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Germany: States split on deportation

01 July 1995

In direct defiance of the Federal Government, the Interior Ministry of the state of Hessen decreed a 6-month moratorium on deportations of Kurdish refugees to Turkey on 13 June. Hessen's Social Democratic Interior Minister Gerhard Bekel said the decision was based on "human rights violations in Turkey", which represent "a considerable danger to deportees". The decision means a six-month respite for some 1600 Kurds living in Hessen. According to the Hessen Interior Ministry, the date set by the Federal Government for the nationwide resumption of deportations only applies to those states which already had their own moratorium in force. As this was previously not the case in Hessen, that state was now in a position to exercise its right to stop deportations for six months. Other states were forced to resume deportations on 12 June. In a further development the Supreme Administrative Court in Schleswig, northern Germany, decreed on 23 June that Kurdish refugees from the east and southeast of Turkey have a general right to asylum in the north German state. The decision applies to refugees from the ten provinces where a state of emergency is currently in force and the neighbouring 12 provinces. According to the court, refugees from this area are deemed to suffer persecution solely on the grounds of their ethnic origins and have no other safe refuge within the area of the Turkish state. This decision has immediate consequences for some five hundred refugees in Schleswig whose cases are pending, but explicitly does not apply to other Kurdish refugees from other parts of Turkey. Berlin Anti-racist information network, May/June update.