Our all for background Information about: The Voice Refugee Forum Germany
First published online in 2003 with update
The VOICE Refugee Forum
Our aim includes supporting refugees and asylum seekers in defence of their rights in Germany. In addition, we encourage and support human rights activists in their struggle to ensure the respect of their rights back in their home countries. We are critical on the advancing and promoting victim’s self-organisation to achieve the above stated aims amongst others.
The violation of human rights that prompted persons to flee their countries is unfortunately continued here in Germany where they sought refuge. Living as a refugee in Germany means denial of the basic human rights to freedom of movement and association. In other words, to live in inhuman conditions of poverty, fear, intimidation, imprisonment, social exclusion and several unjust abuses amidst institutional and societal racism.
Isolation and poverty
For many years, refugees have continued to suffer from isolation in remote camps located in the forests far from the city and exposed to bad hygienic conditions, heteronomous feeding with food packages or voucher system and denied of real medical attention in most cases. They are confronted with discrimination and racism on a daily basis with no possibility of recourse to justice.
Residenzpflicht
The so called "Residenzpflicht" forbids asylum seekers to leave their local district without a written permission from the foreigners’ office. This permission is always arbitrarily denied when refugees ask for it. The "Residenzpflicht" prohibits refugees from engaging in social contacts, visiting friends and relatives and engaging in cultural and political activities that are in actual sense the basic human needs. A violation of the "Residenzpflicht" is regarded as a criminal offence against the German state thus positioning Refugees as potential Criminal as just a single visit to a friend in the next district can be a crime.
Traumatisation
Uncountable numbers of refugees are traumatised, owing to what they have suffered in their home countries which has continued through the inhuman conditions they are compelled to live with in Germany. The social isolation of refugees in Germany and the verbal-physical racist attacks from day to day place refugees in a state of permanent psychological trauma. The mental-psychological traumas accompanying permanent deportation threat has led many refugees to commit suicide.
Fortress Europe: Internment
Refugees are practical victims of a Europe-wide system of exclusion and internment in camps and deportation prisons in and outside Europe - e.g. in Africa, with the terrifying aim to keep refugees away from Germany.
Human rights for refugees?
Exercising the basic human rights is made difficult or denied completely through these conditions of Isolation and Exclusion. The right to development of human personality, freedom of movement, education, socio-cultural and political association, human dignity and even the right to live are simply not meant for refugees in Germany.
Who we are
The VOICE Refugee Forum initially known as The VOICE Africa Forum was founded in 1994 in the Forest Reception Lager in Mühlhausen Thüringia. The then focus of this organisation was on the exposure of dictatorship in Africa. Over the years we have campaigned against the German Apartheid Residenzpflicht, Police brutality especially racist Police Brutality, deportation and other horrific situation of refugees in Germany and Worldwide. We have worked endlessly in co-operation with other refugee support groups, human right groups and individuals to support and promote the rights of refugees in Germany. Our activities are centred on empowering refugee self-organisation and determination in exercising their rights.
The VOICE Refugee Forum is part of founding initiatives of The Nation-wide Network of The Caravan for Rights and Migrants.
Our aims are
- Regular support of refugees to overcoming isolation through creating a platform for them to share experiences and to promote their self organisation through provision of the necessary logistics like; transportation and communication materials amongst others.
- Supporting refugee’s political engagement as respect for human rights in their home countries as well as in Germany.
- Exposing information on the difficult situation of refugees in Germany through publications, public seminars and cultural programs as well as soliciting concrete solidarity devoid of paternalism.
- Supporting refugees in their asylum processes and legal cases connected to their status i.e Residenzpflicht, discrimination, deportation etc. through counselling and legal support.
- Organising proper documentation and archiving of refugee activities and history.
Call for Support
The VOICE Forum does not receive public money. Members are mainly refugees and asylum seekers with little or no fund. We depend on individual and private donors for support. Consistent donations no matter how small promote long term planning possibilities but single donations are also welcomed. Donations are tax deductible and receipt could be issued at request.
