NDR has released texts and a photograph of a Moroccan teenager in shackles allegedly sent by an officer on social media platform WhatsApp. Pro Asyl has demanded an investigation and for the "whole cesspool" to be exposed.
Gunter Burkhardt, head of the organization called the incidents "an appalling level of racism and contempt for human beings" at the hands of the Hanover federal police.
The two alleged incidents took place last year. One involved the arrest of a 19 year old Afghan at Hanover's railway station in March 2014 after officers discovered he did not have permission to be in Germany. Officers took him back to the department where he was dragged with his feet shackled and a policeman apparently stuck his finger up his nose. The officer in question reportedly wrote on WhatsApp that "it was great."
Hannover: Flüchtlinge in Polizeigewahrsam misshandelt? http://t.co/1khxaXoUE1 #Flüchtlinge
— tagesschau (@tagesschau) May 17, 2015
Another case allegedly involves a 19 year old Moroccan who was arrested for not producing a train ticket. In another WhatsApp message, an officer reportedly forced the teenager to eat rancid pork "off the floor" — Islam prohibits eating pork.
The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner has called on the country to do more to combat xenophobia. Meanwhile, a recent report titled 'Unwanted, Unnoticed: an audit of 160 asylum and immigration-related deaths in Europe' which was published by the Institute of Race Relations, found that Germany had the largest number of recorded migrant deaths — 29.
"In September 2014, footage emerged from Germany showing guards from one of the main operators of asylum reception facilities, European Homecare, abusing asylum seekers, forcing them to lie down on mattresses covered in vomit and standing with a boot on their neck."
The Institute of Race Relations says the deaths in the last five years in the detention and reception centers and the streets and the squats of Europe: "are a product of the rightlessness and the lack of human dignity European government's accord to migrants and asylum seekers."
'Unwanted, Unnoticed: an audit of 160 asylum and immigration-related death in Europe' by Reem Abu-Hayyeh and Frances Webber has been described by the IRR as "disturbing".
"Poor and vulnerable people across Europe, irrespective of nationality, are increasingly ignored by the affluent and the powerful. They are, to all intents and purposes, Europe's non-people — 'unwanted, unvalued and unnoticed'," said Liz Fekete, Director of the IRR.
Meanwhile, the crisis in the Mediterranean continues with thousands of refugees and asylum seekers risking their lives to reach Europe. Brussels is calling on EU countries to establish a quota system of sharing migrants among the 28 member states.
The proposed resettlement program has been rejected by Britain, France and many Eastern European countries — however, backed by Germany.
