The Federal Government has once again been openly criticised for its failure to provide shelter to asylum seekers, this time by the head of a Brussels university.
Over a hundred asylum seekers, along with members of the collective Stop Crisis Shelter, occupied a vacant building on the Solbosch campus of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in Ixelles on Friday night after being turned away from the site of the future Federal crisis centre. Here too, they were ejected soon after.
In the past, ULB has expressed support for asylum seekers and their right to shelter, but the building was earmarked for a university initiative, and the occupants were asked to voluntarily leave the premises. They refused and the institution sought assistance from the local police to end the occupation.
Writing an open letter published on Le Soir and circulated across the entire Brussels university community on Sunday, the ULB chancellor Annemie Schaus strongly condemned the government over the ongoing reception crisis. "I am outraged and deeply hurt that, on Friday, I had to call in the municipal authorities and the police to clear the buildings," she wrote.
Ignoring responsibilities
Since the start of the reception crisis in the autumn of 2021, the Belgian agency in charge of asylum reception, Fedasil, and the State of Belgium have been condemned around 10,000 times by various courts both in Belgium and on the European level for failing to offer asylum seekers the reception they are legally entitled to.
This situation is resulting in "disastrous consequences" for the mental well-being of these asylum seekers, many of whom have already in the past been victims of acts of violence or torture.
Out of despair and to call attention to the matter, asylum seekers have together with organisations like Stop Crisis Shelter occupied buildings. They have always been evicted, mostly without a structural solution, resulting in them becoming homeless again.
Schaus in the letter addressed to the members of the Federal Government stressed that ULB has, on several occasions, welcomed hundreds of asylum seekers and offered them care and services. "All things that, normally, the State should be responsible for. Do you seriously think that the ULB is richer than the State you govern? Better equipped? More competent?"
She denounced the fact that the government was "still keeping asylum seekers on the streets" despite the many convictions, including by the Council of State.
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"In what country does a government sit on these principles? To deny thousands of court rulings that remind you of your European and international obligations?" she said.
"By not respecting the laws it is supposed to uphold, your government is criminal. That's the definition of a crime: breaking the law. You break it every day." She also accused the government of lending a strong hand to the far right in its management of the reception of immigrants.
