#11 - The Bridge Radio: Live about Næstved Tent Camp

******* The Bridge Radio Live Radio about Næstved Tent Camp*******

Sunday the 31st of July at 4 pm the Bridge Radio will send the last live program on our summer radio tour - this time from Næstved.

Listen live through our website; http://www.thebridgeradio.dk/contact-1-1

This last program will be about expression; artistic expression, poetic expression and political expression, expression through leaked videos of violence in the camp, through poetry or through social media and alternative platforms, expression through painting and weaving in small rooms in the barracks of the Næstved camp.

Artists and dancers currently forced to live in the Næstved camp will discuss their practice with us. We will listen and discuss poetry by Ahmad Shamlou, Athena Farrokhzad and Inger Christensen. We will talk with different people with experience of living in asylum camps and discuss how social media can become a platform from which discussions and documentation can happen that can change the racist-dehumanizing structure asylum seekers are forced into within the asylum system.

****About the Næstved Tent Camp****

The tent camp was opened in early 2016 along with three others (Thisted, Haderslev, Herning) as a direct outcome of the government’s new ‘tightenings’ of the immigration law. From the beginning the idea was to make the conditions for asylum seekers to unbearable that they would appear unattractive for potential asylum seekers in zones of war and conflict.
The camp has a capacity of 600 people and right now 350-400 people live in the yellow tents formerly used by the danish military in Iraq and Afghanistan while awaiting the processing of their applications of asylum in Denmark. This process have no established time limit.

The camp is driven by Beredskabsstyrelsen Sjælland and Langeland Kommune. They have employed the private security company Securia Vagt ApS to ‘assure the safety’ in the camp. In May a video of the camp leader leck locking an asylum seeker was recorded by an asylum seeker and leaked by Information. The administration of the camp had used collective punishment, threats and physical power. The case lead to the camp leader losing his job, partly because it was publicly known that he had a criminal record for violence against children during his former job in a public institution. Today a new camp leader has been employed but the overall structures of fear in the camp have not been addressed by the authorities.

Links:
https://youtu.be/pxrGYPTXYIo
https://www.information.dk/indland/2016/05/lejrchef-spredte-frygt-blandt-asylansoegere