[Taken from the Instagram of the Frachcollective] 20 October 2023 – Yesterday, 45 detained people on the move entered into a hunger strike protesting their detention at the Slovakian-Hungarian border town Medved’ov. Mostly Kurdish people from Iraq and Turkey, as well as people from Afghanistan, are detained since weeks, some for months, without any information on the reasons why or for how long.
The night before 30 riot police with dogs entered the detention center to intimidate people on the move who are demanding their freedom.
They are denied access to their phones, forced to wear prison clothes and pay for each meal.
Hygienic standards are poor and infectious diseases spread easily.
The people detained have no access to translators and legal as well as social services are blatantly insufficient.
“This is worse than what I have experienced in Turkish prisons”, a Kurdish person detained in Medved’ov says. “We are not informed on the legal basis of our detention, nor our future. We cannot contact anyone. The only way get attention for this situation is through hunger strike. We demand release to open camps”.
People have written “freedom” and “help us” on posters. They are determined to continue claiming their rights and access to the outside world through protests until they are provided with an alternative solution.
We demand the freedom for the people detained in Medved’ov migrant detention Center as well as other migration detention centers. Migration is not a crime, and we condemn the use of detention as a response to it.