Donations to:
Förderverein The VOICE e.V., Geismar Landstr. 19, 37083 Göttingen
Sparkasse Göttingen, BLZ: 26050001, Kontonummer: 127829
Coordination and Contacts: https://thevoiceforum.org
We, The VOICE Refugee Forum, are groups of human rights activists that have been actively engaged publicly in protesting the inhumane situation of refugees since 1994 in Thueringen and Germany as a whole. The members are actively engaged in supporting persecuted human rights activists here in Germany and in their home countries.
We are informed about the difficult living conditions of refugees in Germany and the human rights situation in their home countries.
We are also:
1. Protesting human rights abuses in the home countries of refugees/migrants and in Germany.
2. Against Deportation and deportation threats of refugees and migrants
3. Against the social exclusion of refugees and migrants.
4. Against the daily racism by the authorities and the public.
5. Against racist controls and police brutality on refugees and migrants.
6. For the abolition of deportation prisons and detention centres/camps.
7. For the universal rights for freedom of movement which is violated in Germany by deportation and deportation threats, and by the imposition of the so-called "Residenzpflicht", the restriction of the movement of refugees to their "landkreis" or local districts.
9.For the Promotion of the living conditions of refugees in Germany.
The daily lives of refugees are designed by isolation and social exclusion with the permanent threat of deportation.
Since the foundation of The VOICE Forum in October 1994 in Mühlhausen in East Germany, hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have been deported from Germany without political or humanitarian consideration.
More than five years ago when the preparations for the refugee congress organised amongst others by the Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants in Jena in Spring of 2000 was obstructed by the so-called Residenzpflicht law, the residential restriction for asylum seekers, our organisation decided to start a campaign for the abolition of this humiliating Law in Germany that violates our human rights. This obligation is put down in paragraph 58 of the Asylum Procedure Law (Asylverfahrensgesetz). The interpretation is to the effect that during the asylum procedure for the recognition as a refugee, asylum seekers are allowed to leave the district they have been assigned to with the permission of the Foreigners’ Office ONLY.
Since 1982, which is more than 20 years, the residential obligation law has been restricting the freedom, personal and political rights of thousands of asylum seekers prejudicially. ”Residenzpflicht” criminalizes and discriminates. It makes refugees the object of humiliating racist controls and puts them under psychological and material pressure.
The Residenzpflicht law entails the persecution of refugees with fines or prison sentences for up to 18 months and the indiscriminate threats of deportation are enormous. The daily restriction of movements without choice of settlement violates our freedom and basic rights as minority groups and groups of refugees and migrants.
Due to the residence obligation, asylum seekers are subject to special repression. They are controlled by police and Border Protection Police (BGS) at stations, mostly due to the colour of their skin. These controls can be considered as racist. Furthermore, asylum seekers receive a permission to leave their district only under special circumstances which are defined by the Asylum Procedure Law. Permissions for visiting relatives, except for parents and children, are within the discretion of the case manager. Permissions for visiting friends or for taking part in political events are almost never given. Violation of the residence obligation leads to criminal prosecution and even to imprisonment. Therefore, refugees are criminalized to a large extend. Racists and fascists have further arguments against so called criminal foreigners at their disposal. ” The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”(George Orwell)
A law like this is unique in Germany within Europe.
Our inevitable campaigns for the abolition of the residence obligation law did create the awareness of the ill sufferings and the abuses in our every day lives, due to the abolition campaign some of the cases against “das Residenzpflicht” in the courts have been dropped or won against the State Public Prosecution Officers and against the authorities in the recent years of the protest in Germany.
We demand freedom of movement for everybody everywhere. We demand the abolition of the ”Residenzpflicht” which isolates, excludes and criminalizes refugees in Germany.
Germany is the only country in Europe where refugees are criminalized by the law of the movement restriction (Residenzpflicht). This law shows that refugees in Germany are meant to be socially isolated, not only being kept in far away camps in the middle of forests, also the restriction of movement by the “Residenzpflicht” law excludes refugees from the mainstream societies not allowing them to mix with the general populace, fellow refugees and migrants who may be living in other cities.
