http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/asyl-a08_prn.shtml
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Germany
Germany: Fewer asylum-seekers and more deportations
By Martin Kreickenbaum
8 August 2003
On July 13, the German Interior Ministry presented asylum statistics
for the first six months of 2003. According to these figures, only
26,452 people sought asylum in Germany in this period. This represents
a 27 percent decrease compared to the same period last year, and is 24
percent less than the second half of 2002.
The number of asylum-seekers also fell drastically last year in
comparison with 2001. Since the month-on-month trend is also down, the
number of asylum-seekers coming to Germany in 2003 looks set to fall to
its lowest level since 1985.
The percentage of those asylum-seekers who were recognised as suffering
political persecution and granted asylum remained at the markedly low
level of the previous year. Altogether, 48,045 asylum decisions were
taken by the Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees.
However, in only approximately 2,000 cases were the applications for
asylum regarded as justified or the applicants granted limited
protection from deportation on political or humanitarian grounds. This
represents a recognition rate of just 4.2 percent.
In 2001, almost a quarter of those seeking refuge in Germany were at
least granted temporary protection. In the mid-1980s, with around the
same number of asylum applications as today, almost 30 percent of
applications were granted asylum.
This alarming development, which is celebrated as a success by the
German government, is a direct consequence of its policy of rejecting
refugees. The Social Democratic Party-Green Party coalition in Berlin
has intensified the inhumane policy of its conservative predecessors,
and in only five years has cut the number of asylum-seekers by around
nearly two thirds. It retained the conservatives’ “safe third country”
rule, the most restrictive in Europe, the concept of “safe countries of
origin,” the excluding of civil war refugees from the asylum process.
It also instigated the quartering of refugees near their homeland,
making it increasingly impossible for those needing protection to lodge
an asylum application in Germany.
If, despite these obstacles, asylum-seekers nevertheless manage to make
it to Germany, they face further deterrents. These include the legally
dubious rapid deportation proceedings at airports and the setting of
welfare support for asylum-seekers 30 percent below the standard rate,
while simultaneously prohibiting them from working.
The dramatic decrease in the numbers of asylum-seekers and those
granted asylum has nothing to do with an improved security situation
worldwide, and this is demonstrated by what is taking place in the main
countries of origin of most refugees. These include states like Turkey,
China and Iran, which are continually reprimanded (by the German
government, amongst others) for their offences against human rights and
the use of torture.
Although Turkey has since replaced Iraq as the country of origin for
the majority of those seeking asylum in Germany, nearly 12 percent of
asylum-seekers still come from Iraq, whose population is suffering from
the brutal occupation regime under American and British troops. The
situation facing the population has catastrophically worsened since the
beginning of the war. The US-British forces confront a guerrilla war
involving widespread popular resistance. The response of the occupying
powers has been to increasingly resort to arbitrary arrests. Amnesty
International has documented serious cases of human rights violations,
including the use of torture by the American and British occupiers.
It is worth noting that nearly 25 percent of refugees originate from
countries that have been dragged into war at the hands of NATO (or the
changing coalitions under US control). Aside from Iraq, these include
Serbia, Montenegro and Afghanistan. Official political rhetoric praises
these wars as efforts to liberate people from dictatorial regimes and
establish “democracy” and “liberty,” but the numbers of refugees
fleeing from these same countries paint another picture: one oppressive
regime is replaced by another. Moreover, the wars are accompanied by a
dramatic economic decline. In the resulting desolate social situation
minorities rapidly become scapegoats, the target of discrimination and
violence; the circumstances facing Roma peoples in Serbia and
Montenegro are just one example.
A German Foreign Ministry report last year noted: “The situation facing
minorities in the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, now Serbia and
Montenegro] does not meet...international standards by a long chalk.”
However, the proportion of refugees from Serbia and Montenegro who are
granted asylum is just 0.1 percent. And although there are already
hundreds of thousands of internal refugees in the former Yugoslavia,
and more who are returning to a life of poverty and desperation, the
German government concluded an agreement with Yugoslavia in November
2002 whereby all refugees, bar a few exceptions, are forced to return.
