http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/germ-j08_prn.shtml
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Germany
Deportations and the border regime
The deadly consequences of Germany’s refugee policy
By Lena Sokoll
8 January 2004
Last September, the intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) of the
German state of Brandenburg seized acts of vandalism against the
immigration office in the town of Frankfurt-Oder in order to slander
the World Socialist Web Site, accusing it of promoting violence and
constituting part of a milieu of violent “left extremism.”
The pretext for this political attack was an article published by the
WSWS nearly three years ago entitled, “Deportation policy and the
border regime: The deadly consequences of German refugee policy.” The
Brandenberg intelligence agency claimed that a copy of the article was
left behind at the scene of the vandalized immigration office, and on
this basis held the WSWS responsible.
“The road to criminal acts is paved with such texts,” the intelligence
service declared in a report posted on its web site. The report
continued by making a number of distortions and false claims regarding
the content of the WSWS article and then expressed doubts over its
accuracy in recounting the consequences of Germany’s refugee policy.
The WSWS article was based on reputable sources and generally available
information. It established factually that over a period of seven
years—between 1993 and 2000—at least 239 refugees lost their lives,
with many more suffering injuries, as a result of government-imposed
measures aimed at suppressing immigration.
During this period, the number of immigrants who lost their lives on
Germany’s borders, and as a result of brutal deportation measures and
the inhuman conditions prevailing in deportation centres, exceeded the
number of victims of racist attacks. The article concluded by stating
that, despite occasional lip service by politicians proclaiming their
hostility to racism, state policies in the end only served to validate
the neo-Nazis’ view that the life of an “undesirable” alien in Germany
is worthless.
According to the intelligence service’s online report: “The author of
this article accuses the immigration authorities, the border police
(BGS) and regular police of treating refugees and foreigners in a
contemptuous manner and claims that the so-called BGS ‘border regime’
prevents refugees from entering Germany in the first place. In
addition, the practice of deportation is also dealt with in a very
critical manner. In the course of deportation those involved have been
repeatedly injured (sic!) or have even died. In light of these ‘facts’
the author expresses her scepticism as to whether the struggle against
the extreme right by the forces of the state is serious in its intent.”
What is one to make of a state agency that is formally obliged to
protect the constitution and human dignity, but calls into question
information that has appeared regularly in newspapers and has been
documented by various organisations involved in the defence of
immigrants’ rights? It is factually indisputable that, because of the
difficulties involved in legally entering European countries, large
numbers of refugees from all over the world have lost their lives or
been injured in attempts to enter Europe by other means. They have
drowned or frozen to death while attempting to cross rivers or seas,
suffocated in sealed containers or come to harm in the course of
fleeing from border guards. In addition, migrants confront intolerable
conditions in deportation centres and camps and are often subjected to
brutal treatment by police or guards in the course of deportation.
There is no evidence that the conditions exposed by the WSWS article in
2001 have improved in the intervening years. This fact cannot have
escaped the notice of the authorities of a state such as Brandenburg,
which shares a common border with Poland and where refugees have drawn
up their own memorandum on the inhuman conditions and treatment of
immigrants.
Cases of death and injuries at the borders
Victims continue to drown trying to cross the Oder and Neiße rivers
into Germany. Other immigrants have suffered injuries by police tracker
dogs or have been shot by border police.
The following brief chronology is taken from a document issued by the
German parliament (serial no.14/8432), outlining cases pertaining
solely to the month of July 2001:
July 8: Close to the Czech-Saxony border in Neuhermsdorf a person of
Romanian origin was bitten and injured by a police dog in the course of
being arrested by German border police.
July 16: North of the Brandenburg Ortschaft Manschow on the
German-Polish border an unknown, probably drunken person was pulled out
of the river Oder.
July 22: A drunken person who could not be identified was pulled out of
the river in the vicinity of the town of Frankfurt-Oder.
