Germany

An online campaign has been launched for the retrial of the controversial death of Oury Jalloh. The Sierra Leonean refugee died in police custody in the eastern German city of Dessau on 7 January 2005. In different court proceedings, the police have always maintained that the African killed himself by setting on fire the mattress on which he was shackled. …

Organisations of people of African descent have called for a public protest against the trade in sub-Saharan migrants in Libya on Saturday, 25 November. The event, named ‘Demonstration to End the Enslavement, Rape, Torture and Killings of Blacks in Libya’, will take place in front of the Libyan Embassy in Berlin. Organised by, among other organisations, Black Community Hamburg, Lampedusa …

Frank-Walter Steinmeier has taken Germany’s political parties to task after talks to form a new government broke down. The German president says coalition talks must continue amidst speculation there could be a new vote. Deutsche Welle’s Jefferson Chase (Berlin) reports. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier did not announce any concrete steps in a brief statement delivered in Berlin on Monday after …

Germany’s Free Democrats have called off coalition talks with Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc and the Greens. FDP head Christian Lindner said that after weeks of negotiations the parties could not find a “basis of trust.” Germany was thrust into uncertainty early Monday morning after a month of four-party exploratory talks about forming a so-called Jamaica coalition collapsed. Chancellor Angela Merkel …

The new system will allow those entitled to benefits to directly collect cash at tills, rather than using distributors at job centres, reports Emma Beswick. Germany’s unemployed will soon be able to collect benefits at checkouts in certain supermarkets and chemists as part of a government bid to cut costs, according to newspaper WELT AM SONNTAG. Set to kick off …

The chancellor has said that her CDU party, the Greens and the business-friendly FDP will have an initial agreement ready this week. It is nearly two months since Germany held its general election. Elizabeth Schumacher reports. German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared optimistic on Sunday that despite major policy differences – her Christian Democratic Party (CDU), the Greens and the pro-business …

The Federal Statistical Office has revealed that 2 percent of the people who lived in Germany at the end of 2016 had lodged asylum applications. That’s more than double the figure for 2014. Ben Knight reports. On Friday, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) revealed that 1.6 million people were officially registered as “seeking protection for humanitarian reasons” in Germany at …

Powerful Arab criminal clans are actively trying to plant their members into Berlin’s police and other state services, a local German Police Union head has claimed. He went on to say the mafia gangs are seeking to control police actions. Large criminal networks of migrant descent are seeking to provide some of their members access to the inner workings of …

What happens when officials refuse an applicant’s request for asylum? In Germany, applicants have recourse to administrative courts and can even approach the European Court of Human Rights. Here is a short explanation. Types of rejection The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees or BAMF can reject applications for asylum if its officials believe that the individual concerned does not …

The number of asylum cases being dealt with by German courts has risen by almost 500 percent in the past year, according to a report. Courts are said to have been overwhelmed by the volume of cases. The number of cases being heard in Germany’s administrative courts rose to about 320,000 in the first half of this year, from just …

Threats, name-calling and a whole lot of dramatic posturing: talks among four fractious parties to form a new government under German Chancellor Angela Merkel have proved more fiery than fruitful so far. September’s inconclusive general election left the camps, which span the political spectrum, scrambling to form a stable government under Merkel, with the outcome of negotiations highly uncertain. “We …

The German government has admitted that it does not always know the whereabouts of rejected asylum seekers, but argues that the number doesn’t tell the whole truth. The government’s asylum agency faces a file backlog. Ben Knight reports. Around 30,000 rejected asylum seekers have simply disappeared from Germany’s records, a German newspaper has claimed, though the government and refugee organizations …

The number of jobless people in Europe’s biggest economy has reached a new low, fresh data has shown. Germany’s labour market experienced its traditional autumn increase in employment in both adjusted and unadjusted terms. The number of unemployed people in Germany dropped below the 2.4-million mark in October, the lowest figure logged since German unification in 1990. The Nuremberg-based Federal …

By removing visa requirements for Singaporeans, Paraguay helped Singapore edge out Germany for the top spot in the Passport Index published by global financial advisory firm Arton Capital. Singapore was previously tied with Germany for the number-one spot. Paraguay recently removed its visa requirements for Singaporeans, giving citizens easy access to 159 countries, compared to 158 for German passport-holders. Historically, …

Germany’s Bundestag has chosen outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble to be its parliamentary president or speaker. Accepting the post, Schäuble stressed the need to maintain mutual “respect” amid heated debates. Germany’s new parliament held its first session since the September elections in Berlin on Tuesday, with one of its first acts being to choose Wolfgang Schäuble from Angela Merkel’s Christian …

Following its election on 24 September, the German Bundestag will hold its constituent sitting on Tuesday, 24 October, at 11 a.m. in the Plenary Chamber of the Reichstag Building in Berlin. The agenda includes the election of the Bundestag President and the other members of the Presidium, along with the adoption of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag. …

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The youth empowerment initiative to promote educational achievement in the African community in Germany holds its annual award ceremony at the premises of the IHK in Hamburg on Saturday, 21 October 2017. The annual African Youth Education (AYE) Awards aim to motivate young people of African origin in Germany to seek excellence in school. The scheme was initiated in 2011 …

A rejected asylum seeker accused of raping a girl in front of her boyfriend at a nature reserve in April has been sentenced to more than 11 years in jail. A 31-year-old man from Ghana was found guilty of rape by a court in Bonn on Thursday (19 October) and was sentenced to eleven and a half years in custody. …

Success rates for asylum applications in Germany vary widely from state to state, according to a new report by Funke Mediengruppe. But the varying rates raise questions over how Germany processes asylum requests. Iraqis much more likely to get asylum in Bremen than in Berlin, official figures show. For example, the protection rate for Iraqi refugees in Bremen during the …