The movement Restriction law keeps refugees from seeing their doctors, their lawyers, their friends and relatives and for some of them worst of all from continuing the political activities that made them flee their country in the first instance. The government law is gagging us in a way.
Thus the Movement Restriction pass-law (Residenzpflichtgesetz) for refugees violates article 13 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration (Freedom of Movement) as well as article 1 of the German constitution and article 2 paragraph 1 that guarantee the right to human dignity and the right to development of the human personality respectively. Also the right to assemble is highly restricted with this law.
Our work to promote the living conditions of refugees and migrants in this country are not without its negative consequences.
We face State intimidations and repressions with deportations and many of us being under deportation threats.
The restriction of movement law ( das residenzplichtgesetz) or call it the residence obligation law is being used as a weapon to hinder or stop altogether our political engagements.
The new Immigration law has actually been serving the intentions of its originators as a law to hinder migration into Germany and to increase the expulsion of those already here, especially those seeking refuge from persecution and natural disasters and war.
Some of the achievements of the new law so far has been ;
a. The virtual removal of asylum rights.
b. Construction or commissioning of more deportation centres and prisons.
c. Total defiance and disregard for the rule of law by many State Interior Ministers and disregard for both International laws and human rights.
d. Spreading apathy and psycho-torture among asylum seekers and people without papers.
e. Perforating justice, increasing the integration and expanding the contributions of the law courts in the deportation machinery.
f. The word “Bundesamt for migration” is a wrong connotation. It is a government agency that initiates deportation rather than manage migration.
g. The percentage of accepted asylum seekers makes the Bundesamt and the district courts a laughing stock in the eyes of the world, and making nonsense of the asylum procedure.
There are numerous concrete evidences that prove that deported asylum seekers face persecution, torture, indefinite detention, imprisonment, death or even suicide.
In some cases some of them have been lucky to escape from prison and live in hiding in neighbouring countries, living in constant fear without future prospects, always on the run.
The recent “Gestapo styled” deportation to Togo of Alhassane Mousbau in January 2006 is a typical example.
The German government is yet to take full responsibility for the consequences of its action.
In the light of this and our conviction of the fact that deportation is a crime:
We demand a general stop to all deportations.
We demand the respect and recognition of the human rights and dignity of all asylum seekers.
We demand residence permit devoid of any restriction for all and the opportunity to integrate into the society.
We demand freedom of movement for everybody everywhere.
We demand the abolition of the ”Residenzpflicht” which isolates, excludes and criminalises refugees in Germany.
We demand an end to racist police controls, police abuse and brutality of refugees and migrants all in the name of the “Residenzpflicht” law.
The right to asylum has witnessed gradual erosion over the past decades and it is gradually being extinguished. “A right once extinguished may never be regained”. We demand full restoration of this right not only for our purpose today but for future generations and for posterity. " Those who fail to condemn evil, commit it to be done".
The burning to death of our comrade Oury Jalloh in a Police cell in Dessau and the cover up by the state to bring to book the blood tasty barbarians responsible for this ominous act. In the same way we would not forget the murder of Laye Konde in Bremen through the forced and criminal administration of chemical agents on him. The two actions in our view were carried out with impunity and total disregard for the lives of refugees. Mouktar Bar, one of the leading persons calling for justice in Oury Jalloh’s case is presently being persecuted by the state in one guise or the other. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes are undaunted and appear to be “untouchables”. Is this how democracy operates in 21st Century Germany? We will reiterate once more that “those who do not condemn evil commit it to be done”.
We demand justice in these cases and demand that the German government put an end to the atrocities committed against us all " in the name of the Law".
We want to be seen and heard as the human beings we are and not as some strange creatures from some strange continents.
The dignity of man is non negotiable and must be upheld in all cases.
Thank you
english, dt, frz.
https://thevoiceforum.org/about