Free Movement is for every one!
From the very moment when refugees apply for asylum in Germany, it starts to gradually get clear that almost all the institutions and laws governing asylum are against him/her. Starting from the reception centre (ZAST) to the camps which are always located in the middle of the forests, it is clear that refugees are meant to be isolated from the mainstream societies and not to be allowed to mix with the general populace, fellow refugees and migrants who may be living in other cities.
The first Court hearing against Ahmed Sameer’s “Residenzpflicht” protest will be held in the Amtsgericht Gotha, Justus-Perthes-Straße 2, room 214, on the 21 of June 2004.
Why I fight against the residence obligation law "residenzpflicht" for Refugees in Germany
My name is Ahmed Sameer, I arrived in Germany in May 2002 in Jena Forst, central Thueringen, East Germany , I lived in the isolated and former notorius refugee camp in Tambach-Dietharz for more than 2 years before being transfered to Waltershausen in the district of Gotha.
I am a Palestinian. I have lived most of my life as a refugee in Jenin-part of the occupied territory by Isreal. I have suffered unbearable restriction and humiliation under that system which still exists. Like all other Palestinians who oppose the occupation and resist it in one way or the other, I had lived with such conditions and its devastating effects knowing that I do not live in a free society.
When I sought asylum here in Germany, I never expected to be subjected to conditions similar to what I fled from in Jenin. Here, even to see a Doctor outside my district "Landkreis" requires a written permission that the authorities will never give me.
To see my lawyer, it is the same experience. Recently, I was offered a job in Jena but was refused the chance to go there by the authorities because they said I am supposed to stay in the camp in Gotha. Worst of all is the knowledge by the authorities that I am a politically active refugee.
All my life, I have never lived in a place where my right as a human being is respected. But I have never accepted such violations of my rights as I have always resisted and fought against them. It will not be different in Germany. The section of the foreigner’s law which require me to get a written permission from the foreigner’s office before I can leave the district where I live is a violation of my basic and fundamental right to freedom of movement. This requirement makes it impossible for me to make any future plans. This is because, my entire movement depends on whether I will be allowed by the foreigner’s office to leave or not to leave my district.
Article 1 of the German constitution and Article 2 paragraph 1 guarantees the right to human dignity and the right to development of the human personality espectively.
Without doubt and in practise, the residence obligation law is a violation of these basic constitutional provisions given that my personal information and plans needs be disclosed to officials of the foreigner’s office whenever I seek to obtain a permission from them to leave my immediate district. It is also a violation of my right when it is considered that confining me to a particular district when I am not a prisoner extremely limits my ability to develop as a human being contrary to the provisions of the German constitution. The residence obligation law is in further violation of such international treaties like the Geneva Convention, the universal declaration of humanrights and European human and peoples right convention all to which Germany is signatory and all of which guarantees the right to freedom of movement.
In Germany, I became politically motivated from The VOICE Forum Jena to join with other refugees during their preparation and organisation in the Antiracist - Bordercamp in Jena and the nation-wide TOUR of the Caravan for the rights of refugees and Migrants in 2002. Till now I am organised in the platform of the Caravan for the rights of refugees and the Anti - lager – campaign to support self organised solidarity networks of resistance against “Residenzpflicht”, Lager, deportation and exclusions.
As a member of the self-organised refugee group; The VOICE Refugee Forum and the Caravan-for the rights of refugees and migrants in Germany, I am bound to associate with other refugees and participate in public events outside my district like every normal human being. This is simply an exercise of my right to freedom of expression and association. But doing this without a written permission attracts a punishment from the state. Not only does this violates my rights, it is discriminatory, repressive and racist as it subjects me to public humiliations arising from police controls outside my district.
As a human right activist I see this law in the same light as the then apartheid pass law in South Africa. Then Blacks and other non-whites were required to obtain written permission before they could go outside their immediate habitations. Today, I and all asylum seekers are required to do the same before we can leave our districts. It is a means of repression and an avenue for police brutality and practice of racial profiling. Demanding protection from political persecution in this country does not make me a criminal or a sub-human being who should be incarcerated in a detention camp behind barbed wire. The treatment arising from this law has amounted to mental and psychological torture on me.
The residence law does not only dehumanise and criminalise me but goes at great length in preventing me from informing interested public, the current situation in the occupied Territories of West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This law is unjust and I consider it my responsibility to fight against injustice and oppression anywhere and everytime irrespective of where it comes from or in what shape it comes. The true values of any society is its adherence to freedom of the people who makes up that society. Freedom of movement cannot be unjustly denied a group of people who are not criminals simply because of their socio-legal status.
The right to freedom of movement must be necessarily blind to the bias of colour, race, sex, religion, socio-cultural and political inclinations because a society where some are not free is a society where none is free.
My fight against this law must simply be understood as a fight for me to regain my human dignity. If the consequence of my fight against this law is to stay in prison, I will gladly welcome it as I am not prepared to compromise my natural and constitutional right to freedom of movement, association and expression.
I have continued to educate the German public about my worries and conviction against the systematic persecution of refugees and migrants by the German State’s discriminatory laws and decrees to criminalise the foreigners.
I demand from all activists and the public to express their solidarity and support for refugee protest against restriction of movement “Residenzpflicht” including deportation and exclusion.
That all the commitments and support for the refugee protest and civil disobience against the “Residenzpflicht” should express the refugees efforts to fight for an open Germany from below without discrimination.
Ahmed Sameer Ahmed Alhusseine, Gemeinschaftsunterkunft, Eisenacher Landstr.72,
99880 Waltershausen.
http://listserv.cnr.it/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0311&L=camnet&F=&S=&P=42080
http://www.jungewelt.de/2003/04-28/001.php
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/aktuell/2003/09/22/17942.html
http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/grundrechte/asyl/resiweg.html
http://www.basicrights.de/munich/index/009residenz.de.html
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