Press release
of November, 27th 1998
Deportation of refugees from Togo by charter flight planned
PRO ASYL and
the Refugee Council of Schleswig-Holstein:
At the moment, deportations to Togo can’t be justified
Deportation of refugees from Togo by charter flight planned (en)
Translation-Info
This is a machine translation by the IBM-supported PERSONAL TRANSLATOR plus. It is slightly edited by combining its results with the translation of SYSTRAN. But you should not rely on it. If you want to use a translated text append or reference the original text.
According to information from Nuremberg, Munich, Kiel and Cologne refugees from Togo are put systematically in detention pending deportation since beginning of this week in order to return them with a charter flight on 30 November, 1998 at 10.30 o’clock from Düsseldorf. The authorities justify the charter flight with the fact, that at present „normal“ single deportations to Togo are „almost hopeless“ (according to a decision of the District Court Nuremberg in the case of a detention pending deportation of 16 October, 1998). Decisive for this is, that the Federal Border Guard has refused within the last months to accompany deportées because of a possible endangering of its civil servants at destination Lomé. The attempt to return a refugee from Togo living in Holstein failed on 14 Oktober, 1998. The person affected attempted suicide.
The situation in Togo has continued to intensify after the election of 21 June, 1998. The Eyadema regime clings to the power. At present armed forces in Togo open hunting on all being classed with the opposition parties and having exposed themselves during the last elections. The spectrum of the repression does from shadowing oppositional individuals, verbal threats, destruction and robbery of property, temporary and long-term arrests, arbitrary ruling of the politicized justice of the regime (for example because of distributing pamphlets) to violent attacks, disposing of people and political murder by killing units.
Despite urgent warnings of UNHCR against deportations to Togo since beginning July 1998, unanimous criticism of EU und USA at the process and result of the presidency election and relatively critical progress reports even of the Foreign Office many German Administrative Courts hardly realise the situation. Currently many refugees from Togo have received the order to leave the country, whose cases were pending at courts, granting protection from deportation only some prominent exile politicians. Only a few high-ranking political leaders of the exile opposition of Togo meet this yardstick of the courts.
