Germany: firm spies on asylum seekers
01 January 1996
Taz newspaper reports that the head of a hostel for asylum seekers in the Bavarian town of Landsberg am Lech has been paying 80,000 DM every month to a private security organisation to monitor the activities of hostel residents and to find out whether any have been working illegally. (According to German law, it is illegal for asylum seekers to work for money while their applications are being processed).
The Bavarian Commissioner for Data Protection, Dieter Vetter, described the hostel management's spying operation as "just plain illegal", and said that "there seems to me to be no connection between the general surveillance of resident's entry and exit times (to and from the hostel) and the tasks of the hostel". Elizabeth Kohler, Green Party spokesperson for refugee issues in the Bavarian parliament is quoted as saying: "This sort of observation and spying is a scandal and incompatible with the rule of law". Bavarian authorities have admitted that there are "further cases and groups of cases of control measures against hostel residents".
Taz, 4 & 5.1.96; Berlin Antiracist Information Network.