Deportation policy continues
The result of Germany’s deportation policy was clearly shown in a June
23 report in the Frankfurter Rundschau. A Roma family, who had lived 12
years in Syke, in Lower Saxony, was taken at night by the police and
deported to Belgrade. There they live with thousands of other refugees
in misery in the illegal settlement of Deponia. Dominated by huts made
from cardboard and corrugated sheeting, there are neither proper roads
nor adequate water or electricity services. Since there is no work,
they scour the garbage containers coming from Belgrade for bottles,
bread and paper. The children are sent to beg on the streets of the
Serbian metropolis.
Green Party politician Claudia Roth, the German government’s human
rights spokesperson, visited Belgrade in order to gain a first-hand
picture of the situation confronting refugees deported there. She
maintains that a continuation of the deportation policy is inhumane and
cannot be justified politically. But these hypocritical words were
intended for the press corps accompanying her visit rather than for her
government coalition partners, since Berlin continues its policy of
deporting people, even into crisis areas.
The German federal and state interior ministers have encouraged the
authorities to carry out ever more arbitrary and illegal actions, in
order ensure deportations.
On June 26, the deportation of 64 refugees from Düsseldorf to Kosovo
failed. Members of minorities such as Roma, Ashkali or Egyptians can
only be deported after the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK)
has examined each individual case. In addition, a detailed list of the
refugees being deported has to be submitted to UNMIK beforehand. This
is what was missing on June 26, as the German authorities clearly tried
to illegally deport members of minorities.
As the airplane neared Kosovo, UNMIK refused it landing permission. The
flight was swiftly rerouted to Podgorica in Montenegro, in order to
then take the deportees by bus to Kosovo. Since UNMIK also rejected
this approach, the refugees were finally flown back to Düsseldorf. They
had to endure nearly 10 hours of intense heat in an airplane hangar,
whose windows and doors were firmly locked, and were refused food the
entire time.
In the course of this incident, the Kosovo co-coordinator of the UNHCR,
Karsten Luethke, declared that the German government was continually
deporting refugees to Kosovo who did not originate from the province.
In June, a mother and her seven children were deported to Turkey. The
family’s door was battered down in the early morning hours and the
eight people shipped by airplane to Istanbul, without being able to
contact a lawyer or even to take some basic luggage.
The deportation was illegal not only because they were refused a legal
hearing. The mother and her children were deported to Turkey despite
being Lebanese Kurds, who had fled the civil war in Lebanon years ago.
The claim by the authorities that this was a Turkish family is purely
capricious and was a blatant excuse to accelerate the deportation of
unwanted refugees.
Moreover, in contravention of both German and international law, the
family was torn apart, since the father was excluded from the
deportation. German authorities then cynically declared that he could
seek to reunite the family by travelling to Turkey.
On July 15, in the course of a failed deportation of a Congolese man,
Raphael Botoba, it came to light that despite the escalating violence
in the Congo—and the participation of Germany in a military
intervention there—further refugees were being deported to the central
African state. According to parliamentary state secretary Fritz Rudolf,
the government is not considering a ban on deportations to the Congo at
this time.
According to the twisted logic of the German government, military
intervention by the imperialist powers leads automatically to an
improvement in the human rights situation. This argument has been used
successively in the former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,
where following military interventions the proportion of refugees
granted asylum sank in each case as forced deportations increased. It
will not be any different in the Congo.
The government does not even attempt to hide the duplicity of its own
arguments. While it justifies its participation in a military
intervention with reference to the increasing violence in the Congo,
deportations are pushed through mercilessly, citing the relatively safe
situation in the capital. The Congolese churches and international
human rights organisations point out that “safe survival is hardly
possible” for those returning.
Berlin’s ever more ruthless deportation policy is not only directed
against refugees in Germany. The government is setting a clear sign of
what can be expected by potential refuges should they ever get to
Germany. The drastic fall in the numbers of those granted asylum
clearly shows that refugees should no longer expect protection from
persecution should they make it to German soil. Instead, they face a
life under miserable social conditions, with strongly curtailed
democratic rights, and under constant fear of deportation to a country
where even more intolerable conditions predominate.
