1. Human rights are universal.
2. Human rights violations should not be used as a pretext for war.
There are several developments that are raising concern: the situation of asylum seekers continues to be contrary to basic necessities; the war against non-state terror does often override the human rights of the individual. In this war, Germany is cooperating with dictatorial regimes such as Uzbekistan, thereby exhibiting a certain tolerance of state terror, for instance of state terror against Chechen people.
Human rights violations in Germany - this is by no means a popular topic. The fact that the human rights ombudsman of the German government, Mr. Nooke, has his office with the ministry of foreign affairs and not with the interior ministry or the defense ministry provides a hint that German authorities are rather more interested in human rights in foreign countries than in their own country.
I do not support this approach to human rights. If Germany wants to be credible in the field of human rights policy, it needs to emphasize the respect for human rights on it´s own territory.
And there is much still to be done.
Democratic Germany violates human rights standards in several aspects. I would like to mention only three of them:
1.Refugees and asylum
2. The war against non-state terror
3. Right-wing violence.
2006: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN GERMANY
Refugees
The number of people applying for political asylum in Germany is declining. There were 1749 asylum applications in November 2006, approximately a third (715 applications) less than in November 2005. 1)
Refugees, who flee from countries where human rights are not violated by governmental forces, but by forces the government cannot or does not want to rein in, are rarely granted political asylum in Germany. In most cases German courts decide that people who are applying for asylum on the grounds that they are persecuted by forces that are not controlled by the government, cannot be recognized as refugees according to the Geneva convention from 1951, nor can they be recognized as refugees according to the European Human Rights Convention. Moreover, people, who fled their contries because of human rights violations that are threatening the whole population of their countries, had to fear deportation from Germany.
Most asylum applications by Chechens were denied, although Chechens are in great danger of becoming victims of human rights violations in the Russian Federation. Chechens were not granted binding safety guarantees while in Germany. 2)
The impact of the Dublin II agreement on refugees in Germany.
The Dublin II agreements have been mandatory since Sep. 17th, 2003. Dublin II states that any EU country, whose territory was first accessed by a refugee, shall be responsible for the asylum procedure.
This means, for example, in the case of Chechen refugees, who came to Germany via Belarus and Poland, that their asylum application will not be handled in Germany and by German authorities. Instead, the German authorities reassign the case to the Polish authorities, which are requested to take back the refugee. The asylum seeker is taken into custody by the German authorities in a deportation center until Poland accepts to receive him or her. If Poland agrees to accept him or her, the person will be deported to Poland. A single person, which travels without his or her family, will be taken into custody by the Polish authorities in a Polish deportation center.
In the first half of 2006, more than 23% of all asylum applications in Germany were so-called Dublin-cases. In these Dublin-cases the German authorities have just to establish which country is responsible for the refugee in question. They do not handle the asylum application itself. Humanitarian aspects and family related issues are of no relevance. 3)
A real-life example: Mrs A. arrived in Germany with her four children in October 2004. Having been traumatized by violence in Chechnya she received psychotherapeutic care in Germany. In July 2005, her 17-year-old son was taken into custody by the police early in the morning and deported to Poland. In May 2006, Mrs A was deported to Poland with three children. In June 2006, the family returned to a republic that borders to Chechnya.
Together with his 19-year-old son, Mr B. came via Poland to Germany. On the basis of Dublin II he was taken into deportation custody in Germany. At the same time his wife and three other children were living in Austria as officially recognized refugees. The efforts of NGOs to allow Mr B to live with his wife in Austria were of no avail. On October 25th, 2006, he was deported to Poland.
Sometimes, the approaches of EU-countries differ considerably in terms of refugee recognition. Almost 0% of Chechens are recognized as refugees in Slovakia. In Poland the figure is 3,5%, in Germany 8,1% and in Austria 84%. 3)
Of crucial significance in the decision making process of the BAMF (Federal Agency for Migration and Refugees) is the question of living at an alternative place inside the same state. The BAMF understands that Chechens cannot be deported to Chechnya. On the other hand the agency thinks that Chechens can find shelter elsewhere in Russia. The human rights organization Memorial protests vigorously against this approach. “There is no alternative place for the settling of Chechen refugees”, argues Svetlana Gannuschkina, refugee expert of “Memorial”.4)
Due to these different approaches refugees are trying to reach countries, where they will have a chance to be recognized. However, due to Dublin II, the country, where they are applying for political asylum, has to deport them back to the country, where they came from. And they have no legal chance to leave this country for another EU-country. Consequently, many families are separated. This disrespect for families is especially astonishing in a country, where the ruling elites are proclaiming the high priority of “family values”.
Neither do the bureaucratic consequences of Dublin II make much sense for the authorities. In 2005, the German authorities had requested other EU-countries to take back refugees according to Dublin II, while at the same Germany had received 6255 such requests from other EU-countries. Actually, only half of the requests are implemented. This means that in 2005 there were 2,583 persons from Germany, who were sent back from Germany to other countries, while at the same time 3127 persons had been sent from other EU-countries to Germany. 3)
Deporatation custody
2005 wurden
16.865 people had been deported in 2005. Many of them spent their last German days, weeks or months in a German jail.
