Arm lock, tackle to the ground, pepper spray and arbitrary detention: this is what six migrant minors claim to have suffered in the hands of security agents from the Rochat federal asylum center (VD), revealed Sunday the Pole RTS investigation. They filed a complaint against several employees of the Protectas company. Neither the latter nor the SEM wish to comment on this matter.
Spring 2023, Switzerland experiences an increase in arrivals of asylum seekers. Among them, many minors who immigrate without any parents. They are called unaccompanied minor applicants or UAMs. In French-speaking Switzerland, the federal center of Boudry (NE) being full, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) decides to accommodate the most independent 16-17 year olds in the Rochat military barracks. A site requisitioned from the army and located above the Vaud commune of Provence.
This is where between March and May 2023, six migrants claim to have suffered violence from a handful of security agents from the Protectas company. Given the seriousness of the facts, the six teenagers each decided to file a complaint for in particular kidnapping, coercion, bodily harm and abuse of authority, the RTS Investigation Unit learned. These complaints are currently being investigated by the Northern Vaud District Public Prosecutor’s Office, indicates the spokesperson for the Vaud Prosecutor’s Office. The officers involved are presumed innocent.
Arm lock and belly tackle
So what happened last spring in Rochat? The scenario is the same each time: a situation which a priori does not seem very serious and which nevertheless gets out of hand. There is this unaccompanied minor who listens to music too loudly, this other who asks for an extra portion of food, this one who refuses to comply with a request, or this one who does not want to leave the refectory. If to reason with the young people, there would have been an attempt at dialogue and de-escalation, very quickly, it seems that the muscular method of the security agents was imposed.
There was no discussion, straight up, they put me on the ground
Among the six complainants, some will be subjected to an arm lock to be controlled. Sami* will be tackled to the ground (with three agents on him). “There was no discussion, straight away, they put me on the ground, there were three people on me: one officer held my neck above my shoulders, another was on my back, and one the last one held my feet”, tells this young Afghan on 7:30 p.m. on RTS, still shocked by this experience. However, according to the internal regulations of the SEM, such constraint measures are limited to situations presenting “immediate danger” and must be used on an “exceptional basis”.
Potentially illegal detention
The nightmare of the six plaintiffs does not end there. They were each forcibly taken to a separate room in the center, called a “temporary accommodation room”. Heated and equipped with a bed, this room “allows residents who are heavily intoxicated, under the influence of substances, or temporarily excluded from the center due to aggressive behavior to be housed separately,” explains the SEM in an email exchange. with the RTS. “That being said, there is no question of placing a young person there as a sanction,” further specifies the SEM. And “the door to this room remains open at all times.”
But according to the complainants, these various principles were not respected by Protectas agents. Sami* remembers: “I was taken to a storage room, there was toilet paper and cleaning materials. They locked me there for about twenty minutes. The door was locked.” Two other unaccompanied minors, who tried to leave the room, were sprayed with pepper spray, the use of which is however reserved for extremely serious situations.
“What these young people experienced is contrary to the internal regulations of the SEM, and also contrary to certain provisions of the child protection convention,” explains Me Milena Peeva, lawyer for two of the six complainants. “As for the placement in this room, this is a deprivation of liberty pronounced arbitrarily, it is a violation of a fundamental right.”
“No comment” from SEM and Protectas
As the investigation is still ongoing, the SEM and the Protectas company refuse to comment on these six complaints. “It is now up to justice to do its job,” indicates the spokesperson for the SEM, Anne Césard. “For our part, if we notice that an agent has behaved in a way that does not comply with his specifications, charges, we ask his employer that he no longer works in our centers”. The SEM will say no more.
It is now up to justice to do its job
It is therefore impossible to know whether the security agents involved violated the internal rules in force. In any case, they don’t think so. Quite the contrary. During their police interviews, Protectas employees disputed the alleged facts and essentially explained that they had used proportionate force against applicants who behaved aggressively. Moreover, three agents themselves filed a complaint against one of the six unaccompanied minors for “threats and insults”. This procedure is still in progress before the juvenile justice system of the German-speaking canton where the young man now resides.
Marc Menichini
