Der psychologische Druck / Psychoterror in Thüringen/Deutschland
https://thevoiceforum.org/node/814
Repression gegen Solidaritätsdelegation in Katzhütte
https://thevoiceforum.org/node/782
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The psychological oppression in Thueringen - Germany
A Report from the event of Saturday 26 April 2008 -The VOICE Refugee Forum in Jena.
The three day refugee conference organised by The VOICE Jena from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th of April 2008 in Jena a city in the state of Thueringen in East Germany began on Friday evening at 17hrs. About fifty refugees travelled from different states in Germany to attend the meeting to plan for further events of the struggle and challenges of the refugees in Germany and to witness the declaration of the rights and the oppressive laws suppressing the refugees in Germany.
Among the themes of the day on Friday 25th were the recounts of the refugees’ despicable experiences in the battle against the human rights abuses gushed onto them in the Federal Republic of Germany, through police brutality, massive racism and discrimination in almost all of the German institutions as the foreign office, the social department offices, the deportation prisons and especially in the camps unfit for human accomodation, and isolated to deliberately separate the refugees from the real world.
Felleke from Ethiopia recounted the psychological trauma of the three agonizing attempts of the Bavaria foreign office to deport him back to Ethiopia under the directive of the Ethiopian authorities to the Germany government through the Ethiopian embassy in Germany to deport all opposition members back to Ethiopia.
In a string of five various prisons Felleke was first imprisoned in the Augsburg male prison in September 2006 in Bavaria where he was then tied up for deportation. His hands were bound together at the wrists (not with handcuffs) with a rough and sharp-edged black belt that was overlapped and came up to meet and press firmly around both wrists.
He was naked, inspected and left in a small room alone for a sometime and then led towards the back stairs of the Lufthansa airlines at the airport in Frankfurt. He was sneaked in before the “normal” passengers boarded the plane with five commandos spotting dark green uniforms and weapons surrounding their waists, guarding him like a diseased animal, one in front, one on the left, one on his right side and one at the back. The fifth one went in before in order to point to the exact sit.
He was covered from head to toe so he could not see where they were leading him his head was covered with a heavy extension head scurf of the coat he was wearing, bowed down inside of the cover so he could only see the ground (stairs) and then the floor of the airplane.
Felleke waited patiently until they had safely boarded the plane, he suddenly shook his head back so that he could see and communicate with the flight crew, which caused panic to the aggressors and the crew. The commandos immediately grasped each of his middle fingers and pulled them away in order to cause as much pain to him as possible. He sadly saw the flight crew rushing away as though they were faced with danger. He called them not to run away, and raised his voice ´´I am not a terrorist or a criminal please there is no reason to fear, don't run away I need your help!!``. The aggressors became more violent trying to keep him silent and pushing, sliding him ahead, he positioned his knees as in a long jump preparation, he extended his elbows away from his body and suddenly jerked all commandos from all angles just as in a single karate kick.
All of them went down on the floor of the plane then the struggle began, first with the shock registering on all five faces of the guards wrestling to recompose themselves away from the floor and at the same instance trying to regain control of their prisoner.
Felleke continued screaming out for help drawing the attention of the pilot who advised the group to leave the plane saving Felleke from that first dreadful experience of deportation. Such severe psychological torture and abuse to one’s diginty.
The second time in October 2006 from a different prison in Munich escorted with three policemen one on the left, one on the right and one at the back just as previously and he was once again bound at the wrists with the black belt. This time around Felleke employed a different tactic as he was led into the plane just as before, by the same route at the back and was forcefully pushed by the head and forced to sit down. He stood up each time they pushed him down ( pushed, stood, pushed, stood) it looked like one kindergarten drill till the air stewardess informed the pilot who later approached them and threw them out of the plane. Three times Felleke was traumatised in such a manner.
Previously these body guards in a small cell at the airport had advised Felleke that if he coorperates with them and agrees to his deportation, on reaching Ethiopia Felleke would lie to the authorities in Ethiopia that he has lost his passport in the plane therefore it would be hard for the authorities to prove his country of origin. That would enable Felleke’s return back to Germany.
