By FLAVIO AGUIAR*
There are more than 50 deportation orders in Germany against refugees who have had their asylum applications denied.
The German government has decided to toughen its policy towards refugees considered to be illegally present in the country. Last week, a first group was deported to their home country, Afghanistan.
The decision was made following a stabbing attack in the city of Solingen, near Cologne and Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. The attack left a tragic toll of three dead and several injured, some seriously. The police arrested a suspect, a Syrian national who had applied for asylum in the country and had been denied. The accused disappeared, only to reappear in the tragic incident in Solingen.
He had been admitted to Bulgaria, and from there he passed to Germany. The German government had approved his deportation to that country, from where he had come. Bulgaria agreed to the deportation, but it ended up not happening due to the disappearance of the accused.
The Islamic State organization released a video in which it claimed responsibility for the attack as “revenge” for what was happening to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
A political uproar ensued, in which the leader of the main opposition party, Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union, accused the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD, the Social Democratic Party, of negligence and proposed joint action to solve the problem.
Surprisingly, the chancellor accepted the proposal, which raised fears that his governing coalition, which also included the Green Party and the liberal FDP, would split. This did not happen, as the leaders of this party supported Olaf Scholz's decision.
There are over 50 deportation orders in Germany against refugees who have had their asylum applications denied. However, only a little over 20 of these have been carried out to date. The overwhelming majority of these orders concern people from African or Middle Eastern countries, many of whom entered the European Union via other countries and then travelled to Germany. Olaf Scholz has pledged to restrict this possibility of access, as well as to speed up the deportations that have already been approved and the judgment of pending cases.
The debate and restrictive measures take place at a time when regional elections have taken place in the former East German states of Thuringia and Saxony, and the federal government is facing a surge in votes from the traditional opposition – the Christian Democratic Union – and the far right, in the party alternative for Germany, Alternative for Germany. This, radically aimed against immigrants and refugees, has been dictating the agenda on this issue in Germany, as is the case in other countries on the continent.
To complicate the situation, the German economy has been shrinking in recent times, in a process of deindustrialization, despite efforts by the government to revitalize the German arms industry.
In this context, on the brink of a prolonged recession, the search for scapegoats is flourishing, and the most likely candidates for this role are emigrants from the so-called Third World, particularly Muslims, who are always under suspicion, often unjustified, of joining terrorist groups.
Human rights organizations, such as Caritas, have expressed concern that this situation could lead to widespread discrimination.
These latest developments in Germany come in a continental context of growing discrimination against non-European foreigners, as happened recently in the United Kingdom, where a fatal attack on children, also involving stabbings, sparked a series of vandalism attacks on mosques and immigrant reception centers, fueled by false far-right messages about the identity of the assailant, spread on the internet.
During the decade and a half of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union government, Germany stood out for its generous policy of welcoming immigrants and refugees from all over the world. Now this openness is gradually closing, partly due to pressure from her own party, which, in dispute with the alternative for Germany, risks turning, also like the government coalition, to policies that revive the specter of xenophobia and discrimination.
From Radio France International especially for the Web Radio Agency, Flávio Aguiar, live from Berlin.
* Flavio Aguiar, journalist and writer, is a retired professor of Brazilian literature at USP. Author, among other books, of Chronicles of the World Upside Down (boitempo). [https://amzn.to/48UDikx]
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