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Germany
Germany: Fewer asylum-seekers and more deportations
By Martin Kreickenbaum
8 August 2003
On July 13, the German Interior Ministry presented asylum statistics
for the first six months of 2003. According to these figures, only
26,452 people sought asylum in Germany in this period. This represents
a 27 percent decrease compared to the same period last year, and is 24
percent less than the second half of 2002.
The number of asylum-seekers also fell drastically last year in
comparison with 2001. Since the month-on-month trend is also down, the
number of asylum-seekers coming to Germany in 2003 looks set to fall to
its lowest level since 1985.
The percentage of those asylum-seekers who were recognised as suffering
political persecution and granted asylum remained at the markedly low
level of the previous year. Altogether, 48,045 asylum decisions were
taken by the Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees.
However, in only approximately 2,000 cases were the applications for
asylum regarded as justified or the applicants granted limited
protection from deportation on political or humanitarian grounds. This
represents a recognition rate of just 4.2 percent.
In 2001, almost a quarter of those seeking refuge in Germany were at
least granted temporary protection. In the mid-1980s, with around the
same number of asylum applications as today, almost 30 percent of
applications were granted asylum.
This alarming development, which is celebrated as a success by the
German government, is a direct consequence of its policy of rejecting
refugees. The Social Democratic Party-Green Party coalition in Berlin
has intensified the inhumane policy of its conservative predecessors,
and in only five years has cut the number of asylum-seekers by around
nearly two thirds. It retained the conservatives’ “safe third country”
rule, the most restrictive in Europe, the concept of “safe countries of
origin,” the excluding of civil war refugees from the asylum process.
It also instigated the quartering of refugees near their homeland,
making it increasingly impossible for those needing protection to lodge
an asylum application in Germany.
If, despite these obstacles, asylum-seekers nevertheless manage to make
it to Germany, they face further deterrents. These include the legally
dubious rapid deportation proceedings at airports and the setting of
welfare support for asylum-seekers 30 percent below the standard rate,
while simultaneously prohibiting them from working.
The dramatic decrease in the numbers of asylum-seekers and those
granted asylum has nothing to do with an improved security situation
worldwide, and this is demonstrated by what is taking place in the main
countries of origin of most refugees. These include states like Turkey,
China and Iran, which are continually reprimanded (by the German
government, amongst others) for their offences against human rights and
the use of torture.
Although Turkey has since replaced Iraq as the country of origin for
the majority of those seeking asylum in Germany, nearly 12 percent of
asylum-seekers still come from Iraq, whose population is suffering from
the brutal occupation regime under American and British troops. The
situation facing the population has catastrophically worsened since the
beginning of the war. The US-British forces confront a guerrilla war
involving widespread popular resistance. The response of the occupying
powers has been to increasingly resort to arbitrary arrests. Amnesty
International has documented serious cases of human rights violations,
including the use of torture by the American and British occupiers.
It is worth noting that nearly 25 percent of refugees originate from
countries that have been dragged into war at the hands of NATO (or the
changing coalitions under US control). Aside from Iraq, these include
Serbia, Montenegro and Afghanistan. Official political rhetoric praises
these wars as efforts to liberate people from dictatorial regimes and
establish “democracy” and “liberty,” but the numbers of refugees
fleeing from these same countries paint another picture: one oppressive
regime is replaced by another. Moreover, the wars are accompanied by a
dramatic economic decline. In the resulting desolate social situation
minorities rapidly become scapegoats, the target of discrimination and
violence; the circumstances facing Roma peoples in Serbia and
Montenegro are just one example.
A German Foreign Ministry report last year noted: “The situation facing
minorities in the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, now Serbia and
Montenegro] does not meet...international standards by a long chalk.”
However, the proportion of refugees from Serbia and Montenegro who are
granted asylum is just 0.1 percent. And although there are already
hundreds of thousands of internal refugees in the former Yugoslavia,
and more who are returning to a life of poverty and desperation, the
German government concluded an agreement with Yugoslavia in November
2002 whereby all refugees, bar a few exceptions, are forced to return.
