In an open letter to the members of the German government, the members of the German Bundestag and the minister presidents of the German states, more than 700 lawyers and jurists oppose the so-called “asylum compromise” of the EU, which the German government has agreed to. The EU interior ministers had thus agreed on a reform of the European asylum system. The signatories of the letter see in it the “most massive tightening of refugee law in decades”. The plans of the EU and the German government would dismantle the asylum procedure and turn it into a fast-track procedure in closed camps under detention conditions at the external borders.
As a central point, the critics state: “It is planned that for all arrivals in Europe in the future the fiction of non-entry should apply. The legal as well as spatial expulsion of proceedings to the periphery as well as the concentration of refugees and their proceedings in camps leads naturally and purposefully to a de facto disenfranchisement, because access to counseling, legal representation and legal protection cannot be effectively guaranteed.” He said this particularly affects the entry of refugees into the EU through states that are considered “safe third countries.” This would also make their asylum applications inadmissible.
The rejection of an asylum application with reference to transit through another state contradicts the Geneva Refugee Convention, he said. Turkey could not be classified as safe if deportations to Syria and Afghanistan were threatened from there. There are also reservations about countries of transit such as Tunisia, Georgia and Moldova.
Among the signatories of the letter are also people from Tübingen such as the lawyers Holger Rothbauer and Manfred Weidmann as well as Angela Zaschka from the Asylum Center. Important aid organizations such as PRO ASYL and the Baden-Württemberg Refugee Council have also similarly criticized the plans of the EU and the German government.
To the text of the letter: Microsoft Word – Offener Brief von Rechtsanwält_innen_Keine Abschaffung des Rechts auf Schutz_mit Unterzeichner_innenliste_fina (rav.de)
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Beflaggung vor dem Tübinger Regierungspräsidium. Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL / Martin Klaus.
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