GERMANY: Campaign enters second stage
01 November 2001
After the self-organised International Refugee Congress in Jena in May 2000 (see Statewatch vol 9 no 6) the travel restriction law (Residenzpflicht) became the target and symbol of resistance for Germany's refugee community because of the laws' intolerable impact. After two members of the self-organised refugee group The Voice successfully fought an imposed fine on grounds of a violation of the Residenzpflicht (see Statewatch vol 10 no 5), and after a nation-wide "civil disobedience" demonstration in Berlin, the Residenzpflicht Campaign is now entering its second stage, where the prosecution of the law's violations is publicly confronted by refugees.
The first public cases involving prosecution on grounds of Residenzflicht violations were those of Sunny Omwenyeke and Cornelius Yufanyi, both members of The Voice, one of the self-organised refugee groups in Germany, which also coordinated the Refugee Congress in Jena in May 2000. Both pleaded innocent, maintaining that it was the law which was in violation of the German constitution and international human rights provisions, and not their travelling within Germany. The Residenzflicht is an asylum procedural regulation implemented in 1982 together with the dispersal system, and forces asylum seekers to apply for permission when leaving their designated district, many of which are very small administrative areas which lie in the countryside with inadequate transport systems and social centres. The idea to start a nationwide civil disobedience campaign for its abolition came during the Refugee Congress, after many refugees, including its co-organiser Yufanyi, were criminalised for attending the conference: a decree by the interior ministry of Brandenburg advised administrative districts to refuse the issuing of permits for refugees to attend the conference.
The refugee groups organised a campaign and a "march on Berlin" to demand the abolition of the law and make the Residenzpflicht central to the fight against institutionalised racism in Germany, not only amongst refugees but also activists. The nationwide demonstration and the parallel action days in Berlin saw 4,000-5,000 participants, over half of whom were asylum seekers who travelled to Berlin without a permit from their designated districts. The refugee organisations had mobilised support in asylum seekers' centres before the demonstration, which took place under the slogan "Movement is our Right". During the action days, public discussions and exhibitions took place, and delegates among the refugees and asylum seekers presented a motion to parliamentary delegates for the abolition of the travel restriction law. Although Green party leader Claudia Roth spoke in favour of the abolition of the law together with the introduction of the new immigration and foreigner's law in Germany, the new Aliens Act has represented a drastic decline, not improvement for foreigners and refugees rights in Germany (see Statewatch vol 11 no 5). Germany continues to deny the right to free movement to asylum seekers in the asylum process.
The cases so far
The first cases were those of Sunny Omwenyeke and Cornelius Yufanyi. Both are active in asylum rights campaigns and increasingly saw their applications for travel permission being denied on grounds of their political activism, with assertions by the relevant Aliens Offices that it was only permitted to travel to political events once a month. Not surprisingly, the asylum seekers saw this as a deliberate attempt by the authorities to deny their freedom of expression as well as their political work against Germany's foreigner laws. Cornelius and Sunny both refused to pay the fines imposed on them after having been arrested whilst travelling to and from political events and announced they would refuse to apply for a permission to travel. The court decided in favour of the accused in both cases. Cornelius however, who also represented The Voice at the Statewatch conference this year, was or