Such insult and the mockery to the African mentality, the idiotic suggestion indeed signifies the level of supremacy the white man believes that he holds over the black man. Wearing dirty prison clothes accompanied by a gang of four fierce looking animals calling themselves bodyguards, without luggage and bundled up with a heavy black belt at the wrists, his mouth taped to silence, and then claims the lost passport on the plane. Thrown through the window or flashed down the rest room?
The solidarity visit to the refugee camp in Katzhuette Thueringen on Saturday 26 April 2008:
In the name of humanity and solidarity the group from Jena boarded a bus and headed to the camp in Katzhuette another town on the outskirts of Thueringen to protest against the overwhelming miserable conditions of the camp and to raise their voices for the immediate closure of this dump.
The two hour journey was peaceful until the sight of the camp away on top of a steep hill not unlike the one in Freiebessinge that was recently closed down resulting from the same protests of the voice refugee forum and the Karawane organisations for the wellfare of the human beings labelled as subhumans in the expressions of the actions of the Germany system.
The camp is placed in isolation on a hill engulfed by trees depicting it as a forest away in the jungle of the mountains where wild animals visit the place on a regular basis; the steep leading to the camp is not facilitated with stairs rather a very slippery steep that turned the group into mountaineers while climbing up.
On top of the steep, the group was greeted by an intimidating blockade of heavily built men in securion uniforms who strongly resisted the entrance to the grounds trying to push us back down the hill with warnings of calling the police on grounds of disturbing peace. In spite of the dangers involved if people were to roll back down that hill.
The group strongly resisted intimidation with the exchange scuffle of words questioning the freedom of speech and continued to enter the grounds at the camp. The securion followed the group into the grounds and tried to hinder any form of activities with words of “order and the police”pulling out their cellphones to call for back – up, warning the refugees of the implications and consequences from such activities.
The refugees overpowered the securion by ignoring their irritating distruction and began with their slogan chanting of “abolish human rights abuses and discrimination in Germany”. These bouncers were stationed there by the Thueringen foreign office to prevent the freedom of association, expression and the freedom of speech, but failed to achieve their mission and miserably stood in one corner and watched the protests to the human rights abuses in
Germany.
Some of these securion men are foreigners themselves of the underpaid security bodies employed by the foreign office as disclosed on television, subjected to exploitation in the guise of having a job and extending it to the point of attacking other foreigners prohibiting them from raising their voices to express their disatisfaction in terms of human diginity.
The refugees continued to recite the atrocities and were all in agreement that the same savage conditions that force them to leave their countries, suffocated by abuses of human rights and the rule of the dictators who are supported by the Germany government and the same government subject refugees with affliction of subhuman treatment with massive hatred. And the inhuman deportation tactics as those applied to Feleke and many others who lost their lives in the course of deporting them back to the very dictators supported from here.
The police brutality which in most cases ends up in the murders of the refugees and the mental torture inflicted upon the refugees to suppress their human dignity by keeping them always inferior to the ´´almighty`` Germans.
The excessive discrimination with the lowest standards of every possible basic need and offering again the lowest standard of education as in the simple matter of the German language keeping them on the ABC level of the alphabet for years to continue marginalising them by controlling and suppressing their intellect and thereafter labelling them mentally handicapped or dormant, to hinder their full integration in the world of the so called intelligentia.
Keeping them in the dark over the so called enforced laws and regulations filled with boundaries hence the incapability of perusing for their understanding and the prevention of the proper reaction towards these so called laws on their part. These rules of seperation and suppression are rules of injustices extended from severe apartheid.
The mental torture and the psychological disorders inflicted upon the refugees in most parts of Germany thereafter acquiring the status of the ´´almighty`` stamp to stay in Germany on the grounds of illness. Already locked in the trance of helplessness heading for a lifelong attachment to the socialwellfare system without work and without further education to enhance their well being and acceptance in the society filled with animosity in terms of consuming the social funds.
The refugees continued with facts that most of the so called poor underdeveloped countries were and still are plundered of their human and natural resourses by the so called developed countries. And that they find it impossible to comprehend the strategies and policies of the international community and all those human rights organisations aware of their situations and do nothing about it, which simply categorises them as the abettors of the system.
The camp in Katzhuette has separate buildings on top of the steep hill where the centre building is allocated with the shower facilities, subjecting the refugees into walking long distances for their daily hygiene; one can portray the exact picture of the refugees in the winter time with their children strolling back and forth in the snow for a shower.
