Photo Gallery Germany Addresses Its Asylum Problem
Germany has seen a significant increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving in the country over the last 12 months, leading to a shortage of housing. The opening of this new shelter in the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, an old school building, has triggered protests among neighbors who have also been joined by right-wing extremists.
Asylum seekers in Germany have long been trying to call attention to the system's inadequacies, including a requirement that they not leave the town where they are housed and prohibitions against working. Several protests have resulted, including a hunger strike among refugees in Munich this summer.
In addition to hunger strikes, several groups of refugees and their supporters staged marches across Germany last fall. Here, a group walks through the village of Petzow near Potsdam on their way to Berlin.
The right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany has sought to capitalize on concerns in the Hellersdorf neighborhood of Berlin over the new home for asylum seekers which opened there earlier this month. With the general election less than a month away, the NPD has made its anti-refugee stance the centerpiece of its campaign.
The far-right demonstrators in Hellersdorf have been consistently outnumbered by counter-demonstrations shouting down the neo-Nazis and welcoming the refugees.
The scenes from eastern Berlin have nevertheless been disturbing. Indeed, many refugees reportedly left the home soon after moving in because they feared their own safety.
NPD functionary Maria Fank at a right-wing rally in Hellersdorf in Berlin 10 days ago. The party is trying to foment xenophobia by protesting the asylum shelter that recently opened there. She is the girlfriend of ...
... Sebastian Schmidtke, who is the head of the NPD in the city-state of Berlin. He says: "The people think, here come the foreigners and they get the same benefits as we do. But we're sitting here, our children have no youth facilities and have to more or less play in the concrete jungle. ... Other people are given money even though they don't belong here."
Here, asylum seekers marching in protest at housing conditions in Bavaria in August. Often, refugees have to wait up to a year or even longer before hearing is conducted to determine if they will be granted asylum or not.
A refugee protest in Berlin last October. The requirement to remain in the camps where they have been assigned is one of the most common complaints. "As far as I know, compulsory residence is unique among European countries," says Bernd Ladwig, an expert on human rights and migration at the Berlin-based Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science. "This is something that needs to change."
Asylum seekers at a provisional shelter in the eastern German town of Eisenhüttenstadt. In the summer, several of those housed at this facility went on hunger strike to protest conditions there.
Two women in headscarves passing a right-wing extremist demonstration in Berlin last fall. The extremists were protesting a different asylum seeker camp in Berlin.
