Asylum policy | Deportation: to the airport despite hunger strike

Kurdish activist Hamza A. was to be deported to Turkey just hours after his asylum application was again rejected by a Saxon court – even though, according to his supporters, he is clearly suffering from the consequences of a 43-day hunger strike . "They probably wanted to get him out of the country before his health deteriorated further or a wider public became aware of his case," Osman Oğuz of the Saxon Refugee Council (SFR) told the "nd" newspaper. However, the attempt apparently failed. In the afternoon, the Federal Police responded to an inquiry that A. was still in Frankfurt, Oğuz said. The Saxon Ministry of the Interior did not comment on the deportation. In response to an inquiry from "nd," it reiterated: "The person named is legally obliged to leave the country." However, it "will not provide any information on ongoing measures."

A., who had lived in Germany for six years, worked, and had a fiancée, was arrested in June during a government appointment and taken to a deportation flight to Berlin. The Refugee Council criticized him for having been "torn from the life he had painstakingly built without warning by a veritable trap set by the immigration authorities and the police." The deportation failed, and A. was placed in a special deportation detention center operated by the Free State of Saxony in Dresden since 2018 .

"They probably wanted to get him out of the country before his health deteriorated further."

Osman Oğuz Saxon Refugee Council

He evaded a second attempt to take him to a flight to Turkey in Leipzig by injuring himself. A court hearing took place that Tuesday, at which his detention was extended until August 26, Oğuz said. He was then taken to a special cell under constant supervision and from there to Frankfurt am Main. Initially, the SFR reported that he had been flown to Istanbul early Wednesday morning "with medical and police escort." However, they had no reliable information because A. had been "unreachable by phone since yesterday." In the early afternoon, the Federal Police then provided a different statement.

A., according to his own statements, was active in several banned Kurdish parties in Turkey and was arrested and imprisoned several times. Most recently, he suffered police harassment in Istanbul and was banned from leaving the country. He said he knew that "even worse things would happen to me if I stayed," he said in an interview conducted by SFR during his hunger strike and published on its website. In May 2019, A. came to Germany and applied for asylum. He was housed in shared accommodation in Annaberg-Buchholz, Saxony, but, according to his own statements, he received a work permit from the immigration authorities and accepted a permanent position in the catering industry in the Ruhr region. He had built himself "a life without state assistance." According to him, his arrest was justified on the grounds that he had left the asylum accommodation without permission.

Supporters had recently made intensive efforts to secure his right of residence, for example by providing new documents that substantiate the credibility of his asylum applications. "But that didn't convince the administrative court," Oğuz said. As a result, the Refugee Council intended to file an urgent application with the Saxon Hardship Commission this Wednesday. This commission can ensure that "foreigners who are legally required to leave the country are granted a residence permit for urgent humanitarian or personal reasons," as the commission describes itself. This did not happen initially due to the renewed deportation attempt.

At the same time, efforts had been made to have A. examined by an independent doctor. He had expressed considerable distrust of the medical staff at the prison. Jule Nagel, a member of the Left Party in the state parliament, had written to the human rights commissioner of the Saxon State Medical Association about this. She visited A. in custody on Friday and found him in very poor health: "He has lost a lot of weight, weighs 61 kilograms, and his organs are aching." In response to an inquiry from "nd," she expressed incomprehension that A. had not been taken to a hospital, similar to what was the case with the activist Maja T., who is now imprisoned in Budapest . A parliamentary inquiry by Nagel to the Ministry of the Interior asking whether a transfer was being considered has so far gone unanswered. In response to an inquiry from "nd" on Monday, the ministry stated that it "could not confirm that the named person has been refusing to eat for 41 days." Nagel said that, given his physical condition, she "could not understand" why he was deemed fit for detention, let alone why he was expected to take a deportation flight.