Deportation policy continues
The result of Germany’s deportation policy was clearly shown in a June
23 report in the Frankfurter Rundschau. A Roma family, who had lived 12
years in Syke, in Lower Saxony, was taken at night by the police and
deported to Belgrade. There they live with thousands of other refugees
in misery in the illegal settlement of Deponia. Dominated by huts made
from cardboard and corrugated sheeting, there are neither proper roads
nor adequate water or electricity services. Since there is no work,
they scour the garbage containers coming from Belgrade for bottles,
bread and paper. The children are sent to beg on the streets of the
Serbian metropolis.
Green Party politician Claudia Roth, the German government’s human
rights spokesperson, visited Belgrade in order to gain a first-hand
picture of the situation confronting refugees deported there. She
maintains that a continuation of the deportation policy is inhumane and
cannot be justified politically. But these hypocritical words were
intended for the press corps accompanying her visit rather than for her
government coalition partners, since Berlin continues its policy of
deporting people, even into crisis areas.
The German federal and state interior ministers have encouraged the
authorities to carry out ever more arbitrary and illegal actions, in
order ensure deportations.
On June 26, the deportation of 64 refugees from Düsseldorf to Kosovo
failed. Members of minorities such as Roma, Ashkali or Egyptians can
only be deported after the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK)
has examined each individual case. In addition, a detailed list of the
refugees being deported has to be submitted to UNMIK beforehand. This
is what was missing on June 26, as the German authorities clearly tried
to illegally deport members of minorities.
As the airplane neared Kosovo, UNMIK refused it landing permission. The
flight was swiftly rerouted to Podgorica in Montenegro, in order to
then take the deportees by bus to Kosovo. Since UNMIK also rejected
this approach, the refugees were finally flown back to Düsseldorf. They
had to endure nearly 10 hours of intense heat in an airplane hangar,
whose windows and doors were firmly locked, and were refused food the
entire time.
In the course of this incident, the Kosovo co-coordinator of the UNHCR,
Karsten Luethke, declared that the German government was continually
deporting refugees to Kosovo who did not originate from the province.
In June, a mother and her seven children were deported to Turkey. The
family’s door was battered down in the early morning hours and the
eight people shipped by airplane to Istanbul, without being able to
contact a lawyer or even to take some basic luggage.
The deportation was illegal not only because they were refused a legal
hearing. The mother and her children were deported to Turkey despite
being Lebanese Kurds, who had fled the civil war in Lebanon years ago.
The claim by the authorities that this was a Turkish family is purely
capricious and was a blatant excuse to accelerate the deportation of
unwanted refugees.
Moreover, in contravention of both German and international law, the
family was torn apart, since the father was excluded from the
deportation. German authorities then cynically declared that he could
seek to reunite the family by travelling to Turkey.
On July 15, in the course of a failed deportation of a Congolese man,
Raphael Botoba, it came to light that despite the escalating violence
in the Congo—and the participation of Germany in a military
intervention there—further refugees were being deported to the central
African state. According to parliamentary state secretary Fritz Rudolf,
the government is not considering a ban on deportations to the Congo at
this time.
According to the twisted logic of the German government, military
intervention by the imperialist powers leads automatically to an
improvement in the human rights situation. This argument has been used
successively in the former Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,
where following military interventions the proportion of refugees
granted asylum sank in each case as forced deportations increased. It
will not be any different in the Congo.
The government does not even attempt to hide the duplicity of its own
arguments. While it justifies its participation in a military
intervention with reference to the increasing violence in the Congo,
deportations are pushed through mercilessly, citing the relatively safe
situation in the capital. The Congolese churches and international
human rights organisations point out that “safe survival is hardly
possible” for those returning.
Berlin’s ever more ruthless deportation policy is not only directed
against refugees in Germany. The government is setting a clear sign of
what can be expected by potential refuges should they ever get to
Germany. The drastic fall in the numbers of those granted asylum
clearly shows that refugees should no longer expect protection from
persecution should they make it to German soil. Instead, they face a
life under miserable social conditions, with strongly curtailed
democratic rights, and under constant fear of deportation to a country
where even more intolerable conditions predominate.
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved