PRO ASYL Presseerklärung | Press Release

August 25, 1999

Human Rights NGOs criticize biased

German Foreign Office Report on Iraq

The German non-governmental organisations PRO ASYL and the Society for Humanitarian Assistance and Co-operative Development Aid (WADI e.V.) have published a study entitled‚ Iraq – A State of Fear – the Country Report of the Foreign Office on Iraq and the Reality‘. The study illustrates in detail that the Foreign Office country report is factually incorrect, that it relies on insufficient and outdated sources of information and that its conclusions are tendentious. The speaker of PRO ASYL, Mr Heiko Kauffmann, criticizes the general presentation of the Foreign Office report as exhibiting a „shocking lack of care“. Its considerable shortcomings – as illustrated in the NGO study carried out by WADI employees Thomas von der Osten-Sacken and Thomas Uwer – could only be explained by domestic considerations pertaining to the recognition of Iraqi asylum seekers.

Since 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany possesses no official representation in Iraq and hence has to rely on other (external) sources. This fact, so WADI e.V., calls for special care in the selection as well as evaluation of country information. In comparison with other studies on Iraq – such as the US State Department reports on Iraq of 1998 and 1999 and the reports by the UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq – it is evident that the Foreign Office sources are partially outdated and quoted in a selective and distorted fashion.

According to the NGO study, the systematic suspension of all human and constitutional rights lies at the root of the rule of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq. Despite the fact that the Foreign Office notes that Iraq is a totalitarian state, it denies the systematic perpetration of human rights violations and persecution, presenting such acts as sporadic in nature.

Whereas in his 1999 Report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq, Max van der Stoel, expressed the opinion that the „gravity of the human rights situation in Iraq had few comparisons in the world since the end of the Second World War”, the Foreign Office report suggests that Iraq is only one of several countries in the Middle East which violate human rights.

In contrast to information issued by a considerable number of other public sources (including sources referred to in the country report under consideration such as the US State Department and the UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq), the Foreign Office denies the existence of systematic persecution on the grounds of group membership in Iraq. UN General Assembly resolutions, reports by the UN Commission on Human Rights, by renowned human rights organisations (such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) as well as political opposition groups – which illustrate the ongoing suppression of the ‚Marsh-Arabs‘ (Shi’a Arabs) in Southern Iraq, the Kurds, the Christian Assyrians and Turkomans – find no mention in the Foreign Office report.

According to the NGO researchers, the situation in Northern Iraq is frequently described by euphemisms. The country report presupposes the existence of a „safe area“ for Kurds in Northern Iraq despite the fact that this territory solely constitutes an area apart from central Iraqi administration which is neither protected by international law nor subject to other international protection until a re-establishment of Iraqi rule. Throughout the country report – and in the view of the researchers broadly uncritically – the Foreign Office posits Northern Iraq as a realistic „internal flight alternative“ for Kurdish refugees. The research study submits that this presentation aims at providing the Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees (‚Bundesamt für die Anerkennung Ausländischer Flüchtlinge‘) and the Administrative Courts with a pretext for the refusal of Iraqi asylum seekers.

According to the speaker of PRO ASYL, Mr Kauffmann, the strategy of a deliberate manipulation of information or selective reporting in respect of human rights violations and reasons for flight – which had previously come under attack by PRO ASYL in the context of the Foreign Office reports on Turkey, Kosovo and Togo – is being dictated by domestic considerations. The background to the national asylum measures constitutes an EU programme of action which the member states had agreed upon after several meetings aiming specifically at the prevention of the flight of Kurdish refugees from Northern Iraq. The central pillars of the agreed programme are, inter alia, the enforced ”protection” of external borders, negotiations with Turkey – as the most prevalent transit country – with the objective of realising increased border controls upon exit and negotiations on a possible readmission agreement, later to be extended to nationals of third countries.

Already in March 1997, the then Minister for the Interior, Mr Manfred Kanther, had approached the Foreign Office with the task of assessing whether the North of Iraq could be considered an „internal flight alternative“, in particular for Kurdish refugees. The underlying motive of the government had been the numbers of and subsequent recognition rates of Iraqi refugees (of which approximately 70% were Kurds), which were considered as ‚too high‘.

A policy of deterrence was realised, inter alia, by means of a modified presentation of the human rights situation in Iraq [in Foreign Office reports] – in the absence of a corresponding change in the actual status quo which continued to be characterised by widespread and grave human rights violations. This was followed since the middle of 1997 by a sharp decline in recognition rates and a proliferation of appeals initiated by the Federal Representative for Asylum (‚Bundesbeauftragte‘) against decisions by the Federal Office granting refugee status. As a result, in 1998, the recognition rates in relation to Kurdish refugees in Iraq fell from 90% to 50% within a period of nine months.

PRO ASYL has welcomed an announcement by Foreign Secretary Mr Fischer suggesting that the method of publication, content and structure of Foreign Office country reports is to be overhauled. In the view of the NGO, it is high time – one year after the change in government to a Green – Social Democratic coalition – for country reports to cease being used as political tools in the deterrence of refugees.

PRO ASYL demands that the country report on Iraq be retracted immediately. The NGO points out that it is incredible that Foreign Minister Fischer, who supported war as a legitimate measure against „ethnic cleansing“ and massacres in Kosovo, permits human rights violations of comparable magnitude to be deliberately ignored by his Ministry in its country reports. In the view of PRO ASYL, the state of Germany possesses particular responsibility towards victims of the Iraqi regime considering the role of German firms and politicians in arming Saddam Hussein’s government. Keeping in mind the atrocities perpetrated by the Iraqi regime and in particular the victims of the gas attacks in Halabja in March 1988, who are still waiting for compensation from the German government, the simple truth ought to be the minimum to be expected from the German government’s foreign policy.