On the 3rd of October 2013, 366 people drowned in one of the largest shipwrecks near Lampedusa. In its aftermath, many speeches were given, crocodile tears were shed and (empty) promises were made. The grim reality of this year: only in summer 2014 about 3000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. In the week of the 3rd to the 10th of October, there shall be a Europe-wide commemoration of the tragedy of Lampedusa. We want to commemorate the dead and accuse those who carry responsibility for the misery of those who flee war and persecution.
Those who endure the dangerous journey, which often takes years, are, once in Europe, still not safe. In the so-called peripheral countries Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Italy, and others, many end up in completely overcrowded camps, are arrested and mistreated, are homeless and without medical care. Many do not want to stay there but seek to travel on to countries where they have relatives or friends, in countries where they speak the language.
Then, however, the so-called Dublin-regulation takes effect, which means that
everyone has to go through asylum procedures where they first entered European
ground. “You kick us through Europe like a football” is how an affected refugee
once described it.
A central role is played by the respective regional councils (Regierungspräsidien) in Hessen with their central ‘Foreigner Departments’ (Ausländerbehörden). They are responsible for the so-called “residence-ceasing measures” (aufenthaltsbeendenden Maßnahmen), thus for deportations and for the living conditions of those ‘persons obliged to depart’ (vollziehbar ausreisepflichtige Person). This is why we want to protest in front of one of these agencies, the regional council of Darmstadt. This is where people work who very clearly display an exceptionally racist eagerness to persecute. For them, no costs are too high to execute inhuman deportation-policies by all means.
To this end, two recent examples:
In June, under the authority of the first Green government president Brigitte Lindscheid, a charter plane was hired, manned with police forces and doctors, in order to deport three young Eritrean men to Italy, hidden from the public, after many weeks of custody pending deportation. The three had survived there in the worst conditions, without home, without sufficient food, without medical care. And all that after a traumatizing escape through the desert, through Libya and across the Mediterranean Sea. The member of staff Frau Glötz has made the effort to violently deport people from the country who seek to claim their right to asylum in Germany.
The conditions in Italy are known, for many years now. Some courts, including the administrative court of Darmstadt, have cancelled deportations to Italy in many cases as the treatment of refugees there does not even accord to EU regulations. In brief: Italy means for most of the refugees hunger, homelessness and racist and sexist assaults.
In November 2013, the department head Herr Ehrhardt showed exceptional effort. With great personal commitment, even on weekends, he sought to deport a Chinese family that has lived in Germany for more than 10 years and whose 3 children had been born in Germany. Due to several breaches of the local one-child-policy, the mother, in case of deportation, is threatened to be forcefully sterilized, and the whole family is threatened by persecution and marginalization. The deportation effort back then could only be successfully prevented due to the passive resistance of the woman and the support of friends. The harassment has, however, not come to an end, the right to stay has so far not been granted.
The city of Darmstadt with a Green mayor just decided to support the Save Me campaign. The government committee (Regierungspräsidium) pursues, at the same time, a deeply inhuman refugee policy. Everyone involved carries responsibility for their actions and the consequences that they entail for those affected.
The aim of these scandalous deportation-practices clearly is deterrence as more and more refugees resist the so-called Dublin-deportations and more and more refugees organise themselves against racist marginalization and the deprivation of rights and fight for their right to the freedom of movement at both the inner and external borders of the EU.
We demand the end of the inhuman (chain-) deportations – freedom of movement and the right to reside for everyone!
Demonstration on the 9th of October 2014, at 16h in front of the Regional Council of Darmstadt, Wilhelminenstra. 1-3, Darmstadt
Exhibition and
information at the Mathildenplatz on the 9th of October as of 10am,
Vokü as of 18h