“I don’t know what will happen next. Every time I go out, I pray to God that will come back again.”

On 2.5., the ASZ and Right to Stay activist Moncef S. was found dead in in the cellar of his former flat. He had committed suicide. Moncef had been in deportation detention since mid-March. As he learned about his impending deportation last week, he tried to take his own life in the airport prison. He was then taken to a clinic. He fled from there and was found dead yesterday. This is already the fourth known suicide in connection with deportations in the last six months.

We are sad and angry about the loss of a friend. Moncef was a very warm person full of curiosity. His dreams have now been shattered by Switzerland’s deportation policy.

Moncef’s death is a direct consequence of Switzerland’s migration policy!

Stop with the deportation detention!
Stop with the deportations!
No person is illegal!

Autonomous School Zürich / The association Bildung für Alle
Bleiberecht-Kollektiv Zürich (the Right to Stay collective Zürich)

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Moncef wrote this text for the latest edition of the Paperless Newspaper. Because he was afraid that something would happen to him due to this text, he did not want to have it published in the newspaper.

I knew that everything will be good, because everything is easier in Europe.

My name is Moncef S., I was born on 9.5. 1987 in Tunisia. When I was 21 years old, I went to the army for a year to work as a soldier in Tunis. In Tunisia, every young man can work in the army. After this year I returned back to my parents. I found no work there and that’s why they had to take care of me, which they didn’t like.They always complained that I wasn’t working. It was upsetting me that they put so much pressure on me. For a long time, I didn’t know where I should go, but then I left my hometown and went back to Tunis. There I could find odd jobs. Sometimes I was working at the market and sometimes I helped to build a house. At the beginning, I was living on the street, but with time I got to know people with whom I moved in.

In 2011, however, there were big political problems and everyone took to the streets to protest against the president and the system in Tunisia. I lost everything and decided to leave Tunisia to emigrate to Europe. I knew that everything will be good, because everything is easier in Europe. On a big ship, I went from Tunisia to Genua and spent a week in Italy. After that I went to Switzerland and applied for asylum in Chiasso. But after a week I went to Kreuzlingen and after a month I lived in the kanton of Zürich with an N in my ID card. After 7 months I received a negative decision from the Swiss authorities with a request to leave the country.

From that point on I had to think the whole time about where I should go. I can’t go back to Tunisia, because I don’t have any future there. Here I can’t go outside, because the Police will arrest me and send me back to my house. I can’t go among the people either, unless in the Autonomous School Zürich, but also there I have to think about my situation the whole time. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Every time I go outside I pray to God that I will come back again.