meanwhile in NL: deportation charter canceled

21.Aug.03 - A deportation charter due to leave on the 20th of august to DR Congo has been canceled because the authorities in Kinshasa refused to give landing rights. The Autonoom Centrum together with Docu Congo, a dutch human right group, put pressure on the government in the Netherlands and in Congo. The group of 30 deportees were waiting the the whole day in a bus (with individual cells) in an hangar at Schiphol airport.100 officers of the Military Police werd guarding them. Some Congolese were undressed, some were beaten. At the end of the day they were brought back to a Amsterdam prison.

The dutch immigration office signed some time ago a Memorandum of Understanding with Pierre Yambuya, head of the Congolese security service DGM. A group of 13 Camerounese deportees, with some from Germany, were deported on the same plane without the Congolese. The Autonoom Centrum asked Transavia - the charter aviation company, 100% KLM- daughter - to stop transporting deportees. Three individual deportations from Germany to Congo with KLM were also canceled recently because the deportees made clear they refused to leave voluntarily.