Failed deportation of Roma families

After the failed deportation of two Roma families from Göttingen, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has raised serious allegations against the city administration. “Göttingen is acting as an accomplice to inhumane policies against refugees who have been living here for many years. Children who were born and raised here are being deprived of their future. It is inhumane and irresponsible if people who have been living with us for 17 years, who went to school and have friends here, are treated like this!” said Tilman Zülch, the STP’s Secretary General. “13 children have lost their home. The families are forced into illegality to avoid being deported to a foreign country and into a life of poverty – for that is all the Kosovo could ever offer them. In a study that was published in autumn 2015, our human rights organization was able to show that Roma are exposed to serious discrimination there – and as returnees are not able to survive in Kosovo, they are forced to flee again.”

“It is unbearable that our city – where the World Roma Congress of 1981 took place, organized by the Society for Threatened Peoples and under the auspices of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and important Jewish personalities such as Simon Wiesenthal and the President of the European Parliament, Simone Veil – could treat Roma people so harshly,” said Zülch. “Because of the crimes against the Sinti under the Nazi regime, which were officially recognized as genocide crimes as a result of the Congress, Germany has a special responsibility for the members of this ethnic group. Göttingen has failed to meet this responsibility, even though 16 million Germans had to experience the bitterness of flight and expulsion after 1945.”

Further, the human rights activist stated: “Our politicians also ignored the fact that the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians were chased out of the country by nationalist Albanians in 1999, following the military intervention of the Western countries, including Germany. The peacekeeping forces, among them German soldiers, stood back and watched the destruction and looting of 70 of the 75 villages that were mainly inhabited by these minority groups. This is also how the two Roma families who were now deported from our city were expelled in 1999. Now, Göttingen stands accused of deliberately forcing children into a bleak future that promises nothing but hardship.”