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Germany does not have extraterritorial prison colonies. I think this is a combination of hyperbole and choosing the wrong word. Germany does have housing for r
by fefe23 7y ago
Germany does not have extraterritorial prison colonies.
I think this is a combination of hyperbole and choosing the wrong word. Germany does have housing for refugees and asylum seekers while they wait for asylum to be granted or denied, and the conditions there might be construed as prison-like depending on your political point of view. Technically it's not a prison.
Asylum seekers are not permitted to do paid work, for example, and I think they also cannot exercise freedom of movement inside the EU or Germany (they have to clear moving to a different city with the authorities first and they are generally not given enough money to actually move around).
The EU has made a deal with Turkey to prevent refugees from Syria to come to the EU. That might be construed as an extraterritorial prison camp (the press has been mostly silent about the conditions those people are held in but I assume they are not very nice). Technically, even if that is a prison colony, it's not Germany's.
Greece has also held refugees in camps, one could interpret this as "on behalf of Germany", which I think is technically incorrect but in a sense still true.
German political debate has unfortunately become a shouting match between leftists who use war-cry terminology like OP did here, and right-wing populists who complain that asylum seekers should be sent home straight away and should not be allowed a legal way to protest if they are denied asylum status.
As always in shouting matches and war, the first victim are the facts and the truth.
Personally I think it is abhorrent how the EU is building a fortress to keep refugees out. Compared to most other EU countries however, Germany is by far not the worst of the bunch. Also I think far too little is being done to remove the reasons why people would leave everything behind and flee to the EU. You can't win scenarios like this by fighting the symptoms and doing cosmetics only.
Also, dear American friends, the biggest reasons for refugees from the middle east fleeing to Europe are a) your constant wars and meddling in the area and b) climate change, which from Europe also looks like it is disproportionally being caused by you.
(Prepare for downvotes in 3... 2...)
- livueta 7y ago> Also, dear American friends, the biggest reasons for refugees from the middle east fleeing to Europe are a) your constant wars and meddling in the area While you're not entirely wrong about that, there's more than enough blame to go around: Via the Sykes-Picot agreement, the British, French and sorta the Italians laid the groundwork for centuries of violence by betraying the Arabs (who helped them topple the Ottomans) in order to further their own colonial and arguably Zionist objectives. More recently, the French were the first to go all-in against Gadaffi. While the US piled on later, it's difficult to argue that the US is the sole military provocator in recent middle-eastern refugee-spawning wars. I overall agree with your points, but attempting to declaim all responsibility by pointing at the big evil Americans comes off as ahistorical, head-in-sand deflection.
- rayiner 7y agoYour first point is extremely ignorant. The mess in the Middle East was mainly created by the Ottoman Empire consolidating disparate ethnicities and religions into one empire, and then Europe’s dissection of it after WWI (dividing it between Britain and France). The US inherited the mess afterward. Syria, for example, is ruled by an Alawite minority. The Ottomans oppressed them and tried to convert them to Sunni Islam. When the French took over, they favored the Alawites and created a separate Alawite state. The French encouraged them to join the Syrian military (because the Alawites were friendlier to the French than the more hostile Sunni). Eventually, that Alawite contingent in the military led a coup that led to the Alawite minority ruling over the Sunni majority for decades until the civil war. Literally every ethnic and religious fault line in the Middle East that is now causing violence is the doing of the Turks, British, and French.
- barrkel 7y agoThe problem with the ME is oil (resource curse) and Dutch disease creating the conditions for kleptocratic authoritarian states. I don't think a different slicing would have avoided the dysfunction much. Hopefully a post-hydrocarbon economy will rebalance things; meanwhile, Trump literally thinks that the US is involved in the ME to take oil. The biggest problem of late was the US neocons thinking that overthrowing the previous set of kleptocrats would have a positive outcome. I think it's clear now that wasn't correct.
- fefe23 7y agoNote that I blamed the mass migration towards Europe on the Americans, not the mess in the region. For the mess in the region I would have blamed the Brits first and then the Ottoman empire and the French a distant second and third. But that was not the question here. We have had that mess for a hundred years now without millions of refugees trying to flee to Europe.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago> Literally every ethnic and religious fault line in the Middle East that is now causing violence is the doing of the Turks, British, and French. You ought to mention the Soviet Union as well. The Baathist dictatorships in Iraq and Syria were, after all, originally Communist-aligned, and this overture to secularism is part of what infuriated the religious extremists of the region.
- interdrift 7y agoIllegal migration is wrong and is rightfully opposed by many countries. There are procedures everyone must follow. Nobody is above the law, especially not if you're entering a country.
- ben_w 7y agoIllegal migration is tautologically opposed by all countries; moral statements like “wrong” are almost (but not quite) tangential to what the law say — there are many evils throughout history which were not only lawful, but where the opposition to them was illegal.
- the_why_of_y 7y agoIf you are persecuted by a state of which you are a citizen and are refused a passport, or have your passport cancelled, typically your one and only option to travel to another country to apply for asylum status is to do so illegally.
- ben_w 7y ago> Asylum seekers are not permitted to do paid work I’m aware of this (UK likewise), but I don’t understand it. Why prevent them from seeking work?
- onreact 7y agoEvery German airport with international flights has a "detention centre". Even though the new airport in Berlin is still not ready the prison has been finished in 2012: https://www.morgenpost.de/flughafen-BER/article108749351/Flughafen-ist-noch-im-Bau-aber-das-Asylgefaengnis-steht.html https://www.morgenpost.de/flughafen-BER/article108749351/Flu...