Asylum – and what it‘s like in Germany By Fabian & Nico

1. Asylum – and what it‘s like in Germany By Fabian & Nico

2. What is Asylum? • The word Asylum has its origins in the Greek language, meaning a place of refuge. • Nowadays, however, people confuse it with the right of protection. • The Federal Republic of Germany is the only country in the entire world which has the right of Asylum in its constitution. • Following article 16a in the German constitution every person, who is either pursued in his own country or needs to fear such, is granted Asylum. • Only politically chased people have this right. • To conclude - people from emergency states, such as those, fighting civil wars and having poverty and unemployment are excluded from Asylum right.

3. It is said in the German Constitution (16a): • Politically pursued are granted Asylum • This occurs only to those NOT living in the European Union and/or a safe third country. In safe third countries human rights and basic civil rights have be assured.

4. What effect does this have? Germany is in the middle of Europe. The yellow countries are currently in The European Union. Asylum-seeker are not allowed to immigrate from these Countries. The Czech-Republic and Poland and of course the Swiss and Norwegian (marked with red point) are even able to accept asylum-seekers and to care for human rights, so that Germany does not Need to accept asylum-seekers. As Germany is surrounded by countries who are considered safe or are even in the European Union, the number of asylum- seekers was obviously reduced.

5. Germany is accepting less refugees • For the first time in the last 20 years, Germany is not accepting the most refugees. For 15 years Germany accepted the most refugees in the entire world, followed by 5 years in which she was on number two.However, today she is on number 4 behind Great Britain, the USA and France. The number of people seeking asylum was reduced by 29 percent between 2002 and 2003.This proves that the number of asylum-seekers stands in direct connection with the country‘s politics. Changes in the German law have affected those numbers. Although the Genfer Convention claims that every asylum-seeker should be treated individually, asylum-seekers seem to put their destiny in politicians‘ hands.It is therefore necessary that the European Union provides a general law followed by every country in the European Union.

6. Refugees, who are discriminated due to their religion, race or nationality are granted asylum as long as they were not granted asylum in another country before. • Based on the German history the right for asylum is manifested in the German constitution. • In the year 1951 the United Nations defined the term refugee as: Somebody who is prosecuted in his own country and therefore needs to leave the country to find a safe place in another country. • Statistics prove that most of the refugees coming to Germany are coming from the far-east countries. Again, the number of refugees and emigrants from a certain country reflect the social and political situation in that country. • The number of people seeking asylum climbed from 57.000 in the year 1987 to 193.000 in the year 1990 and reached a maximum with 438.000 in the year 1992. • Due to this increase the CDU, CSU, SPD and FDP agreed at December 6th in 1992 on a common principle which didn’t erase the right of asylum from the constitution but didn’t allow people from safe countries to seek asylum. Defined as safe countries are those in the European Union, and other European states in which certain human laws are established. • These changes led to a reduction in asylum-seekers by 84% between 1992 and 2002.