Webjournal zum Flüchtlingskongress vom 21. April bis 1. Mai in Jena organisiert von The Voice Africa Forum e.V. , Schillergässchen 5, 07745 Jena	zurück | back

Struggle for the defense of the rights of the political refugees worldwide

Preamble on Political Prisoners An overwhelming majority of the participants of the Caravan Congress _ delegates from about 40 countries of different parts of the world - has been political prisoners in their home countries, are working for the rights and release of political prisoners or are under threat of becoming political prisoners, because they are in danger of being kept in deportation prisons, of getting deported and detained in the countries from which they fled because of political persecution.

In this congress ex-political prisoners from Iran, Cameroon, Turkey/Kurdistan, Chile, Peru Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam and Germany as well as people working for the rights and release of political prisoners came together to build up a strong alliance in order to defend the rights of political prisoners all over the world.

The lack of human rights and the precarious situation of political prisoners in countries like Cameroon is a conspiracy of silence. People, almost arbitrary arrested and suffering political imprisonment over centuries without legal defence and medical treatment get nearly forgotten in the public. If there is a public opinion about political prisoners they are often shown as terrorists, maniacs or irresponsible fanatics, whereas the political background of their political fights is wiped out of the context.

In the development of democratising dictatorial and brutal regimes like Iran, Turkey and Chile with the cosmetics of liberality and social democracy, f- type prisons with solitary confinements _ made in Germany _ are being implemented and imported as a modern method of torture. In order to fight against the import and the implementation of solitary confinements in our home countries we will fight together with ex - political prisoners from Germany, who are gone through the torture of 19 years of solitary confinement in German prisons.

Respect for human rights and upholding the rule of law are the cornerstone on which societal norms and values evolve.

Governments should be aware that landmark documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were the brainchild of the holocaust and other human atrocities that preceded the second world war and ushered in an era of relative peace and sense of living. If the issue of the respect of the rights of fellow humans shall ever gain respectability on the international corridors of power, human beings all over should be able to raise their voice and be heard. Death sentence, torture, detention, isolation and state persecution have no place in the world of civilised people. The government of Turkey should be aware that the thousands under its tentacles of evil, yearning for freedom, are our concern. These methods of treating fellow humans in the name of protecting state security is a fallacy that needs complete overhauling.

States and governments must not seek to detain activists, isolate them, deport them or hang them. Instead they should use their demands as a roadmap to walk political tight ropes.

We the participants of the Caravan Congress who have acquired rights as a virtue of our existence will expose the ills of oppressive societies until they listen to the cries of the unjustly afflicted and we shall expose these until freedom shall ring from all the torture and isolation chambers to the busiest places of the inhabited earth.

Karawane Kongress - Koordinationsbüro: The Voice Africa Forum,

Schillergaßchen 5, 07745 Jena, Tel 03641 66 52 14, und 0170 87 88 124, Fax 03641 42 37 95

Karawane für die Rechte der Flüchtlinge und MigrantInnen

c/o Internationaler Menschenrechtsverein, Wachmannstraße 81, 28209 Bremen,

Tel: 0421-5577093, Fax: 0421-5577094, mail@humanrights.de http://www.humanrights.de/

To the European Members of Parliament

Human Rights Violations in Turkish Prisons

Since April 15^th about 10 000 Kurdish and Turkish political prisoners are on hunger strike against the new prison regime of isolation that is being imposed on them, and has been imported from Germany.

We, the participants in the congress of the "Caravan for the Rights of the Refugees and Migrants" condemn the brutal and repressive policies of the Turkish government against its own people and against the Kurdish people.

The Caravan Congress (21^st April-1^st May in Jena, Germany) with delegates from Congo, Ghana, Iran, Georgien, Türkei/Kurdistan, Marokko, Ireland, Somalia, Eritrea, Nepal, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Cameroon, Guinea, Sudan, Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Chile, Kenya, Philipines, Syria, Brasil, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Pakistan, Ecuador, France, Germany, Spain, Britain, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Austria, USA, Portugal is in solidarity with the political prisoners and does not accept that at the beginning of the 21^st century the most elementary rights are still violated and ignored by the Turkish state.

We demand the end of physical and psychological torture, disappearances and extrajudicial murders executed inside and outside of Turkish prisons!

The still existing death sentence needs to be abolished!

The implementation of "solitary-confinement" as a modern method of torture in Turkey and all other countries of the world has to be stopped!

The fundamental civil rights of political prisoners _ such as the right to be represented by a lawyer of choice, the right to medical attention and the right to get visitors _ must be confirmed!

Until the above human rights issues are dealt with, Turkey cannot enter the European Union according to Geneva Conventions!

Jena, 24^th April 2000

Schillergaßchen 5, 07745 Jena, Tel 03641 66 52 14, und 0170 87 88 124, Fax 03641 42 37 95

Karawane für die Rechte der Flüchtlinge und MigrantInnen

c/o Internationaler Menschenrechtsverein, Wachmannstraße 81, 28209 Bremen,

Tel: 0421-5577093, Fax: 0421-5577094, mail@humanrights.de http://www.humanrights.de/