July 31: In the Saxony region of Niederschlag a person of Armenian
origin was bitten by a BGS dog in the border region to the Czech
Republic.
This list could be continued at length for the remaining months of 2001.
There are no official figures available for either this year or last
year. This not because of any change in practice on the part of
immigration authorities and the border police, but instead reflects a
change in the composition of the German parliament following the 2002
general election. Prior to 2001 the fraction of the Party for
Democratic Socialism (PDS) had regularly inquired into the fate of
refugees on German borders. In the 2002 election, the PDS lost its
fraction status in parliament and no other German party, including the
Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens, has expressed any interest in
obtaining current information on such matters.
In the annual report of the BGS for 2002, German Interior Minister Otto
Schily (SPD) asserted that the number of “unauthorised entries at the
country’s borders” as well as “cases of smuggling” had declined
considerably in comparison to the previous year. He stated that the
basis for this “success by border police” was a “strengthening of
border supervision and improvements in collaboration across borders as
part of the continuing process of European integration and the
associated elaboration and imposition of international combat
strategies.”
Refugee deterrence has been effectively shifted farther eastward as
part of the so-called “joint patrols” policy and increased cooperation
between the BGS and the police of other European countries adjoining
Germany (Poland, Chechnya and other Eastern European states). The aim
is to prevent refugees from crossing the outer borders of Europe.
According to Schily, “The dispatch of border police communications
officers and advisors, as well as increased bilateral training and
provision of equipment for middle and far Eastern European states, has
contributed to reduce pressure on the Schengen [the 15 European Union
members that have abolished controls on their common borders] external
borders.”
The report makes no mention of the methods used to deter, detect and
arrest refugees on EU borders and there is no information as to the
human costs of such border policies.
Suicide and self-imposed injuries
The number of self-imposed injuries, suicide attempts and suicides by
refugees remains very high. Such tragedies arise from the desperate
reaction of many refugees to impending deportations or to the
deplorable conditions in the refugee camps and deportation centres.
In the years 2001-2002, the Anti-Racist Initiative Berlin documented
eight cases of refugees who either committed suicide prior to their
deportations or were killed as they attempted to flee imprisonment.
Over the same period, at least 57 persons facing deportation (28 were
already incarcerated in deportation centres) either deliberately
injured themselves or attempted suicide—in most cases surviving with
severe injuries.
There are no figures available for 2003, but press reports have brought
to light a number of cases. In January of this year, refugee David
Mamedov hanged himself following a visit to the immigration offices in
the region of Gütersloh. Mamedov first entered Germany with his family
from Georgia at the end of 1996 and was awarded refugee status in
February 1997. He was a member of an oppressed minority community in
Georgia, subject to persecution by both state and non-state groups.
Mamedov had been repeatedly mistreated by police in his homeland—in one
incident his leg was seriously burned with a hot iron.
German authorities argued against maintaining Mamedov’s refugee status,
arguing that attacks carried out by police cannot be counted as state
repression. The upper court for the city of Munster accepted this line
of argument, and shortly before his suicide Mamedov was informed that
he would be deported. Less than six months later, Mamedov’s widow was
also informed that she had to leave the country immediately or would
herself face deportation to Georgia.
In July 2003, 33-year-old Hüseyin D. set himself on fire in the
building of the same immigration office. He died shortly afterwards
from his injuries. Hüseyin D. faced forcible deportation although he
was married to a woman who had a valid residence permit. In a cynical
commentary on the self-immolation, Gütersloh official Sven-Georg
Adenauer declared: “It is unbelievable to what lengths people will go
to avoid expulsion. In future we will not allow ourselves to be put
under pressure, in particular by such types of actions.”
On August 16, 2003, 16-year-old Nurcan B. jumped from the window of a
house in Wendlingen in a vain attempt to avoid deportation. She was
transferred to hospital with grievous bodily injuries. The young girl
had spent almost her entire life in Germany and faced being deported to
a country completely alien to her.
