A-Infos (en) Berlin / Potsdam, press release on refugees being distributed in germany

Poland's government puts refugees on the street
On the 27 of November 2006 an amendment on the Act on Granting Protection to
Aliens becomes active. This means that ca. 1500 refugees will be thrown out of 
the refugee-homes, in which at this time around 3500 refugees live. With this
amendment being made on the 26 of August, following aggravations for refugees 
are inserted: Refugees who have a tolerated stay in Poland, have to leave the 
refugee-homes three months after this law becoming valid. Even applying again 
for asylum is not a protection anymore for being thrown out of the 
refugee-homes. Until now, many refugees who only got a tolerated stay and were 
denied being acknowledged as refugees, applied again for asylum, to at least be 
able to stay in the refugee-homes and have at least a minimal care. Not because 
the living conditions in the refugee-homes are so great, the opposite is the 
case. The living conditions in the homes are so bad, that again and again 
refugees from Chechnya choose to go to prosecutor state Russia
 „voluntarily“ or even go back to civil war in Chechnya. Outside the 
refugee-homes, the refugees have practically no chance to find a place to live 
or even a job, to be able to survive. In 2005 6860 refugees applied for asylum 
in Poland. About 90 % come from the Caucasus, mostly from Chechnya. Less as 5 % 
got the acknowledgement as refugee. The majority got a rejection or a tolerated 
stay (Office for Repatriation and aliens, Warsaw). Many refugees from Chechnya 
are extremely traumatised. Many of them are single Mothers with children. It is 
not clear how many unaccompanied minors are staying in Poland. For these people 
who need protection, the statement of Jan Wegrzyn (general director of the 
Office for Repatriation and Aliens) must sound extremely cynical:“ This 
Amendment helps refugees to get better integrated in the society“. Neither 
objections nor protests, not even from polish ngo`s working in the refugee-field 
have been made against the horrible consequences of this law.

Through information papers in the refugee homes, the refugees know the date on 
which they have to have left their homes. Before they are thrown on the streets 
many of them prefer to leave Poland and travel secretly further to Western 
Europe, because this is officially not allowed. Most of them know that they 
won’t have a chance on a legal staying-permit, because of the Dublin 2 law, 
and might be deported to Poland immediately. The Dublin 2 law is stating that 
the first EU country a refugee arrives is responsible for the asylum-procedure 
of this refugee. When they are controlled in another EU-country or even get 
arrested, they are easily identified because of the Eurodac-fingerprintsystem 
and it is easily seen in which country they have been before. They will be taken 
in a deportation-prison and be deported to the responsible EU-country.	

In this way the core-states of the EU manage to keep their countries free of 
refugees and put the responsibility for refugees on the border states of the EU. 
That is why the number of refugees in Germany is as low as ever. The border 
states of the EU, who are often the poorer states try to get rid of the refugees 
by keeping them in impossible living-conditions.

The refugee-expulsion-politics of the EU-states does not take human rights into 
consideration and violates against human rights and refugee-conventions.

Abolition of the Law on protection of refugees
Refugees have the right to search for protection where they want
Abolition of the Dublin 2 Law
Human rights for everybody!

Poland Working Group of the antiracist initiative Berlin

For questions:
gloede@fluechtlingsrat-brandenburg.de
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