At least twelve Kurds are currently being detained in Germany on charges of supporting the PKK. Others are threatened with deportation to Turkish prisons.
A Bavarian foreigners authority wants to deport a Kurd to Turkey, although it has been proven that he was tortured there. According to the decision to reject his asylum application in March of this year, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) also assumes that the 30-year-old was imprisoned and tortured in Turkey. However, “it is not evident that this torture took place because of the applicant’s race, religion, nationality, political conviction or membership of a particular social group”.
The BAMF’s decision goes on to say that the prosecution of the Kurd by the Turkish judiciary “actually serves to combat terrorism”. The Federal Office thus relativises torture, Roland Meister, the lawyer of the person concerned, says to “nd”. “This crosses a red line.”
Kerem Schamberger, migration and refugee consultant at the human rights organisation medico international, made the case public on his blog. According to this, the Kurd, born in 1993, comes from a family in which many other members have already been affected by repression. His father was imprisoned in Turkey for 12 years for alleged membership of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which is banned there.
The 30-year-old is also being prosecuted in Turkey for activities on behalf of the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which was outlawed in 2009, because the authorities say it was close to the PKK. The man was later also active in the Syrian part of Kurdistan, Schamberger writes. In 2016, he returned to Turkey and was imprisoned until 2019. In a subsequent judgement in Turkey, which is not yet final, he is described as the commander of a PKK unit. This is said to have been a unit that protected Yazidis in the Shengal region of Iraq from genocide by the IS terrorist militia.
In addition to being extradited to the torture state of Turkey, the man is now also being pursued by the police and judiciary in Germany – triggered by the foreigners authority. Based on his statements in the asylum procedure, the Munich General Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened proceedings for membership in a criminal or terrorist organisation outside the member states of the EU (section 129b StGB). On 31 May, several police officers came to the refugee accommodation of the wanted suspect in Bavaria, but did not find him. However, his room was searched without a court order, Schamberger said.
“The case is only the tip of the iceberg,” Schamberger tells “nd”. More and more Kurdish refugees who leave Turkey for political reasons are threatened with deportation – among other things because court rulings in Turkey are seen as in accordance with the rule of law. “This is absurd, because the Turkish judiciary is not independent and is controlled by the AKP party. The BAMF is thus making itself a stooge of the Erdoğan regime.”
In fact, investigations against Kurds are currently piling up in Germany on accusations of membership in a criminal or terrorist organisation abroad. In mid-May, police officers searched the premises of a Kurdish association as well as the flat and workplace of a Kurd in Duisburg. Last Thursday, following a decision by the Stuttgart district court, a raid was carried out at the Kurdish Social Centre in Heilbronn and at several private residences, during which two persons were arrested.
According to Kurdish news agencies, at least 12 Kurds are currently in pre-trial or criminal detention in Germany on charges of PKK membership. In May, the Kurdish activist Özgür A. was sentenced to five years imprisonment by the Higher Regional Court (OLG) for allegedly being a “full-time cadre” of the PKK – an unusually harsh sentence. At the end of May, the Kurdish activist Ali E. was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court for having acted as head of various “PKK areas” in Germany. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court is currently hearing a case against 55-year-old Ali Ö., who has been recruiting new recruits and overseeing fundraising campaigns since 2019. However, according to the ANF agency, he is not accused of an individual criminal offence.
The Kurdish Public Information Centre Civaka Azad writes that the persecution is also increasingly affecting activists who are not classified as “party cadres”. This is also confirmed by the lawyer of the Kurd who is now threatened with deportation in Bavaria and demands more attention from the German left.
Last week, the deportation of the Kurd Muhiddin Fidan was suspended at the last minute. On Tuesday, the Administrative Court in Kassel granted an urgent application by the 40-year-old and referred in its reasoning to a decision of the European Court of Justice in February, according to which the best interests of the child and the protection of the family must be taken into account before a deportation order is issued. Both Fidan’s wife and his five children have German citizenship.
Many Turkish leftists are also being prosecuted in Germany under section 129 of the Penal Code. In mid-June, the trial of three persons of Turkish and Kurdish origin began before the State Protection Senate of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, who are accused, among other things, of having formed the so-called German Committee of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front ( DHKP-C). The German judiciary also prosecutes this as a “terrorist organisation abroad”.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Demonstration in 2022 in Germany (ANF).
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