On October 3, 2003, 48-year-old Lewon A. set himself on fire and later
died from his injuries. A married man with children, he had lost his
job due to immigration regulations and had been threatened on a number
of occasions with deportation. His appeals to stay in the country had
been rejected despite support for him from a number of church and
immigration organisations as well as his former employer. The family’s
priest, Christoph Schulze-Gockel, stated after the suicide: “Herr A. is
a further victim of German immigration and refugee law. Fear of
persecution following deportation and the fact that his residency
allowance had to be permanently renewed have worked to crush these
people.” The rest of A’s family continue to face deportation.
Deportation jails and refugee camps
For years various refugee organisations have charged that conditions
prevailing in deportation centres and refugee camps are an insult to
human dignity and are evidently aimed at breaking the spirit of those
incarcerated—and thereby deterring attempts by other undocumented
immigrants to enter Germany.
In an open letter, the inhabitants of one refugee centre in Brandenburg
(Rathenow) wrote of the “humiliating treatment” they receive from those
working in the centre. The letter also criticised the security firm
“Security Zarnikow.” Security measures were solely directed at the
refugees, whose private mail was subject to scrutiny by guards. The
refugees in the centre were also able to establish that known neo-Nazis
were employed by the security firm. Last winter it was revealed that at
least four members of the firm were members of an extreme right-wing
organisation (“Kameradschaft Hauptvolk”).
Inhabitants of another centre in the state of Thuringia sent a letter
of protest to the state interior minister complaining of deplorable
conditions and treatment. “The head of the centre treats us like
animals, slaves or prisoners.... We have been threatened with
deportation if we complain about the situation.” The residents were
particularly concerned about the lack of medical treatment as well as
the isolation of the centre. The nearest village was 5 kilometres away
and the next nearest town 25 kilometres. In addition, the centre’s
interior grounds were fenced off with barbed wire.
In the deportation prison located in the Berlin suburb of Köpenick, 68
detainees went on hunger strike in January 2003 in protest over
abominable living conditions, lack of hygiene and prolonged periods of
detention. In the Köpenick jail there have been a series of suicides
and attempted suicides by innocent individuals who were only arrested
because the authorities deemed there was a danger they would “go
underground.” Some of these victims have spent up to 18 months in a
deportation prison. For every day of detention, the authorities impose
a fee of 60 euros to be repaid by the detainees should they ever be
released.
In their press statement, the imprisoned refugees on hunger strike
reported on the humiliating treatment they had received at the hands of
prison personnel. “A person who collapsed into unconsciousness was
merely met with laughter.... Police personnel behave in an utterly
arbitrary manner, employing humiliation and ridicule. Every request or
question leads to open rudeness and abuse on their part.”
Brutal deportations
Deportations are often carried out with extreme brutality—particularly
in cases where the refugee attempts to defend himself or when the
police anticipate the possibility of resistance.
Sometimes the deportees are physically restrained and gagged,
immobilised through the forced administration of drugs or driven out of
their homes and onto planes at the barrel of a gun.
In this respect, the deportation transport to Nigeria on November 20,
2002, is exemplary. The flight carried 21 deportees from Germany and 24
from Italy. On landing in Nigeria, most of them had fresh wounds on
their ankles and wrists, indicating that they had been restrained for
the entire flight only to be freed shortly before landing. The
deportees were exhausted and declared that they had been subject to
severe mistreatment by both the German and Italian police. Nigerian
immigration authorities refused to accept the admission of two men, who
were then returned to Germany. One of them was unconscious and was
unable to leave the plane on his own volition; the second had a broken
neck.
Since 1993, five refugees have died in the course of deportation, with
at least 179 injured as a result of physical restraint or mistreatment
in the course of deportation.
