voice in society, protection of families. This is what all refugees want. This is what they deserve.”

— “Around the world, people seeking asylum arrive in a state of anxiety, after surviving the horrors: wars, massacres, genocides, ambushes, earthquakes, famine, natural disasters, epidemics, harassment, imprisonment, rape, torture, insults, rejection by society because of their religion, ethnicity, tribe, sexual orientation or poverty. Let me mention drought, lack of care for a serious illness, lack of appropriate treatment for an illness or any handicap, but once they arrive to the country of asylum, the first thing that appears in their minds is: ‘Finally it’s over, I will live well.’ Unfortunately it is an error to think this.”

— “Of course we know that not all people who come here need protection. I know, I’m an African, I come from Africa. Some people try to come to Europe for a better life. Economic immigrants. We understand that. But not everybody. Because a few are coming as economic immigrants, they are taking that as an excuse to turn away everybody. That does not make sense. What we are proposing is: Try to listen to the cases. Take these people to a safe place. Interview them. You can always draw a line between who is an economic immigrant and who is an asylum seeker. Instead of just turning away everybody, bring them in and try to listen to the story of each person. Then you can decide what to do, what you think is best.”

— “People are running away from Libya to live here, or wherever there is a problem. And you get them at the sea. You don’t talk to them. You try to turn them away. People are running away from their own lives. So what do people do when they are pushed back? Like people before told us, they try to jump overboard. So many people, hundreds of people, women and children get killed at sea. Just because they are trying to run away from a problem, and they think that is the only way of survival. This has to change: interception at the sea, trying to stop people to come into European borders.”

ON WAITING

— “I am from Sudan. They cannot deport people back to Sudan because it’s dangerous and there is war. I cannot go back. I coorporate with the police. I do not feel like an active person. I get money to eat, but I cannot go outside, I cannot do anything. Now I have stayed for 2 years. I do not feel that I have a life. I cannot do anything. I do the same things every day. I can’t make a family, I can’t do anything. I don’t feel I am alive.”

— “Then going back to your room. Then waiting for lunch in the Sandholm cafeteria. Then going back to your room again. Then waiting for dinner in the Sandholm cafeteria. This day in and day out, not knowing when it will stop. And not going back to your own room, but to a room that you share with maybe 3 or 4 other people who maybe speak languages that you don’t understand, who are maybe not able to sleep at night and are awake when you want to sleep.”

— “It is very important that we get some maximum time limits. One limit for a final decision. You should not wait forever to know if you have a positive or a negative answer. The next definition should be - how long time can you wait after a rejection? As it is right now 68 people have waited for more than 10 years. And some have waited for up to 16-17 years. That is just insane!”

— “The government has talked about moving people out of the camps after 6 months, and I think we all agree that this will improve things a lot. I hope that they will make something similar to the Swedish system. In Sweden people are living all over the country, in normal houses with normal neighbors, normal schools and everyday lives. It works in Sweden. They have more than 10 times as many asylum seekers per inhabitant than we do, so I am sure we can make it work!”

— “We have to have deadlines! You go to an interview, they tell you they will get back to you in 3 months. You go back to your camp, you get your name on the post, you have to move away from there. Your case is finished. You wait one month. Two, three, four, five, ten. 1 year, 2 years. We too have dreams. We have visions. It is better for the guys who are prisoners. After four months, maybe, your sentence is over, while we, in the camps, you stay there and you never know! Sometimes I think they even forgot about me, you know.”

— “You never see letters, you never see anything. We need to have an efficient asylum system. They need to tell people: “it’s three weeks”, then I’m expecting a letter in three weeks. One week is allowed, maybe four weeks. But give me my answer! I need to know, so that I can think about my next day. Waiting forever just kills you more.”

ON ISOLATION

— “Loneliness is silent suffering. You are silent. You keep your suffering to yourself. There is great loneliness and isolation among people living in refugee camps.”

— “It is a most common choice for the government to place a refugee camp far away in a forest or another abandoned location, far from all and every relation to life. People start living as monks during meditation or as lonesome elderly in a retirement home. A person who was rejected in his country, comes to be rejected a second time and is turned away from the circle of life.”

— “When families are united after a long period of separation, it is not easy to take control. People have become strange to each other, things are beyond us, and people change. Time or that long period destroy everything. There may be no love anymore, no tenderness like before. Eventually we lose our lives forever. People who loved each other before the separation, are no longer able to love each other, nor to communicate.”

— “So what are we saying? We are saying: Ellebæk is NOT for asylum seekers, it is for criminals. But people are suffering there who are NOT criminals.”

— “Detention of minors, children, is just – I try to get a better word to say it – but it is just crazy. It’s abnormal. Young children, children who are 15, 16 years old, who are separated from their families. Having a lot of problems. You put them in detention. Why? Because they are here without papers, or because they are here to seek asylum?”

