Germany: Asylum and immigration (3)
01 January 1991
Germany: Asylum and immigration
artdoc April=1995
Threatened deportation of baby highlights inhuman laws
The Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees has
ruled that a five-month old Kurdish baby girl has no right to
stay in Germany and has threatened to deport the baby to an area
of Turkey where Kurdish villages are reportedly being
systematically destroyed.
Berivan Yavuz' parents have lived in Lower Saxony for two years.
Supporters of the family are to appeal against the decision in
a lower court. There is a six-month ban in Lower Saxony on
deportations of Kurds to Turkey. Bärbel Stechel, the founder of
Initiative Human Rights, in the town of Wischhafen says that this
ruling is a result of the changes to Germany's asylum laws. `All
political parties assured us that the laws would be applied
humanely and were aimed solely at the gangs of human smugglers
and economic refugees. This is an exaggerated form of German
thoroughness - if we carry on like this we will be back where we
were' (Guardian 27.7.94).
Riot in refugee prison
Forty asylum-seekers, mainly Algerians facing deportation, took
a prison warden hostage in Kassel and demanded a bus and free
passage to a neighbouring country. Special armed police units
were sent in to the prison, but were beaten back as inmates set
fire to the building (Guardian 25.7.94).
Solidarity action penalised
Ten Kurds who went on hunger strike for more than a week in
support of a man threatened with deportation have been told by
a local authority that they may have 10 marks from their pocket
money deducted because they don't need food.
The Kurds were drawing attention to the case of Ali Yavuz who
has been living with his wife and two children in Germany for
five years. His name has been printed in Turkish newspapers as
a PKK supporter but the German authorities have refused his
asylum request on the grounds that they consider his written
eyewitness testimony backing up his claim of torture to be
forged. Ali Yavuz's threatened deportation was stopped at the
last minute by a court but he still remains in prison pending
a final decision on his asylum application. His family is in
hiding (Taz 29.7.94).
Suicides in detention increase
A 43-year-old Chinese man has become the tenth asylum-seeker to
commit suicide since the introduction of Germany's new asylum
laws. After the man killed himself in detention, thirty other
prisoners smashed cell windows and demanded talks with the Home
Secretary (Taz 7.6.94).
IRR European Race Audit, Bulletin no 10, September 1994. Contact:
Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London
WC1X 9HS. Tel: 0171 837 0041