In light of the lack of interest on the part of German authorities,
together with the obstacles faced by refugee organisations in their
attempts to obtain information, the fate of deportees upon being
returned to their countries of origin is largely unknown. Politically
persecuted deportees are often arrested at the airport as they leave
the plane to be subjected to renewed torture, or they simply
“disappear” without a trace.
In July 2001, for example, according to reports in the Turkish press,
out of a total of 63 persons deported in a charter plane from the
German state of North Rhine Westphalia to Turkey, 25 were immediately
arrested upon landing, accused of membership of the banned Kurdish
Workers Party, (PKK).
In January 2002, following a 31-day hunger strike, the severely
weakened refugee E. was deported to Togo. Since then, there has been no
trace of him, although he had agreed to report by telephone to a
refugee organisation. He was a member of the opposition group Union des
Forces pour le Changement (UFC). He had fled Togo after military police
arrested his father, who was also active in the UFC and disappeared
after his arrest.
According to research carried out by the Anti-Racist Initiative Berlin,
since 1993 at least 13 persons are known to have been killed following
their deportations from Germany, with at least 307 persons tortured or
mistreated by police or the military upon landing in their country of
origin. A minimum of 47 disappeared without a trace.
Refugees not faced with political persecution have also suffered as a
result of deportation: for example, in those cases where someone
seriously ill is deported to a country where there is no possibility of
adequate medical treatment. Such was the case of Sikrie Dervisholli, an
Albanian who entered Germany from Kosovo. At four in the morning on
November 5, 2002, she was dragged out of her bed by police and put on a
plane to Pristina.
Ms. Dervisholli suffered from a severe illness of the nervous system
which, in the absence of proper treatment, results in paralysis and can
lead to a torturous death. Numerous testimonies by doctors and her
lawyer were insufficient to sway the authorities to suspend her
deportation. The victim had no relatives in Kosovo and was merely
attempting to spend the short period of life left to her with her
sister in Germany. Her neurologist bitterly remarked on her treatment
at the hands of the authorities, asking: “How could anyone allow a
person to die so miserably?”
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Germany
Deportations and the border regime
The deadly consequences of Germany’s refugee policy
By Lena Sokoll
8 January 2004
Last September, the intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) of the
German state of Brandenburg seized acts of vandalism against the
immigration office in the town of Frankfurt-Oder in order to slander
the World Socialist Web Site, accusing it of promoting violence and
constituting part of a milieu of violent “left extremism.”
The pretext for this political attack was an article published by the
WSWS nearly three years ago entitled, “Deportation policy and the
border regime: The deadly consequences of German refugee policy.” The
Brandenberg intelligence agency claimed that a copy of the article was
left behind at the scene of the vandalized immigration office, and on
this basis held the WSWS responsible.
“The road to criminal acts is paved with such texts,” the intelligence
service declared in a report posted on its web site. The report
continued by making a number of distortions and false claims regarding
the content of the WSWS article and then expressed doubts over its
accuracy in recounting the consequences of Germany’s refugee policy.
The WSWS article was based on reputable sources and generally available
information. It established factually that over a period of seven
years—between 1993 and 2000—at least 239 refugees lost their lives,
with many more suffering injuries, as a result of government-imposed
measures aimed at suppressing immigration.
During this period, the number of immigrants who lost their lives on
Germany’s borders, and as a result of brutal deportation measures and
the inhuman conditions prevailing in deportation centres, exceeded the
number of victims of racist attacks. The article concluded by stating
that, despite occasional lip service by politicians proclaiming their
hostility to racism, state policies in the end only served to validate
the neo-Nazis’ view that the life of an “undesirable” alien in Germany
is worthless.
According to the intelligence service’s online report: “The author of
this article accuses the immigration authorities, the border police
(BGS) and regular police of treating refugees and foreigners in a
contemptuous manner and claims that the so-called BGS ‘border regime’
prevents refugees from entering Germany in the first place. In
addition, the practice of deportation is also dealt with in a very
critical manner. In the course of deportation those involved have been
repeatedly injured (sic!) or have even died. In light of these ‘facts’
the author expresses her scepticism as to whether the struggle against
the extreme right by the forces of the state is serious in its intent.”
