Held Without Rhyme or Reason: Poland’s Detention System for Migrants Labeled a Farce

In Poland, there are two types of premises for asylum seekers and people who have entered the country illegally: open centres such as refugee hostels; and detention camps like the one Rosa is stuck in, which look like high-security prisons complete with bars on the windows and barbed-wire fences topped with surveillance equipment.

Entry into Poland's current six detention camps is highly restricted and the Polish Border Guard, a state security agency tasked with administering them, reluctantly shares information, so the NGOs rely on its 'snitches'. Each camp has its Rosa, Zoya, Ahmed or Therese, who signal when someone has been beaten up by the guards, needs a doctor, or has attempted suicide.

Some things occasionally hit the headlines, and a few concerned MPs come to inspect the camps and issue recommendations and warnings. Kids and pregnant women must be released, as well as those in poor health and victims of past torture. The scarce food rations are a threat to health; and placing 24 men in one room (2 square metres per person), with barred windows facing military ranges and the constant sounds of gunshots, have the hallmarks of torture.

The authorities note these concerns, but claim they are unable to address them: the camps are just improvised measures to address the current huge migratory pressures on the border, for which no one was prepared.

Only that Poland actually was. The lice, cold and loneliness suffered by Rosa and others in these camps can be traced back to ministerial acts passed over the years since the victory of the anti-immigration Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2015.

In 2017, legislation was introduced that put bars on the windows and allowed containers to be used to house extra inmates in the detention...