Keystone-SDA
The 30,000 expected paper boats, symbolizing deaths in the Mediterranean, could not be exhibited in Neuchâtel on the occasion of refugee day. The organizations took advantage of this day to alert working conditions at the CFA in Boudry.
(Keystone-ATS) The exhibition “and Vogue la Galère”, produced by the Nela association, was to stop at the Péristyle de Neuchâtel from Friday evening to Sunday but it did not arrive for logistical reasons. “The driver who had been found to drive the truck panicked due to the obstacles linked to the music festival”, which takes place right next to it, told Keystone-Ats Pierre Bühler on Saturday, Neuchâtel responsible for the action “named them by their name”.
“If we had to find a driver and a truck, it would have cost us 1000 francs and we did not have the funding for this,” added Pierre Bühler. The opening of the exhibition, which had been shown for the first time in 2023 at Lausanne cathedral, was maintained on Friday evening in the presence of the director of Nela Valérie Despont.
Banners with the names of victims
To somewhat compensate for this cancellation, the organizers have produced some small paper boats, visible during the action “Name them by their name”, where the names and circumstances of the deaths of refugees are named, interspersed with musical interludes. Banners with the names of the victims are also deployed to the peristyle and in other places in the city. According to the organizers, “more than 65,000 people are victims of the Europe fortress”.
More festively, a refugee festival, with stands and music, also takes place around the bottom temple, near the Fête de la Musique. “Usually, the day of refugees does not fall on the same day and this date of date is not very happy” in the case of Neuchâtel, explained Pierre Bühler.
Labor inspection seized
Right to stay and the Cantonal Union Union had taken advantage of the refugee day to alert Thursday evening already to the fact that the delegation of tasks to private companies in federal asylum centers would be “source of mistreatment”. The two organizations pointed out the situation at the Federal Center for Asylum applicants (CFA) in Boudry.
“Refugees undergo unworthy living conditions while mainly commercial, ORS1, protectas and securitas, impose unacceptable working conditions on their employees. This institutional violence is the fruit of decades of ever more restrictive federal policies in matters of procedures, asylum law and allocated budgets, “read their press release.
After complaints from unionized collaborators, a meeting took place last year with State Councilor Florence Nater. The union reminded him that the State had an obligation to control working conditions, even in a federal institution.
Contacted by Arcinfo, the State Councilor in charge of social cohesion, Florence Nater, said that the Cantonal Labor Inspectorate had been seized and that a check will be carried out soon.
The two organizations read different testimonies to support their words. A Burundian asylum seeker, who lived 20 days at the CFA in Boudry in 2022, said that he lived under a constant control, with sometimes more than 20 excavations per day. According to him, “the hardest part was silence. Many applicants did not dare to speak, ”for fear of being repressed.