What is one to make of a state agency that is formally obliged to
protect the constitution and human dignity, but calls into question
information that has appeared regularly in newspapers and has been
documented by various organisations involved in the defence of
immigrants’ rights? It is factually indisputable that, because of the
difficulties involved in legally entering European countries, large
numbers of refugees from all over the world have lost their lives or
been injured in attempts to enter Europe by other means. They have
drowned or frozen to death while attempting to cross rivers or seas,
suffocated in sealed containers or come to harm in the course of
fleeing from border guards. In addition, migrants confront intolerable
conditions in deportation centres and camps and are often subjected to
brutal treatment by police or guards in the course of deportation.
There is no evidence that the conditions exposed by the WSWS article in
2001 have improved in the intervening years. This fact cannot have
escaped the notice of the authorities of a state such as Brandenburg,
which shares a common border with Poland and where refugees have drawn
up their own memorandum on the inhuman conditions and treatment of
immigrants.
Cases of death and injuries at the borders
Victims continue to drown trying to cross the Oder and Neiße rivers
into Germany. Other immigrants have suffered injuries by police tracker
dogs or have been shot by border police.
The following brief chronology is taken from a document issued by the
German parliament (serial no.14/8432), outlining cases pertaining
solely to the month of July 2001:
July 8: Close to the Czech-Saxony border in Neuhermsdorf a person of
Romanian origin was bitten and injured by a police dog in the course of
being arrested by German border police.
July 16: North of the Brandenburg Ortschaft Manschow on the
German-Polish border an unknown, probably drunken person was pulled out
of the river Oder.
July 22: A drunken person who could not be identified was pulled out of
the river in the vicinity of the town of Frankfurt-Oder.
July 31: In the Saxony region of Niederschlag a person of Armenian
origin was bitten by a BGS dog in the border region to the Czech
Republic.
This list could be continued at length for the remaining months of 2001.
There are no official figures available for either this year or last
year. This not because of any change in practice on the part of
immigration authorities and the border police, but instead reflects a
change in the composition of the German parliament following the 2002
general election. Prior to 2001 the fraction of the Party for
Democratic Socialism (PDS) had regularly inquired into the fate of
refugees on German borders. In the 2002 election, the PDS lost its
fraction status in parliament and no other German party, including the
Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens, has expressed any interest in
obtaining current information on such matters.
In the annual report of the BGS for 2002, German Interior Minister Otto
Schily (SPD) asserted that the number of “unauthorised entries at the
country’s borders” as well as “cases of smuggling” had declined
considerably in comparison to the previous year. He stated that the
basis for this “success by border police” was a “strengthening of
border supervision and improvements in collaboration across borders as
part of the continuing process of European integration and the
associated elaboration and imposition of international combat
strategies.”
Refugee deterrence has been effectively shifted farther eastward as
part of the so-called “joint patrols” policy and increased cooperation
between the BGS and the police of other European countries adjoining
Germany (Poland, Chechnya and other Eastern European states). The aim
is to prevent refugees from crossing the outer borders of Europe.
According to Schily, “The dispatch of border police communications
officers and advisors, as well as increased bilateral training and
provision of equipment for middle and far Eastern European states, has
contributed to reduce pressure on the Schengen [the 15 European Union
members that have abolished controls on their common borders] external
borders.”
The report makes no mention of the methods used to deter, detect and
arrest refugees on EU borders and there is no information as to the
human costs of such border policies.
Suicide and self-imposed injuries
The number of self-imposed injuries, suicide attempts and suicides by
refugees remains very high. Such tragedies arise from the desperate
reaction of many refugees to impending deportations or to the
deplorable conditions in the refugee camps and deportation centres.
