As Refugee Activists from Schwabisch Gmünd, we stand to ignore any law that disrespect our bona-fide rights and demand the full abolition of the Apartheid Residenzflicht Law in Germany.
Paying a dime for our right to freedom of movement means complementing and legitimating of racial discrimination and colonial injustice.
We the refugees from Schwabisch Gmund were racially profiled by the Police in thüringen as we travelled to participate in a conference organised by the VOICE Refugee Forum in Jena on 17th April 2014.
On this Thursday evening as we were sitting on a train that left Nurnberg for Jena, two coloured clothed men approached us as Police Officers and demanded that we present our identity documents for control.
As we questioned why they selected us for the control and expressed our feeling of absolute discrimination, their responce was that they were doing their Job as usual.
As the first refugee activist amongst us presented his Identity document, they noticed the issuing district and started with the usual apathied Residence obligation Law which made us to question whether our place at that point in time was part of Germany or otherwise.
They confirmed that we were still within the German Republic but that the so called Toleration Identity card ”DULDUNG” restricts us from being their at that point in time except we are able to present an issued permission from the local foriegn Office in Schwabisch Gmünd.
At one of the Officers questioning if we were all together as a group, we responded with a loud yes after which they proceeded to asking for our Ausweis. For us it was no problem if the police had gone round to
control everybody in the train as we boldly told them.
We refused to present further Identity documents not until they convince us that the control was not having to do with racial profiling but they ignored us and rather took to calling for more Police to wait for us at our destination in Jena
When we got to the Jena paradise train station, about 10 policemen with their vehicles were already awaiting us. Their approaching us for our Identity documents on our stepping out of the Train generated an arguement for more than 20minuites in presence of jena based Activist who were present in solidarity.
The Police officers continued to threaten that we will not be allowed out of the Train station without presentation of our Identity documents. Beacuse we realised that the act of the police Officers was a possible strategy to cause distraction to the planned conference that was to take place in jena, we unanimously decided to hand over and abandon the Colonial Tags „so called Ausweis“ and concentrate on mission in Jena.
Based on this happening, the schwabisch Gmünd Local Authourity have served each of us with fines of 103 Euro for violating the Apartheid Residenzflicht Law for which we stand to ignore because our rights to freedom of movement cannot be downplayed by the German Apatheid residence obligation law.
We hereby call for nationwide solidarity against this continious act of criminalisation and persecution of Refugees in Germany.
We re-emphasis our determination to be anywhere we wish to be because No border can stop our political and social Engagement.
Frankline Ndam
Aremu Leke
Uwaila Ernest
Akhamiojie Paul
Efe Omorogbe
Raphael Paul
James Ogoloma
Stanley Inegbenosa
Farooq Khan
Ahmad Haidari
Refugee Initiative Schwabisch Gmünd in Baden-Württemberg