********************** ueber die grenze *********************** - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - circulated on nettime-l on 5 march 1999. this is *NOT* a sign-it-and-send-it-to-everyone letter - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - URGENT ACTION +++++ PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE +++++ URGENT ACTION no one is illegal campaign phone: ++49/172/8910825 STOP THE DEPORTATION OF RECEP ÖZ AND All DEPORTATIONS TO TURKEY Recep Öz, a kurdish activist, is threatened by deportation to Turkey. He was arrested on the way to a demonstration in Berlin on February 17th, actually he is imprisoned in Bueren, and started a hungerstrike there. We ask everyone who receives this e-mail to immediately send a protest fax to the following Minister of Interior Affairs of Northrine-Westfalia, Dr. Fritz Behrends Haroldstr. 5, 40213 Düsseldorf phone ++49/211/87101, Fax ++49/2118713355 Minister of Interior Affairs of Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Otto Schily Graurheindorfer Str 198 53117 Bonn, phone ++49/228/584030, Fax ++49/228/584066 Chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Gerhard Schroeder Bundeskanzleramt, Adenauerallee 139-141, 53113 Bonn, phone ++49/228/562522,-2523 Fax ++49/228/562357 Please sign also the appeal of the Berlin refugee Council: Appeal "... No matter how you look at it. It is all about the question whether the German government is willing to deport offenders to a country of torturers or not. Schily says this is not possible, but at the same time he is trying through the backdoor to find a way to get rid of Kurdish refugees as did Manfred Kanther before. (...) Schily´s wants a promise from the Turkish government about sparing deported Kurdish people from torture. But this kind of negotiation is absurd. The officials in Bonn all know that this won´t save deportees from imprisonment and torture. It can't even serve as a front to hide behind for the German government. If you want to deport Kurdish refugees this way you must be honest and declare openly that you are acting against the European Human Rights Convention. (...)" (Heribert Prantl, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24.2.1999) Recep Öz, a Kurd from Turkey, is no offender. But nevertheless, he is threatened by deportation. He wanted to participate in a demonstration by Kurdish people in Berlin when he was arrested by the the police without any legal papers. His application for political asylum has been rejected as hundreds of other Kurdish refugees that are now hiding in church asylum. All of them have been rejected as political refugees because the German officials claim that they could not prove an individual persecution by the Turkish state. "In most of the cases (rejected asylum seekers from Turkey) we have been investigating torture and imprisonment could have been prevented, if the applications for poltical asylum had been taken more seriously by the German officials". (Refugee-Council Lower Saxony/PRO ASYL in their latest documentation of the endagering of Kurdish refugees deported back to Turkey, February 1999, P.3) Today the situation in Turkey is even more serious. New waves of arrests after the escape of Öcalan to Italy and especially after his imprisonment in Turkey need to be taken into account when judging about the deportations of Kurdish refugees. Until now this has only happened in individual cases. Recep Öz has started a hungerstrike since his arrest February 17th to protest against all deportations of Kurdish refugees to Turkey. He has started a struggle for his right to stay in Germany in the name of all who are threatened by torture and imprisonment. We are demanding the immediate suspension of all deportations of Kurdish refugees from Germany. This is the only way to guarantee Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights for Kurdish refugees. We are also demanding the release of Recep Öz and a permit to stay in Germany for him and all Kurdish refugees in Germany as long as torture is a common practice in Turkey. We also believe that this is the only possibilty to stop the escalation of violence and a first step towards an "international solution" of the Turkish/Kurdish conflict. Signed by the Refugee-Council Berlin, Anti Racist Initiative, Berlin, Günter Grass (author), Hans Brandscheid (medico international), Heiko Kauffmann (speaker of PRO ASYL), Gyas Sayan (MP, PDS, City State of Berlin), Kostas Papanastasiou (actor and architect), United for Intercultural Action, Amsterdam, Ewald Groth (MP, Bündnis 90/the Greens, the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen), Berrin Özlem Otyakmaz (Mona - International Womens Contact and Counselling Center), Knut Rauchfuss (Refugee Medical Help, Bochum), Central America Commitee, Bochum, Centro Latino e.V., Regional Office Peace Train Musa Anter, VSP - Union of Socialist Politics, Ulla Jelpke (MP, PDS, Bundestag Bonn), Caroline Bouquerel-Pajaziti (French Translater, EU- Bruxelles), Georg Classen, Berlin, Anti Discrimination Office, Berlin, Peter Tepper, Ingeborg Hunzinger, Heidrun Hegewald, Dr. Hanna Behrend, Dr. Manfred Behrend, Gina Pietsch, (all from Berlin ), Please, send further signatures to the Refugee-Council Berlin and copies to the Antiracist Initiative, tel: ++49/30/7857281, fax: ++49/30/7869984 Flüchtlingsrat Berlin (Refugee-Council Berlin) Fennstr. 31 D - 12439 Berlin, ph. : -30/6317873 fax: -30/6361198 -------------cross the border-- --ueber die grenze ------------ http://www.contrast.org/borders --phone: ++49/89/172/8910825--- -----mar 12-14 n5m3 amsterdam-- -mar 26-28 conference munich--- ---aug 7-15 camp borderline---- --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl ******************************************************************************** ROLUX h0444wol@rz.hu-berlin.de http://www2.hu-berlin.de/~h0444wol/rolux/