German Social Democratic Party backs brutal offensive against refugees
By
Marianne Arens
7 July 2018
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has approved the asylum package of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU). The SPD, which is part of the ruling three-party grand coalition government, has lined up behind the refugee programme of CSU Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, which lays out a policy of sealing off the country’s borders, accelerating deportations and establishing closed refugee camps.
Late Thursday evening, SPD leader Andrea Nahles and SPD Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared before the press. They claimed that the Seehofer plan did not mean the establishment of closed camps. The “transit procedure” will be carried out in already existing barracks of the federal police and “there are no legal changes necessary,” said Nahles.
This is pure eyewash. Shortly before, the SPD, along with the CDU and CSU, signed the paper on an “accelerated border procedure” outlining the government’s new asylum policy. It states that asylum seekers at the borders may in future be arrested by federal police and detained for 48 hours before either being deported or sent to “AnkER” (anchor) centres (AZs).
Legally, the fiction of “non-entry” creates a reactionary construct that opens the door to the arbitrary treatment of refugees. The coalition paper states: “As with the existing airport procedure, persons do not legally enter Germany.” In other words, as part of the planned “transit procedure,” extraterritorial zones will be set up in Germany that are not regarded legally as German state territory and thus create a legal vacuum.
Three years ago, leading social democrats rejected the creation of such zones, declaring that they…