— “What about those people who said they wanted asylum and were arrested in Kastrup and taken to Ellebæk for four months? Serving a sentence for nothing. Because they are here to seek asylum.”

ON SKILLS, RESOURCES AND HUMAN INTERACTION

— “It really takes courage and trust for people to build up relations and friendships. We should all think about in our daily lives to get people inside, into the local associations for instance. Practice your skills, practice your Danish, practice your Farsi if you’re a Dane. Or whatever. But include people. And it can really be done anywhere if we want to.”

— “Thank you very much. I want to say that we people in the camps are very frustrated and we feel like we are useless. Anyone in any country feels that he or she must be utilized. And not be put to waste. We want to do something, we should be utilized somewhere. And that is a real factor that makes people tick. We dont know when we will be given asylum seeker status here, and – of course – that is really something. I am talking about refugees. We are away from our family. It is really so sad to say that the time when the request is being processed is very confusing and frustrating. We need a promise from the government that they are going to do something soon, that they will take some positive action regarding our cases.”

— “Our system is a system of exchange. You receive something and you have to give something. How can you be a part of this system if you are not allowed to put your resources into value? Everybody has these resources.”

— “Most people in Phase 2 have lived here for more than 6 months, but the government hasn’t enforced their promise yet. This is a problem, and we have discussed that the right to live and work outside the camps should include all the people in the camps, especially the people in Phase 3 who have been rejected. There are many people who are in Phase 3, and if we include them we are treating them as humans and give them their human rights. We should not allow this for some people and not for others. Maybe, I am wrong and saying words that might be impolite, but this is the reality for me and so many other people in the camps. I hope that no one is frustrated with me speaking for many people. If we help the people get their education, this would be very good, and it should not be specified on what they have to study. I am very glad, very happy that the government of Denmark paved the way for me and that I can study here and have a higher education and have supported me in different fields of study. I really appreciate that. But, I am the exception. There may be a few people here who are studying to get their higher education, but that is also a small number. We must not just think about two or three people, but so many others here.”

— “We have a lot of people with skills and talents in the asylum centers. However, they cannot implement these skills and talents because they are stored in small and quiet places.”

ON LACK OF HEALTH CARE

— “To be honest the health care system within the asylum camps is very bad. If you have a health issue and go to the doctor,the first recommendation from both the doctor and the nurses is: ‘Drink some more water.’”

— “For example I had to see the dentist; and she told me to just eat with one side – the good side – of my mouth and wait until it is your turn. And then I go to get the bad side fixed, but then I have to come back to get the other side fixed, and it becomes a very time-consuming process. And while you wait the nurses will just prescribe you some painkillers.”

ON THE PROBLEM OF THE ASYLUM SYSTEM

— “If a person has a problem in his country and comes to Denmark, why does the government feel that his case is fake? Why don’t they believe him?”

— “We are also human beings. We need family, we need relatives, we need friends. We are proposing, an idea, I think it is a reasonable proposal: Those who have families in European countries and want to seek asylum in that country, then you should be allowed to seek asylum in that country.”

— “The problem starts when we come from Africa, or you come from Afghanistan, or Middle East and you try to get to Europe. We come by various means, we come by plane, by ship, we come by boat. We come through very dangerous paths to get over here for asylum, and the first thing that has been done in the past few years is to try and intercept, to put patrols at the Indian Ocean, at the Canary Islands, in Spain. To try to turn us back.”

— “They need to establish a common European asylum system. For all of Europe. So that it can be integrated, so that things like family reintegration can happen. So we are just saying, like in Denmark, because Denmark is president of the European Union right now: do something. Start from here. Try to remove this problem that needs to be set right. So start here – we want to see changes in Denmark. They are saying that we will move out of the camps. We want to see those changes. We want to see cases being done at speed. We want to see changes as soon as we can.”

— “There has to be access for NGOs, lawyers, counselors in asylum centers. For people who are in prison, like in Ellebæk, who are going to be deported, or some people who have just arrived it is very hard to even contact a lawyer, because we don’t have phones, we don’t have any form of communication. NGOs who want to help should be allowed to have access. We are saying: regarding those people you are putting in prison, those who will be deported, maybe something else comes up, maybe they have new evidence for their cases. But how can they present this evidence if we don’t allow lawyers, if we don’t allow counselors, if we don’t let NGOs in there to talk to them? Open up for NGOs, for lawyers. Give people these options!”

— “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was signed and adopted by several countries in Paris, December 10, 1948 Article I says: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’. Is this true? For some other people it’s just a dream.”

— “People can only take our rights if we allow them. If we sit down, and allow governments to do whatever, governments can do anything. If we stand up, speak with our voices, with our actions, peacefully we can change something. This is a start. I challenge us. Let’s go for it. This is our year. If it doesn’t happen for us, if it doesn’t happen for you and me, if we are deported or something, we will have done something, right?”

