hello,
i send you a report about one refugee-Lager in Brandenburg which is the first arrival for all refugees in Brandenburg a part in Germany.
Asif, one refugee-activist who have been there, report about one year he experienced the happenings over there. he is part of the stop-deportation-group Berlin/Brandenburg.
For this summer is planned a bicycle-tour to all refugee-camps in Brandenburg and a final camp in Eisenhüttenstadt. We will send more infos later.
best greetings!
The german deportation industry
A chronicle of illegal deportations from Eisenhüttenstadt (legal deportations are
too numerous to be mentioned)
I am a refugee. I spent two and a half months in the open Lager of Eisenhüttenstadt. Now I am part of a
solidarity group against this Lager and the attached deportation jail.
I want to share with you my point of view and experience of refugees' situation in Berlin and Brandenburg –
how I felt that my freedom was over: I was in the German asylum system. End of freedom means that you
can't choose the city where you want to live. The first step in the asylum system is to apply for asylum in the
city where your friends live, but they separate you from them and put you wherever they want.
It was the same with me. I was in Eisenhüttenstadt. First I wanted to make clear that this is the worst Lager
in the world. Inside the Lager there is the Bundesamt, a police station, the Ausländerbehörde, a deportation
prison and security services, which behave like police. We, refugees, know that security is also police.
Let me tell you about the life of refugees in the Lager:
• They cook fresh food only every three days. Refugees do not have the right to cook for themselves.
• There is no access to medical treatment.
• There is a repressing system of social isolation from the outside world. It is very difficult to receive a
visit from friends.
• The rooms and toilets are unhygienic.
You are not allowed to leave the Lager before you had your asylum interview. Even then, you may not go
farther than 14km away. Also, you are not allowed to leave the Lager for more than six hours without
permission – and it is impossible to get this permission. We tried it several times, but they never gave it to
us. Even when we provided a lawyer's invitation.
There are only two people from Diakonie giving independet legal advice to more than 800 refugees. It's not
enough, they have limited capacity. You do have the right to have a lawyer, but in reality this is nearly
impossible, because we cannot go out and in Eisenhüttenstadt there are no lawyers. That means: We do not
have lawyers.
There are children, families, pregnant women, they do not have any playgrounds for the kids, no clothes, no
shoes. Children don't go to school. This is the situation refugees have to face in the camp.
It is also necessary to highlight the illegal deportations that occurred since May 2013 (Legal deportations are
everyday occurrence).
What happened on 20th of May 2013? Let me tell you: One family from Kurdistan was forced to be
deported. On that day the father of the family took twenty sleeping pills and tried to commit suicide. Doctors
came and saved his life. We, refugees, tried to find out what had happened to him but nobody wanted to tell
us. They took his family away and they disappeared. We do not know what happened to them. All we know
is that they deported them. This is not all. There were more suicide attempts:
Next comes the 28th of May 2013: One guy from Chad received his deportation letter and killed himself. He
was tired of getting deported to other countries because of Dublin II. He killed himself because he didn't
want to get deported again and again.
Once again, we refugees tried to find out what happened and tried to talk to the security services and police,
but they wouldn't answer: they said that everything is in order and there is no big problem. For them it is
daily business that people kill themselves and they do not see any problem in this. Then we decided to
organize a demonstration against this system of federal police(Bundespolizei), federal
ministery(Bundesamt), foreigners office(Ausländerbehörde), the security company BOSS, the injustice at the
local court (Amtsgericht) and the Lager-system. All these institutions violate Human Rights.
The demonstration took place on 3rd of June. Refugees attacked the deportation center inside the Lager.