In the years 2001-2002, the Anti-Racist Initiative Berlin documented
eight cases of refugees who either committed suicide prior to their
deportations or were killed as they attempted to flee imprisonment.
Over the same period, at least 57 persons facing deportation (28 were
already incarcerated in deportation centres) either deliberately
injured themselves or attempted suicide—in most cases surviving with
severe injuries.
There are no figures available for 2003, but press reports have brought
to light a number of cases. In January of this year, refugee David
Mamedov hanged himself following a visit to the immigration offices in
the region of Gütersloh. Mamedov first entered Germany with his family
from Georgia at the end of 1996 and was awarded refugee status in
February 1997. He was a member of an oppressed minority community in
Georgia, subject to persecution by both state and non-state groups.
Mamedov had been repeatedly mistreated by police in his homeland—in one
incident his leg was seriously burned with a hot iron.
German authorities argued against maintaining Mamedov’s refugee status,
arguing that attacks carried out by police cannot be counted as state
repression. The upper court for the city of Munster accepted this line
of argument, and shortly before his suicide Mamedov was informed that
he would be deported. Less than six months later, Mamedov’s widow was
also informed that she had to leave the country immediately or would
herself face deportation to Georgia.
In July 2003, 33-year-old Hüseyin D. set himself on fire in the
building of the same immigration office. He died shortly afterwards
from his injuries. Hüseyin D. faced forcible deportation although he
was married to a woman who had a valid residence permit. In a cynical
commentary on the self-immolation, Gütersloh official Sven-Georg
Adenauer declared: “It is unbelievable to what lengths people will go
to avoid expulsion. In future we will not allow ourselves to be put
under pressure, in particular by such types of actions.”
On August 16, 2003, 16-year-old Nurcan B. jumped from the window of a
house in Wendlingen in a vain attempt to avoid deportation. She was
transferred to hospital with grievous bodily injuries. The young girl
had spent almost her entire life in Germany and faced being deported to
a country completely alien to her.
On October 3, 2003, 48-year-old Lewon A. set himself on fire and later
died from his injuries. A married man with children, he had lost his
job due to immigration regulations and had been threatened on a number
of occasions with deportation. His appeals to stay in the country had
been rejected despite support for him from a number of church and
immigration organisations as well as his former employer. The family’s
priest, Christoph Schulze-Gockel, stated after the suicide: “Herr A. is
a further victim of German immigration and refugee law. Fear of
persecution following deportation and the fact that his residency
allowance had to be permanently renewed have worked to crush these
people.” The rest of A’s family continue to face deportation.
Deportation jails and refugee camps
For years various refugee organisations have charged that conditions
prevailing in deportation centres and refugee camps are an insult to
human dignity and are evidently aimed at breaking the spirit of those
incarcerated—and thereby deterring attempts by other undocumented
immigrants to enter Germany.
In an open letter, the inhabitants of one refugee centre in Brandenburg
(Rathenow) wrote of the “humiliating treatment” they receive from those
working in the centre. The letter also criticised the security firm
“Security Zarnikow.” Security measures were solely directed at the
refugees, whose private mail was subject to scrutiny by guards. The
refugees in the centre were also able to establish that known neo-Nazis
were employed by the security firm. Last winter it was revealed that at
least four members of the firm were members of an extreme right-wing
organisation (“Kameradschaft Hauptvolk”).
Inhabitants of another centre in the state of Thuringia sent a letter
of protest to the state interior minister complaining of deplorable
conditions and treatment. “The head of the centre treats us like
animals, slaves or prisoners.... We have been threatened with
deportation if we complain about the situation.” The residents were
particularly concerned about the lack of medical treatment as well as
the isolation of the centre. The nearest village was 5 kilometres away
and the next nearest town 25 kilometres. In addition, the centre’s
interior grounds were fenced off with barbed wire.
