For the past 27 days, a small Protestant church in The Hague has been conducting round-the-clock religious services to protect an Armenian refugee family from deportation.
By law, police officers in The Netherlands are not allowed to enter places of worship during religious services. So, reverends from around the country have taken turns holding services at Bethel Church to prevent officials from arresting the Tamrazyan family, who have been in The Netherlands for nine years.
“By giving hospitality to this family, we could give them time and place to [demonstrate] to the secretary of state the … urgency of their situation,” Theo Hettema, chairman of the General Council of Protestant Ministers says.
And here in the US we tear gas people for just wanting to come in. Fuck this country.
Well, this isn’t a ‘the Netherlands is better than the US’ thing. This is very much a ‘states attack refugees and people resist’ thing.
This whole action is going on BECAUSE the Dutch state is deporting children who are born here or have lived here since they were toddlers, who don’t speak any other language than Dutch and then suddenly have to live in a country where they don’t speak the language, where some have no relatives and where many are not safe.
The Dutch government treats refugees like shit and has plenty of blood on its hands, that’s why things like these are happening.
so when are we gonna start resisting
I don’t know where you are but wherever it is, trust me: people are resisting. If you just check the news you will see activists in the US that blocked ICE vans, the activists in Britain that blocked deportation flights, activists in Germany hiding people from deportations, activists in Greece helping refugees escape prison islands, activists on the Mediterranean rescuing refugees.
And that’s just the news. There are people doing all of these things and more everywhere and most of it never makes the news and isn’t supposed to make the news. While some actions are very public events, direct aid to refugees is about actually helping them, and often the less media the better.
So, ya know, start resisting.
A Dutch church has been conducting religious services for 27 days to protect a refugee family
QueerAnarchism 