PRO ASYL Presseerklärung | Press Release

1 October 2003

Refugee Day 2003

Prominent figures support the demand for right
of residence for refugees with long-term residence permits

For the national Refugee Day on October 3, 2003, numeorus prominent public figures demand a right of residence for refugees with long-term residence permits. In view of current negotiations in the mediation committee, they demand in their appeal „Those who have been living for a long time, must be allowed to stay,“ to establish a regulation on right of residence within immigration laws.

The appeal was initiated by Dr. Christian Schwarz-Schilling, former Federal Minister and international mediator in Bosnia-Herzegovina, PRO ASYL. The inital signatories are prominent figures from the politics, economics, academiac, culturel and sports:

Dr. Franz Alt – Dieter Baumann – Beginner – Biermösl Blosn – Marianne Birthler – Bärbel Bohley – Dr. Norbert Blüm – Blumfeld – Funny van Dannen – Dr. Klaus von Dohnanyi – Dieter Dorn – Dr. Nadeem Elyas – Hans W. Geißendörfer – Dr. Heiner Geißler – Rodrigo González – Prof. Ulrich Gottstein – Günter Grass – Peter Härtling – Hans Olaf Henkel – Dieter Hildebrand – Dr. Burkhard Hirsch – Prof. Dr. Hilmar Hoffmann – Bertram Huke – Prof. Dr. Walter und Inge Jens – Schorsch Kamerun/Die Goldenen Zitronen – Kid Alex – Hans Koschnik – Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger – Editha Limbach – Wolfgang Lüder – Karl-Otto Meyer – Klaus Minkel – Christa Nickels – Prof. Dr. Dieter Oberndörfer – Prof. Dr. Peter Opitz – Cem Özdemir – Edzard Reuter – Prof. Horst-Eberhard Richter – Charlotte Roche – Claudia Roth – Sam Ragga Band – Bosilkja Schedlich – Dr. Dagmar Scherf – Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen – Dr. Wolfgang Schmidbauer – Dr. Herbert Schnoor – Friedrich Schorlemmer – Christoph Strässer – Die Toten Hosen – Walter und Anna-Elisabeth Troeltsch – Sebastian Weiss/Blumentopf – Wim Wenders – Dr. Waltraud Wirtgen – Harald Wisselinck – Dr. Monika Wulf-Mathies – Bernhard Wunderlich/Blumentopf

With their signatures to the appeal, politicians from CDU, SPD, FDP and Büdnis 90/Die Grünen ´support the demand for a right of residence. A broad coalition of churches, unions, charity organizations, judicial and lawyers` organizations, and last but not least various human rights and refugee initiatives, have been supporting the campaign for a right of residence for some time. For this year´s Refugee Day, various events will be held.

The extent of the support shows both the urgency of our demand, and its high level of acceptance in our society, says Günter Burkhardt, director of PRO ASYL. It is an encouragement for all those working with refugees.

PRO ASYL appeals to politics to stop pushing responsibility back and forth between the Federal government and the states, and instead get a regulation on right of residence under way. Not only does the immigration law have several fundamental shortcomings where the latter is concerned, and should be improved in current negotiations, instead of making them even more restrictive. Particularly, it is necessary – as the initiators of the appeal demand – to establish achievable requirements for the transition from being granted a residence permit to the right of residence.

Refugee Day, which takes place annually on the Friday before Harvest Festival,is part of the Intercultural Week/Week of Foreign Fellow Citizens, initiated by churches nationwide. This year´s motto is: „Stay! For a Right of Residence.“ As in past years, there will be 2000 events held at over 100 places during this year´s Intercultural Week.