Germany: Asylum and immigration (1)
01 January 1991
Germany: Asylum and immigration
artdoc August=1994
New German president calls on foreigners to go home
Germany's new president, Roman Herzog, said, in his election
campaign that foreigners who do not wish to take German
citizenship should think of returning to their own countries.
Herzog, who took over as the Christian Democrat nominee after the
collapse of the candidacy of Stefen Heitmann, went on to spark
further controversy in his acceptance speech when he suggested
that Germans should be `less cramped' than in the past. He did
not mention far-Right violence.
Herzog is best known for his hardline approach as the Baden-
Wurttemberg state interior minister when he ordered demonstrators
against the deployment of nuclear missiles to pay the cost of
policing their own protests.
The far-Right Republikaner Party's candidate, Hans Hirzal, fared
badly, attracting just 11 votes. At one point, Franz Schonhuber,
the REP leader threatened to stand as `the candidate of all
Germans', but his candidacy never materialised, presumably
because he knew he risked political humiliation (Independent
16.5.95, Guardian 18.5.94, Jewish Chronicle 27.5.94).
Germany and Croatia sign repatriation agreement
On 25 April, Bonn signed an agreement with the Croatian
government on the gradual repatriation of Croatian war refugees
as from 1 May 1994. While the Croatian Vice President, I.
Kostovic, has stated that those who fled from military duties
between August 1990 and September 1992 would be granted an
amnesty, the refugee support group, Pro-Asyl has expressed
concern for those deserters and war-resisters who are not covered
by the amnesty.
The agreement is expected to affect 70,000 Croatian nationals
now in Germany. The Federal Interior Minister M. Kanther says
that the agreement constitutes an important signal that refugees
fleeing from a civil war do not have an unlimited right to remain
in Germany (Migration Newssheet May 1994).
Catholic leaders call for sanctuary
As state interior ministers call for the police to be used to
evict refugees from church sanctuary, Bishop Karl Lehmann, the
chair of the Catholic German Bishop's Conference, has called on
priests to defy the state if necessary in order to uphold church
sanctuary granted to refugees facing deportation. In Bavaria,
hundreds of people formed a chain around a Catholic church where
a Kurdish couple and their 1-year-old child had been in hiding
for a month after threats of police action (Guardian 16.5.94).
Suicide attempt by Lebanese asylum-seeker
In Frieburg, a Lebanese man, fearing deportation, survived after
stabbing himself in the stomach (Taz 2.4.94).
IRR European Race Audit no 9, July 1994. Contact: Liz Fekete
Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS
Tel: 071 837 0041