In the deportation prison located in the Berlin suburb of Köpenick, 68
detainees went on hunger strike in January 2003 in protest over
abominable living conditions, lack of hygiene and prolonged periods of
detention. In the Köpenick jail there have been a series of suicides
and attempted suicides by innocent individuals who were only arrested
because the authorities deemed there was a danger they would “go
underground.” Some of these victims have spent up to 18 months in a
deportation prison. For every day of detention, the authorities impose
a fee of 60 euros to be repaid by the detainees should they ever be
released.
In their press statement, the imprisoned refugees on hunger strike
reported on the humiliating treatment they had received at the hands of
prison personnel. “A person who collapsed into unconsciousness was
merely met with laughter.... Police personnel behave in an utterly
arbitrary manner, employing humiliation and ridicule. Every request or
question leads to open rudeness and abuse on their part.”
Brutal deportations
Deportations are often carried out with extreme brutality—particularly
in cases where the refugee attempts to defend himself or when the
police anticipate the possibility of resistance.
Sometimes the deportees are physically restrained and gagged,
immobilised through the forced administration of drugs or driven out of
their homes and onto planes at the barrel of a gun.
In this respect, the deportation transport to Nigeria on November 20,
2002, is exemplary. The flight carried 21 deportees from Germany and 24
from Italy. On landing in Nigeria, most of them had fresh wounds on
their ankles and wrists, indicating that they had been restrained for
the entire flight only to be freed shortly before landing. The
deportees were exhausted and declared that they had been subject to
severe mistreatment by both the German and Italian police. Nigerian
immigration authorities refused to accept the admission of two men, who
were then returned to Germany. One of them was unconscious and was
unable to leave the plane on his own volition; the second had a broken
neck.
Since 1993, five refugees have died in the course of deportation, with
at least 179 injured as a result of physical restraint or mistreatment
in the course of deportation.
In light of the lack of interest on the part of German authorities,
together with the obstacles faced by refugee organisations in their
attempts to obtain information, the fate of deportees upon being
returned to their countries of origin is largely unknown. Politically
persecuted deportees are often arrested at the airport as they leave
the plane to be subjected to renewed torture, or they simply
“disappear” without a trace.
In July 2001, for example, according to reports in the Turkish press,
out of a total of 63 persons deported in a charter plane from the
German state of North Rhine Westphalia to Turkey, 25 were immediately
arrested upon landing, accused of membership of the banned Kurdish
Workers Party, (PKK).
In January 2002, following a 31-day hunger strike, the severely
weakened refugee E. was deported to Togo. Since then, there has been no
trace of him, although he had agreed to report by telephone to a
refugee organisation. He was a member of the opposition group Union des
Forces pour le Changement (UFC). He had fled Togo after military police
arrested his father, who was also active in the UFC and disappeared
after his arrest.
According to research carried out by the Anti-Racist Initiative Berlin,
since 1993 at least 13 persons are known to have been killed following
their deportations from Germany, with at least 307 persons tortured or
mistreated by police or the military upon landing in their country of
origin. A minimum of 47 disappeared without a trace.
Refugees not faced with political persecution have also suffered as a
result of deportation: for example, in those cases where someone
seriously ill is deported to a country where there is no possibility of
adequate medical treatment. Such was the case of Sikrie Dervisholli, an
Albanian who entered Germany from Kosovo. At four in the morning on
November 5, 2002, she was dragged out of her bed by police and put on a
plane to Pristina.
Ms. Dervisholli suffered from a severe illness of the nervous system
which, in the absence of proper treatment, results in paralysis and can
lead to a torturous death. Numerous testimonies by doctors and her
lawyer were insufficient to sway the authorities to suspend her
deportation. The victim had no relatives in Kosovo and was merely
attempting to spend the short period of life left to her with her
sister in Germany. Her neurologist bitterly remarked on her treatment
at the hands of the authorities, asking: “How could anyone allow a
person to die so miserably?”
Copyright 1998-2003
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved