NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
BELGIUM
- Suspicious death of a Tunisian asylum seeker in a detention centre:
On 4 January 2010, a 31-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker died in a foreigners detention centre near Liege, three days after he was held there. After the police had described the death as "suspicious", the Belgian interior ministry foreigners' office claimed that it was drug-related, as the man was deemed a drug addict and the hypothesis on the cause of death by the coroner was a methadone and benzodiazepine overdose. The family in Tunisia denied that he was a drug addict and has confirmed that it will file a lawsuit. Local human rights associations and fellow detainees spoke of the possibility that the death may have resulted from an illness that received inadequate medical care.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/jan/01belgium-tunisian-death.htm
NETHERLANDS
- On 27 January, the minister reacted to the publication “Niet vergeten!”, handed over to him in December by MDM Netherlands, and in which he admits that information provided by support organisations will be taken into account when monitoring the access to healthcare of undocumented migrants. The full-text is available here.
- On 28 January, the Commission of health care of the 2nd Chamber had a general meeting with the minister. MPs asked questions about access for undocumented migrants, on dental care, and on the way of monitoring by CVZs (which are in charge of carrying out the financial regulation of 2009). The minister rejected concerns that removing dental care from the list of “necessary care” that can be reimbursed would lead to serious dental health problems. The Minister also promised that more attention would be paid to ensure that hospital staff is aware of the obligation to provide necessary care. The full-text is available here
SPAIN
- Vic town council norms to stop undocumented migrants to register withdrawn
The Municipality of Vic (in Catalonia) had unilaterally made the decision to stop registering undocumented migrants in the local civil registry (padrón). This registration is the condition to get the health card in Catalonia and in most of the Spanish regions. The government and other Spanish institutions have rapidly clarified that a measure as such is contrary to the Spanish Immigration Act and the general rules on registration of the population (empadronamiento). The municipality of Vic has explained that they did not really seek to stop registration but to increase the control on the necessary documents that undocumented migrants must submit in order to be registered and thus to obtain the health card (ID or passport and address). The Vic case has originated an extensive political debate throughout Spain about the local registration of undocumented migrants. In this context, the media has revealed that other municipalities are also developing “bad practices” as regards the local registration of this population.
Source: El País, De la Vega reprocha al alcalde de Vic que tome decisiones unilaterales y fuera de la ley, 12 January 2010.
- Municipalities to decide on registration depending on living conditions
The Spanish newspaper El País reports that the Spanish Government will propose a law allowing municipalities to refuse registration to people who live in houses which exceed a certain proportion of inhabitants per square meter. This follows the controversy which surrounded several Spanish towns’ plans to refuse to register undocumented migrants. The government had previously condemned those plans, noting that in practice they will block healthcare for migrants.
Sources:
- El País, 'El Gobierno permitirá denegar el padrón por "inhabitabilidad"', 27 January 2010.