Court rules that asylum seekers can no longer be kept at Schiphol detention center

An asylum seeker is no longer allowed to be detained at the Schiphol Detention Centre. Judges of the court in The Hague visited the judicial complex and feel it is too similar to a prison and that asylum seekers are being treated too similar to prisoners. Therefore, keeping the asylum seekers there is unlawful.

The case was initiated by an asylum seeker. He will be released immediately. The man landed at Schiphol on a plane from Taiwan on January 1. His country of origin is unknown.

He was sent to the judicial complex at Schiphol after his request for asylum. There are six departments at the Detention Centre, which can all hold 45 asylum seekers each. Currently, there are around 160 people staying there. The asylum seekers are locked in their cells from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. every evening.

There are eight departments for prisoners in a different part of the same building. The prison yards and the asylum seekers' shelters are adjacent to each other. They are separated by a three-meter-high concrete wall. Asylum seekers and prisoners can meet each other on the stairs and in the hallways.

Asylum seekers are given very little possibility to go outside. They are also restricted in their movements through the building and are even limited in how much they can use their mobile phones.

The Council of State had ruled on Wednesday that asylum seekers may be accommodated in the Schiphol Detention Centre. According to the highest administrative court, there are enough differences between the asylum wing and the prison. The asylum seekers may have fewer freedoms than other asylum seekers in the Netherlands, but that does not make the accommodation unlawful, according to the court.

The case at the Council of State concerned a man who had landed in November on a plane from Morocco. He also went to the reception centre at Schiphol, and the court also ruled that the reception centre was too much like a prison in that case. Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber appealed the decision and won the case.

A spokesperson for the Council of State has said that there are still more than 100 similar cases awaiting a verdict. These are also cases in which the court found that the reception at Schiphol resembles a prison too much, which led to the minister appealing the verdict.