These are people who have no right to be in Norway !

Asylum centre burnt to the ground

Published on Wednesday, 7th July, 2010 at 09:49

by Michael Sandelson.

Police have arrested 23 people on suspicion of arson after last night's fire that destroyed Lier asylum centre in Buskerud.

Burnt out builiding at Lier asylum centre

Advance warning

The fire started in three separate buildings that were far apart almost simultaneously, and preliminary investigations show traces of inflammable liquids.

Inmates already knew what was going to happen, as several refugees had packed their belongings, according to VG.

Jan Erik Skretteberg, regional director of SOS Rasisme, says he can understand why the fire was started, claiming there are many frustrated people who don't get enough food or vitamins. There isn't enough hot water in the showers, and a complete lack of mental health services.

"Several residents have warned previously it was only a matter of time before someone either harms of kills himself because of conditions at the institution. Not only do they live under severe mental pressure, but living conditions at the centres are also not fit for human beings," he says.

The Foreigner/Inez Dawczyk Trouble at both the Lier, as well as Fagerli asylum centre in Nannestad in Akerhus municipality started early yesterday morning. Rioters destroyed fixtures and fittings, broke windows, and started smaller fires. Both facilities are now uninhabitable.

The centres house refugees who are awaiting deportation, after their asylum applications have been a final rejection. Some have been living there for four years.

Both NOAS (the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers), and Norwegian People's Aid (Norsk Folkehjelp) told NRK yesterday they believe the government deliberately keeps conditions to a minimum. As deportees, they have no rights to medical help and are given 100 kroner per week in pocket money.

It seems the Norwegian authorities are engaged in a kind of exhaustion technique. They see who can last the longest, instead of having centres that work in accordance with the original purpose of encouraging them to travel home," said Irfan Qaiser, refugee policy spokesman for Norsk Folkehjelp.

"Shameful"

Andreas Furuseth, NOAS' secretary general, attacked the government for its "shameful" policy of "scaring them into leaving the country by making life as difficult and untenable as possible."

The 23 who have been arrested now face compulsory deportation, according to Labour�s (Ap) state secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Pal K. Lonseth.

"These are people who have no right to be in Norway. We'll find a way of expelling them by force if they don't choose to leave voluntarily."

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Norway experienced the worst riots the country had seen in almost 30 years last night

"Cultural enrichers" thought they could liberate Gaza by destroying downtown Oslo: ( 6 Videos )


Norwegian police detain 27 in clashes over Gaza

OSLO, Jan 8 2009 (Reuters) - Oslo police detained at least 27 people on Thursday after pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed in one of the worst such outbursts in the Norwegian capital since the 1980s.

Shop windows in the city centre were shattered and police repeatedly used teargas to break up groups of activists demonstrating over Israel's crackdown in the Gaza Strip.

The violence started when about 1,000 pro-Palestinian supporters showed up at a rally sponsored by Norway's largest opposition party in support of Israel. Television pictures showed they burned Israeli flags and threw projectiles at police clad in body armour who separated the two groups.

"This has nothing to do with the situation in Gaza," Johan Fredriksen, chief of staff of the Oslo police, told the website of the daily Aftenposten.

"These people came to the protest with knives, bats and Molotov cocktails," he said, speaking about the pro-Palestinian side.

"You have to go back to the early 1980s to find a similar situation in Norway," Fredriksen said, adding that police were still concerned about security across the city.

Clashes also took place near the Israeli embassy.

Tabloid VG on its website said that Oslo was the site of a "street fight" with groups of men throwing rocks and bottles at police. One police car was trashed and one officer injured.

Before the flare up, some 15,000 people walked through the city centre for a peaceful, torch-lit protest, police said. (Reporting by Wojciech Moskwa and Richard Solem; editing by Michael Roddy)

http://www.reuters.com/article/middl...is/idUSL844649