Manifesto

Out OF thE CAMpS!A manifesto for the right to live and work outside asylum camps

– for everyone

A statement by The Trampoline House – a community of asylum seekers and other residents of Denmark – in response to the Danish government proposal to allow certain asylum seekers to live and work outside the camps:

We are people seeking asylum in Denmark. We have fled from torture, persecution, and extreme insecurity. We have made journeys that you can not even imagine. Wouldn’t you have done the same in a similar situation? We are human beings stored in camps far away from everyday life and isolated from society – without the right to work and to education. We have skills, experience, resources, and the want to contribute, but are made into passive beings – just waiting and waiting. Depression and hopelessness are only logical consequences. We feel like prisoners – but at least, prisoners know the day they will be free.

We are also other residents of Denmark saying, ‘This is our problem, too!’ We all live in this society together, yet some of us are prevented from contributing to it. With so much talk of integration, it is remarkable how much money we spend on separation and isolation. It is a waste – a waste of lives!

The Danish asylum system is one of the strictest in Europe. It is a system that makes so many lives unbearable. Friends are being arrested in the middle of the night and deported. Many rightfully fear they will be sent back to persecution and deep insecurity. This system is absurd and unjust.

The current proposal – that certain asylum seekers should be allowed to live and work outside the camps after six months – is an important step in the right direction. However, our demand is that the government recognize these rights for all asylum seekers. We all want to make a future together. None of us want to stand alone – neither in isolated camps nor in a country of isolation. We demand, at the very least, that after six months, every person seeking asylum should have the right to live and work outside the camps.

– The Trampoline House and friends, spring 2012

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Manifest

uD AF lEjrEnE!Et manifest for retten til at leve

og arbejde udenfor asyllejre – for alle

En erklæring fra Trampolinhuset – et fællesskab af asylansøgere og andre bosat i Danmark som svar på regeringens forslag om at lade visse asylansøgere bo og arbejde udenfor lejrene:

Vi er mennesker, der søger asyl i Danmark. Vi er flygtet fra tortur, forfølgelse og ekstrem usikkerhed. Vi har gennemlevet rejser, som I ikke engang kan forestille jer. Hvis det havde været jer, ville I så ikke have gjort det samme?

Vi er mennesker gemt væk i lejre langt væk fra et normalt liv, isoleret fra samfundet – uden retten til at arbejde og til uddannelse. Vi har evner, erfaring og ressourcer, og vi ønsker at bidrage, men vi bliver gjort til passive væsener – vi kan kun vente og vente. Depression og håbløshed er kun logiske konsekvenser heraf. Vi føler os som straffefanger – men i det mindste kender fanger dagen hvor de bliver frie.

Vi er også andre mennesker bosat i Danmark, som siger: “Dether er også vores problem!” Vi lever i dette samfund allesammen, men nogle af os er afskåret fra at bidrage til det. Med så meget snak om integration er det bemærkelsesværdigt, hvor mange penge vi bruger på adskillelse og isolation. Det er spild – spild af liv!Det danske asylsystem er et af de strammeste i Europa. Det er et system som gør så mange liv uudholdelige. Venner bliver arresteret midt om natten og deporteret. Mange frygter med rette mange at blive sendt tilbage til forfølgelse og dyb usikkerhed. Dette system er absurd og uretfærdigt.

Det nuværende forslag – om at lade visse asylansøgere bo og arbejde udenfor lejrene efter seks måneder – er et vigtigt skridt i den rigtige retning. Vores krav er, at regeringen anerkender disse rettigheder for alle asylansøgere. Vi ønsker alle at skabe en fremtid sammen. Ingen af os ønsker at stå alene – hverken i isolerede lejre eller i en nation af isolation. Vi kræver, som et minimum, at efter seks måneder har ethvert menneske, der søger asyl i Danmark, retten til at leve og arbejde udenfor lejrene.

– Trampolinhuset og venner,foråret 2012

Gør en forskel –

Skriv und

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manifestet p

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Make a

difference – S

ign the manifesto on

ww

w.outofthecam

ps.dk

www.outofthecamps.dk

DEMAnD thE rIGht tO lIVE AnD WOrK OutSIDE ASYluM CAMpS

— FOr EVErYOnE!

“We cannot stay in the camps. the government acknowledges that

life in the camps destroys us, physically and mentally. people fl ee for a reason, and the fact that the asylum system in Denmark does not recognize our reasons as cause for asylum, does not change the fact that we rightfully fear deportation. With eyes open, the government gives us this choice: Coorporate about beeing

sent back to what you fear – or stay and get broken down in camps.

that is not a fair choice.”