A REPLY TO THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT (Bundestag),

COMMISION OF PETITION:

Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen, we the asylum seekers of Rathenow wish to express our profound gratitude to the fact that you replied our memorandum of 26 April 2000, copies of this memorandum were sent to other high offices like the presidency, the Chancellery, The Supreme Court and the Parliament. Out of the above mentioned, it´s from you that we had a reply. Though the reply was not satisfactory, it´s nevertheless a gateway for us to explain to you what we are experiencing. The truth is now coming directly from the horse´s mouth. Nobody is feeling the pinch of our life style than us. Our intention of writing the memorandum is to point to the fact that the series of racist attacks we undergo as foreigners are partly due to the manner we are being portrayed to the public by the laws governing the asylum seekers. These laws have reduced us to the level of second class citizens and made us vulnerable to the rightwing hooligans. Unfortunately this has gone to the extend of affecting foreigners who are not asylum seekers and the lives of all the foreigners are at stake on equal pedestal.

Respectful Ladies and Gentlemen, we are shocked to the point that your reply did not address the grim theme of racist vandalism that is burning the society like canker. Our nerves are jangling every second, everyday when we think of going out to the city centre or to public places. You can now bear us witness with the galloping xenophobia. Though the dogma of the rightist is a battle against the foreigners, these claims we presented on your table have catalyst this hatred. As we earlier said, other foreigners suffer our fate because when one is on the street, there is no scribble on his or her body to portray if he is an asylum seeker or not. To rame a few for instance, the Mozambican who recently was bludgeoned by the right radicals in Dessau had lived in Germany for about twenty years, married to a German lady with children. A few days later, these rightist used their dogs and attacked an indian scientist in Leipzig.

Respectful Ladies and Gentlemen, As this catalogue of xenophobia is rising, we wish to appeal to you that until the day that the politicians and law makers will cease from creating barriers between the foreigners and the Germans then racism will come to a beautiful end.

Respectful Ladies and Gentlemen, when the honourable astronaut, Ulf Merbold was returning from the moon, he looked at the beautiful earth and said, "What is especially striking to me - you do not see any country boarders. I suddenly realised that the border lines drawn on maps are born in the heads of people".

These barriers are today not only created on maps but are found in the same society where people live. These have made one group to always look at the others as enemies threatening their existence. They tell us, "Foreigners, what do you want here, we hate you because you are a foreigner, we are fighting for our land, you should go back to your land and fight the foreigners there."

Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen, another point in your respond that is beating our minds like a sledge hammer is the letter from the German ministry of internal affairs. If we understood you very well, asylum seekers are supposed to suffer restriction in their public liberties during their first three months after seeking asylum. Our question is, what about the other months and years that follow? We drew your attention to the fact that there are some of us living in this hollow, sordid, deplorable and inhuman situation for at least one to ten years and even more. Our intention is to draw your attention to the fact that in this society, there is a group of human beings stripped off of their birth rights for an undetermined period. Let us make use to this phrase UNDETERMINED PERIOD. If you could agree with us that a man stripped off from his birth rights is a prisoner, then we are right to say that Germany has the highest number of undeclared prisons. The asylum camps. And if it is so in Europe, then Europe has the highest number of undeclared prisons. - No freedom of movement, no freedom of education, no freedom of commerce, no freedom of work, no freedom of privacy in our rooms and our camps are mostly found in the forest isolated from the society.

Honourable Ladies and Gentle Men, if you have been following closely activities in the society for the past weeks, almost everywhere is affected especially where the asylum camps are found. For instance, Cottbus, Leipzig, Ludwigshafen, Dessau, Erfurt, Prenzlau and Düsseldorf. The reason being that our poor social conditions have exposed us to some Germans as second class citizens. And now they toy with our lives like children operating their toys. they beat us every day, they wound us every month and they kill us every year. We are vulnerable to the right wing radicals.

Respectful Ladies and Gentlemen, we wish to appeal to your High Office not to reject our memorandum, but to please take it in to consideration. Rejecting our memorandum, is rejecting more than this piece of paper presented on your table:

• You have rejected the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
• You have rejectd the 1951 Convention of Vienna,
• You have rejected the Magna Charta and finally,
• You have accepted xenophobia.

We wish to thank you and we wish our memorandum will be taking in to consideration.

Rathenow, 8.8.2000

Speakers of the asylum seekers in Rathenow:

Christopher Nsoh.
Mohammed Abdel Amine.
Afantodji Koku.

COPIES TO:

• THE BUNDESPARLIAMENT,
• THE MEDIA,
• THE HUMAN RIGHT ORGANISATION,
• OTHER AUTHORITIES.