Violence update 26.7.93 [and break for summer]
Debora Weber-Wulff
update until I get back. I encourage all "daheimgebliebene" to
keep up the reporting while I am gone!]
Three asylum seekers have managed to get a court order
restraining them from being immediately deported. Two are from
Ghana, a supposedly "safe" country. Lawyers in the Frankfurt
area have been helping the asylum seekers detained at the
Frankfurt airput to prepare restraining order requests
for the high court. THe response in the CSU: we have
to tighten up the Asylum law so that they have no recourse to
the courts. Why, they'll tie up the courts with all these
appeals!
The Tagespiegel had a long article this morning describing the
conditions in the detainment center. 88 beds in 2 large rooms.
A "pen" in which the detainees can get "fresh" air, just
large enough for a soccer game and room to sit on the sidelines.
Nothing to do all day but stare at the walls. The new
rules states that they have to be deported inside of 19
days. They sit and wait: envious of the very, very few
wo are admitted to Germany, sad for the ones who paid so much
money to come to Germany and are being sent "home". Interviews
with some of the detainees: a young woman who wants to learn
German and continue her technical studies outside her war-torn
land; a woman and child who had hoped to join their husband and
father; the young man from Ghana who has had members of his
family "disappear".
[In the Tagespiegel from Saturday there was a little article
about the daily discriminations. I decided to translate it for
you. Tagespiegel, 24. July 1993]
Excrement at the door
It's the daily humiliations that makes life difficult for foreigners
Claudia and her Iranian life partner Sia are afraid. They have been
receiving threatening letters for months: "If you don't disappear
something will happen", "you foreigner-whore [Auslaenderhure]",
"Germany for the Germans". Their bicycle tires are often found
cut open. The latest episode was a pile of human excrement they
found on their doorstep.
Racism - that is not just the brutal assaults, but also the daily
humiliations: the "foreigners out" graffiti in the stairwell or
the swastika at the bus stop. The critical once-over in the subway,
a comment on the job. "The atmosphere hat gotten quite bad in
the past few years," commete Ulrike Haupt from the office of
the Foreigners Ombud [Auslaenderbeauftragter]. "The subjective
feeling of being able to develop a secure future in Germany
has become quite uncertain, even for those 'foreigners' born in
Germany."
Discrimination against foreigners does not even stop at the
door of the intensive care unit of a hospital, as a doctor has
reported. A patient who had suppered a heart attack made
disparaging remarks about a dark-skinned nurse - who happend to be
the person who spent the most effort seeing him through the crisis.
A Turkish family moved out of their long-year home to another
part of Berlin after they began to be insulted by their
neighbors, and were even assulted by them.
"There are people who get physically sick after a while," said
Ms. Haupt. Stomach problems, sleep disturbances and headaches
are the commonest complaints. Especially after assults such as
Moelln or Solingen, many people become panicky.
Even TV-personalities such as the dark-skinned Charles
Muhamed Huber, aka Henry Johnson in the ZDF-Series "Der Alte"
[detective show] feel the effects of discrimination. Just
recently, some one came up to him from behind and tried to
knock him down a flight of stairs. From behind, the offender
had just identified him as a "Nigger". "This sneakyness" is
what makes Huber so mad: "I would not want to live here as
a normal black man."
The authors of threatening letters and assulters seldom
have to account for their deeds in court. "It is very difficult
to apprehend such persons," said the speaker for the
justice department, Bruno Rautenberg. The crime of "Volks-
verhetzung", inciting the people, can only be committed in
public. Letters secretly thrown in a mailbox are not public.
The last resort, accusing the perpretrators of insult,
usually results in a fine. "Scheiss-Kanake" ("shitty person-
from-Kanak = foreigner), vor example, "costs" someone with
low income only 150 DM. Right-wing insults, however, can
be peanalized more drastically by the court.
-- Jutta Lauterbach, dpa
--
Debora Weber-Wulff, Professorin fuer Softwaretechnik und
snail: Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, FB Informatik,
Luxemburgerstr. 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany
email: d...@informatik.tfh-berlin.d400.de