The children’s playground is along the refuse area where the garbage is left filled to the brim before it is picked up and the wild animals stroll down the area to graze while the children play. This represents the exact conditions of the marginalised in the maintained German system of divide, suffocate and rule.
Ruled and surpressed reflected here through the residents of the katzhuette camp gripped with fear of what would happen to them in terms of deportation and the infamous police brutality causing many to simply keep a distance afraid of joining the group to raise their voices. Only peeping and looking on with sad miserable faces of prisoners deprived of their very own conscience.
They were right in terms of the instigated fear because as we completed our protests and prepared to return back to the bus, we were shocked to receive news that the bus is surrounded by the criminal police down in the valley patiently awaiting our return. So the securion had unleashed the police on the refugees.
The refugees with the residence pflicht froze with fear (borders of separation prohibiting the refugees to move freely in the country from one city to another confined to the proximity of not more than three kilometres), the force of deprivation of the freedom of speech and expression and the visualisation of the forthcoming police brutality, picturing the story related by Feleke only yesterday intense fear gripped the refugees.
The sight of five police cars including vans signifying an intention of arresting people in those vans surrounding the bus as a constraint of movment of the bus was unbearable for many refugees on this trip. Confirming the facts reiterated at the protest the “inhibition” of all traces of freedom.
Flashes of refugees killed by the police in Germany like Dominik Koumadio from DRC Kongo shot by the police in Dortmund in April 2006, and Oury Jalloh from Sierra Leon who was ferociously beaten up and burned alive in the police basement in cell number five in Dessau East Germany in January 2005, started forming into the minds of many refugees at the sight of the police.
The police officers immediately confronted the group and consumed more than one hour of our time in the scuffle of queries as to why we were there. There was no violence in the protests it was a peaceful demand of the portion of the human rights principles, it was not a case that called for the unleashing of the police and the intimidation that scattered the refugees in various directions.
Refugees were scattered in all directions as many had no permission to leave their jurisdictions and the penalty for breaching this confinement has already landed refugees in the court of law and sentenced to imprisonment.
The police only showed face to intimidate and to confirm the vacuum of freedom of speech in Germany, to terrify the refugees, exactly what ensued when some refugees took cover inside of the bus only to be advised to come out of it later and run into the nearby supermarket called tegut hoping for a better cover. Where a woman cashier looked so disgusted and shocked to see the colored people entering the shop, she followed them around the shop and threw the receipts of their purchases to them with irritation.
Three refugees with a little girl of eight were driven off to a nearby train station for cover where they were met with another police car lay in waiting; the refugees were then driven off further to another train station five kilometres away and were left there. They squatted in the small waiting room of the train station with fear of persecution and the little girl kept peeking through the window to alarm them of any incoming police vehicles.
That’s the kind of life in this democratic and so called developed country. Development and democracy as we are to understand it we the unwanted foreigners, are the raised skyscrapers and the infrastructure of all the facilities in the country, however civilisation and humanity has nothing to do with it. The children were scattered and separated from their parents in what seemed like a wild attack of a stampede.
Other refugees stayed back with fear and anticipation waiting for the return of the car to pick them up. They wouldn’t dare walk along the streets as they were bound to bump into yet another police vehicle.
In the end the police had disorganised the whole peaceful program of protest and had dispersed and disintergrated the solidarity of the refugees, the police were there only to show the power of control and the helplessness of the unaccepted people in this country. They demanded identification from a few people and made sure that they spoil the courage of challenging the system, make people suffer and maintain the instigated fear of the power of divide and rule that was also introduced to Africa more than a century ago.
R.B.K.
Text was written by Regina Kiwanuka (Nürnberg) with Felleke Bahiru Kum of the Nordlingen refugee declaration in (Deutsch)Erklärung der Bewohner und Bewohnerinnen der Flüchtlingsunterkunft in Nördlingen
https://thevoiceforum.org/node/718
Both of them are refugee activists from Bayern who participated in the meeting of The VOICE Refugee Forum in Thueringia that took place on the 25-27.April 2008 in Jena.
“We stand against every form of control and the criminalisation of the refugee, for that, we will protest thousand times against them!”
The VOICE Forum.