Germany: Refugee coordinator prosecuted
01 September 2000
Cornelius Yufanyi, a Cameroonian asylum seeker, member of the German based human rights organisation The Voice, Africa Forum and co-organiser of the International Refugee Congress in Jena this year (see Statewatch vol 10 no 2), has been charged with violating the travel restriction law for asylum seekers (Residenzpflicht). Yufanyi, one of the main organisers of the ten day Congress (which also acted as the fourth European sans papiers meeting) was refused permission to leave his administrative district of Eichsfeld by the Aliens Office in Thuringia. Despite the order, Yufanyi visited the Congress and was fined over 600 DM (£200).
At the court hearing on 12 October, over 70 friends and supporters learned that the regional Aliens Office case worker had violated data protection regulations by passing on personal information on Yufanyi to the Federal Office for the Acceptance of Foreign Refugees. Due to insufficient evidence being presented and his defence, that the law under which Yufanyi is being prosecuted is in violation of the German constitution and international human rights provisions, the case was adjourned. The prosecution is now preparing for another court hearing. A campaign for free movement organised by refugees and activists aims to get the Residenzpflicht abolished, if necessary through the European Court of Human Rights.
Paragraph 56 of the German Asylum Procedure Law was implemented in 1982 and prohibits asylum seekers from leaving their designated district. This means that asylum seekers, especially those who are dispersed to eastern Germany, are confined to very small geographical areas, often unable to visit cities located several miles from their residences as they are different administrative regions (Landkreis) within Germany's regional authorities (Länder). Asylum seekers have to apply for permission to leave a district and some Aliens Offices charge 15 DM (£5) for the application from asylum seekers' meagre living allowances (80 DM a month). Usually, the regional Aliens Offices where the permission to travel has to be lodged are located several miles away from asylum seekers homes so that asylum seekers have to pay further travel costs, making it impossible for most refugees to apply for the permission and reducing the numbers of applications made.
The Refugee Congress identified the Residenzpflicht as one of the worst forms of institutionalised racism in Germany today. Matthias Lange, member of the Lower Saxony Refugee Council which supports Yufanyi and the campaign for free movement, described the Residenzpflicht as an "apartheid law" and the Cologne based Committee for Basic Rights and Democracy commented the it was "a discriminatory law specifically directed against asylum seekers." Wolf-Dieter Narr, spokesman for the Committee, said the travel restriction legislation had created a body of punishable offences which only foreigners could commit. The provision was therefore "especially useful in supporting the political inciteful talk of the "criminal foreigner" with police crime statistics."
Taking the political out of asylum
The prosecution of Yufanyi was directly linked to his political activism and pivotal role in publicising the travel restriction law in Germany and Europe-wide. During the Congress, he gave an interview to the regional newspaper Thüringer Allgemeine in which he criticised German asylum legislation for institutional racism, typified by the Residenzpflicht. This article was noticed by Manfred Schäfer, the case worker at the regional Aliens Office which rejected Yufanyi's application. Schäfer sent the article to the regional police authorities and the administrative court issued a 600 DM fine. Yufanyi's application was rejected on the grounds that he had already exhausted the prescribed quota of one occasion a month to take part in political activities.
The cross-examination of Schäfer during the hearing revealed that he had already been re