According to the NGO "Antirassistische Initiative" (Anti-racist initiative), since 1993 at least 49 people have committed suicide in deportation custody, and at least 400 people have attempted to commit suicide. According to German law a person can be held up to 18 month in deportation custody. 5) Sometimes deportees are put together with criminals in one and the same cell.
War against non-state terror
Shortly after 9.11.2001, then German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder declared his „unconditional solidarity“ with the USA. In November 2001, Germany sent troops to Afghanistan. Currently (September 2006) there are 2800 German troops in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, the majority of them under the ISAF-mission of NATO. Among them are KSK-troops, a rapid deployment force, which together with US special forces are fighting the Taliban. The mission of these troops is highly secret. Even deputies of the German parliament do not know what the KSK forces are doing in Afghanistan. Before this backdrop it can be assumed that the KSK forces are not on a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. Deputy Norman Paech asked the German minister of defense in December 2006 to inform the parliament whether or not the KSK-forces are still fighting in Afghanistan. Tobias Pflueger, German deputy of the European parliament, assumes that at present about 100 KSK troops are deployed in Afghanistan.
The involvment of KSK troops with the mission “Enduring Freedom” has long been unknown to the German public because it was shrouded in secrecy.
Only in September 2006 the public discussed the presence of German KSK special forces in Afghanistan, after Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen and resident of Bremen was released from Guantanamo prison, where he had been imprisoned for 4 years. Kurnaz told journalists that while being in the custody of US troops in Afghanistan he had been interrogated and beaten by German troops in Kandahar (Afghanistan), one of which was a member of the KSK special forces. 6)
In December 2001 Kurnaz, who was accused to be a Taliban member, was arrested in Pakistan and brought to Kandahar (Afghanistan). In 2002 US forces brought him to Guantanamo. After his release towards the end of 2006, Kurnaz told that he had been interrogated by Germans in Guantanomo. Several times representatives from the German foreign intelligence service and the German domestic intelligence service had visited and interrogated Kurnaz. 7)
Cooperation with Uzbekistan
German ISAF-troops slated for deployment in Afghanistan are taken to their destination via the German air base in Termez (Uzbekistan). The whole infrastructure of German troops in Afghanistan would be impossible without this German air base in Termez/Uzbekistan. In their war against non-state-terror in Afghanistan the German authorities do not seem to care too much about the state terrorism administered by Uzbek dictator Islam Karimow. On May 13th 2005, Uzbek security forces had killed 500 demonstrators in Andijan, and torture in Uzbek prisons is commonplace. In spite of EU sanctions against Uzbekistan in the wake of the Andijan massacre, on December 9 and 10, 2005 the German defense undersecretary Friedberg Pflueger had struck a deal with the government of the Uzbek dictator: the German army, in spite of EU sanctions, will continue to use Termez air base. Shortly after this deal, the Uzbek minister of the Interior, Sakir Almatow, and apparently one of those responsible for the Andijan massacre, received medical treatment in Hannover (Germany). This is especially strange as a result of the sanctions against Uzbekistan, EU member states should not hand out visas to members of the Uzbek government. Germany is cooperating with Uzbekistan. In 2005, Germany donated medical equipment and material to the Uzbek military. This gesture was meant to be a “Visible expression of the good cooperation between Germany and Uzbekistan in military matters”, as Tobias Pflueger, member of the European parliament, quotes the German ambassador Joachim Kinderlen 8).
Right wing violence.
Again, right wing violence increased considerably in 2006. Between January and August 2006 the German federal crime agency registered not less than 8000 crimes that had been committed with a xenophobic background. This is a 20% increase compared to the same period in 2005 and an increase of 50% compared to 2004. Charlotte Knobloch, president of the central council of Jews in Germany, declared that these cases show how deeply anti-semitism and right wing extremism are rooted in some strata of the German society. 9)
The increase in right wing violence is accompanied by the electoral success of right wing parties. In September 2004 the right wing party NPD received 9.1% of the votes in the state of Saxony, while the right wing DVU received 6.1% in the state of Brandenburg. In September 2006 the NPD received 7.3% in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Consequently, extreme right-wing parties are sitting in the parliaments of three federal states.
Human Rights in the CIS
As expert on the member republics of the CIS I am well informed about the state of affairs in the republics of the CIS. Cooperating with human rights experts on the spot, with human rights organizations like Amnesty International (Berlin), Memorial (Moskau) and the International Helsinki Federation (Vienna) I am working for human rights in the republics of the CIS.
For further information see my Internet pages on Russia, Uzbekistan, the region of the Karabakh conflict and Belarus.
Principles of my human rights work:
Human Rights are universal.
Human rights violations cannot be used as a pretext for war.
Criticizing other countries for human rights violations, you should respect human rights in your own country.
Sources:
1) Neues
Deutschland, 12.12.2006
2) Yearly
report, Jahresbericht 2004 von Amnesty International
3) Vortrag
von Harald Glöde, Flüchtlingsrat Brandenburg, am 23.11.2006 in Berlin
im Haus der Demokratie
4) Svetlana
Gannuschkina: Menschen aus Tschetschenien in der Russischen Föderation,
Juli 2005 – Juli 2006, Moskau 2006, Verlag R.Valent