"We need a residence permit"
By close Meinersen
A man from Nepal, who lived for 15 years as a "tolerated" refugee in Germany, received a notice by the immigration office in Gifhorn about his upcoming deportation. The man could not stand that anymore and committed suicide.
At Tuesday, March 1st, the train ride between the train stations Hannover and Wolfsburg was delayed for many passengers. Not few of them may have been angry that again "such a weirdo thrown himself in front of a train". Till this day the fewest of the passengers will know, with what a fate they have been involuntarily confronted:
A refugee, who lived in misery and who was faced with a future of even harder misery, took his life. Although the residents from the refugee camp in Meinersen since longer warned the authorities that the man was at his limits and that he was ready for the most extreme measures. Yet, the immigrants authority in Gifhorn is not interested in what refugees are saying. Because the situation in the camp is unbearable. In various open letters the refugees pointed to the desperate situation in the isolated camp and by the past year organised various protest actions. The refugees in Meinersen reject to submit any longer to the state-mandated racism and now are self-organised. They want to live - and that in human dignity.
After a meeting at February 12th with local people in solidarity with them, the group Karawane Hamburg, the anti-racist assembly from Hannover and Lower Saxony's refugee council, the refugees from the camp recently wrote the following:
1. Still families with children are brought into the camp - a Romanies family with babies was brought and soon after was deported.
2. There is no privacy, 4-6 people share one room. The caretaker and the camp chief control our presence and report to the immigrant authorities, which continuously stresses us. 75 people share a restroom each with one for men and one for women. At February 12th two of three urinals were not working. There is one shower room for women, one for men, one kitchenette at the 1st floor and one at the ground floor. We have no access to the washhouse. The caretaker and the camp chief wash the refugees' private laundry, an examplary brick of the humiliating and disabling camp system in the county of Gifhorn. The halls are narrow and the walls made of plaster board. There is not one single common room, not one playroom, schoolwork room or a common room for adults.
"In the morning I wake up and urgently need to go to toilet. The caretaker just cleans the restroom. He doesn't let me in the room. My belly aches, there is no second restroom. I demand it. He tells me, 'you asshole' and 'you will be deported anyway'."
3. Many of us are living about six, eight or 10 years under these conditions in the camp. That is frozen life time. Nothing is allowed. It is not allowed to leave the county. Requests for permission get rejected. Requests for working permissions, even if employers offer jobs, are refused. Education for the youth ends with the GCSEs without further possibilities. You get € 0-40 cash a month and each person are given a food coupon for € 125 or 112. Gifhorn is 15 km far away.
"Often we have to go to Gifhorn, not only to deal with the authorities or for doctor's visits. We have no tickets and no money. We are told, walk or it's your our problem. Some of us have to go for a longer period, for several months, sometimes every third day for an interview in order to extend the exceptional leave to remain. In fact it's an interrogation, we aren't allowed to bring a witness, though it's our right. Everyone wonders, when will I break to pieces or explode."
4. There are numerous harassment and different special treatments through the immigrant authorities often also in co-operation with the social welfare office. To mention them all would go beyond the scope of the letter. Generally, all requests are handled with delay, always new explanatory statements are demanded from the petitioner and finally or afterward they are refused. The threat of deportation is mentioned over and over - especially for those, who protest and make it public. During the past demonstrations refugees got threaten by the immigrant authorities with cuts of the benefits and cash.
"The immigrant authorities causes a lot of trouble and later they don't allow us to visit a doctor to make a therapy. Do you see what I mean? Soon we ALL will end like the one, who completely lost it. Also he had a lot of stress with the immigrant authorities and wasn't allowed to make a therapy, therefore he lost it. Exactly the same the chief of the immigrant authorities, Mr Renders, wants to do with us. He wants that we also completely lose it and once end up in psychiatry or in prison."
We cannot leave unanswered the trivialized and relativistic statements by representatives from SPD, as they emerged in public after the visit. Everyone may imagine for him/herself and his/her family a life under the above mentioned conditions. We the refugees in the county Meinersen already experienced hard blows. We fled from our homeland, to seek for protection in Germany. In the county of Gifhorn we are defamed as betrayers. We are told to organize our own deportation. We are from Northern Caucasus, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, China, Armenia, Africa... We experienced persecution and fled to Germany, which itself argues for human rights. We are living here since many years now, and in our home countries the situation often strongly worsened. We experience how business is made with our deportation, by sending delegations that organize passports from the countries of our origin. Examples that became public are Guinea and currently Armenia, where Lower Saxony is strongly engaged. Also falsified information in order to receive papers became public, but we are attacked to be betrayers. For example there exists the German deportation treaties with Syria. Again and again the deported refugees got arrested and abused there. Of course we fear deportation. Nevertheless, we insist on our right.
We demand an assured residence in Germany!
Enough scope exists to abolish the destructive camp system in the county of Gifhorn, it only lacks of political will. In the meanwhile there are numerous of examples in Germany, where the camp detention was lifted.
The camp in Meinersen is not a home for people and must be closed."
At February 12th the assembly in Meinersen decided to hold a protest in Gifhorn at March 24th 2011 in the scope of the nationwide decentralized 'Action day against camp isolation & racist special laws'. Additionally to that the camp in Meinersen and the county of Gifhorn will play a special role in the future. Lower Saxony's Interior and Deportation Minister, Mr Schuenemann plans to close the camp in Blankenburg near Oldenburg. Since the refugees there for years struggle for the closure of the camp, it first sounds good. But for many of them that could mean the transfer to other camps. Contrary to Mr Schuenemann's ideas to maximum exclude and isolate the refugees, are the refugees' protests in Blankenburg and the solidarity they experience there, which lead to an announcement from the city council in Oldenburg. In contrast the county of Gifhorn offers an ideal place: there is a broad racist consencus.
That all and many more, what is not now documented is the story behind that "again such a weidro thrown himself in front of a train".
Break the racist consensus!
Close ALL camps!
Abolish racist special laws!
source: http://de.indymedia.org/2011/03/301747.shtml
more: http://thecaravan.org/ (with English section)
