Amnesty International Report 2005 - Germany

Covering events from January - December 2004

There were allegations of ill-treatment and excessive use of force by police. There was continued debate about whether there were circumstances in which law enforcement officials were permitted to use torture.

Background

In July, after a long delay, the Ministers of the Interior of the 16 Länder (regional states) recommended ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. The Optional Protocol requires, among other things, an independent monitoring mechanism for detention facilities at the national level. Its establishment was under discussion.

The Bundestag (parliament) ratified the Optional Protocol to the UN Children's Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflicts. Regrettably, it ordered a reservation to be made to allow minors from the age of 17 to join the armed forces.

Police ill-treatment and excessive use of force

In January AI published a report on police ill-treatment and excessive use of force, highlighting 20 cases as examples, and citing a series of similar allegations. In the report, AI urged the federal government and the governments of the 16 Länder to ensure that allegations were investigated promptly and impartially, to keep statistics on incidents of possible police ill-treatment and to establish an independent body to investigate such cases. AI discussed the report and the recommendations with police representatives, government officials and other experts, but by the end of 2004 neither the federal government nor any Länder government had officially put AI's recommendations into action.

In many of the cases AI investigated, criminal proceedings against police officers were either discontinued or ended with acquittals. In only one case, that of Aamir Ageeb (see below), were police officers convicted.

• Svetlana Lauer, a 44-year-old German national originally from Kazakstan, alleged that several police officers ill-treated her at her home in Hallstadt, Bavaria, in February 2002. Criminal proceedings against the officers were discontinued and an appeal by Svetlana Lauer's lawyer was rejected in April 2003. However, proceedings initiated by the Bamberg Public Prosecutor's Office in September 2003 against Svetlana Lauer for resisting law enforcement officials, causing bodily harm to the officers and slander ended in an-out-of court settlement after she agreed to pay 210 Euros. The case was officially closed in May 2004.

• Josef Hoss was allegedly ill-treated by police officers of the Special Deployment Command in December 2000 in St. Augustin near Bonn. Proceedings against the police officers were discontinued in June 2003. An appeal against the discontinuation of the proceedings was rejected by the Prosecutor's Office in Cologne in February 2004. A final appeal by Josef Hoss' lawyer was rejected in April 2004. The Special Deployment Command was reportedly disbanded. By the end of 2004, Josef Hoss' compensation case had not been decided.

• Sixty-two-year-old community activist Walter Herrmann was allegedly ill-treated after he was arrested by police in Cologne in September 2001. Walter Herrmann sustained multiple injuries, allegedly as a result of ill-treatment by police officers at the point of arrest and at Cologne Police Headquarters. In February 2004 the three policemen accused of ill-treating Walter Herrmann were acquitted by a court in Cologne. The judge found that there was not enough evidence to prove that Walter Herrmann's injuries were inflicted deliberately. Walter Herrmann's appeal against this decision was rejected in November and the acquittal confirmed.

• Thirty-year-old René Bastubbe was shot dead by a police officer in July 2002 in Nordhausen, Thuringia, when he resisted arrest and threw one or more cobble stones at the police officer. As René Bastubbe bent down to pick up another cobble stone, the police officer shot him in the back from a distance of several metres. René Bastubbe died as a result of massive blood loss. In October 2003 Mühlhausen District Court acquitted the police officer and ruled that he had shot René Bastubbe in self-defence. The Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe rejected an appeal in June 2004 by the prosecution to revise this judgment.

• Miriam Canning, a Kenyan national, was allegedly ill-treated by police officers in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, in July 2001. Police officers had entered her home in the early hours to check the identification of her 19-year-old son and her cousin, who had been stopped and searched by the police earlier that night. The Canning family lodged a complaint but the prosecuting authorities discontinued criminal proceedings against the police. A number of important issues were apparently not addressed by the prosecuting authorities, particularly the cause of Miriam Canning's injuries, which, according to a doctor, were perfectly consistent with her allegations. Nevertheless, in October 2004 Miriam Canning's claim for damages was dismissed on the ground that her injuries were caused by negligence or careless handling and not by a deliberate attack.

• Aamir Ageeb, a Sudanese national, died during forced deportation from Frankfurt to Khartoum via Cairo on 28 May 1999. According to experts he died of asphyxiation as a result of the manner in which he was restrained on the aeroplane. On 18 October 2004, the District Court of Frankfurt am Main convicted three officers of the German Border Police (Bundesgrenzschutz) of manslaughter. It imposed on each of them a suspended sentence of nine months with probation and a fine of 2,000 Euros to be paid to Aamir Ageeb's family. The presiding judge stated that not only the three officers sentenced but also their supervisors were responsible for the death of Aamir Ageeb, because they had failed to give clear instructions and to intervene during the deportation. Moreover, the directives for deportations were insufficient. Some of these had been changed and clarified as a result of Aamir Ageeb's death.

Torture debate

Public debate continued about whether there were circumstances, including "terrorism", in which law enforcement officials were permitted to use torture. It arose from a report that in 2002 Wolfgang Daschner, Vice-President of the Frankfurt am Main police, had ordered a subordinate officer to use force against a criminal suspect while investigating the kidnap of an 11-year-old boy. Wolfgang Daschner publicly defended his actions. In June 2004 the Regional Court in Frankfurt ordered Wolfgang Daschner to be tried on a charge of severe intimidation. On 20 December Wolfgang Daschner and a subordinate police officer were convicted of threatening a suspect with torture but the Regional Court found mitigating circumstances in their cases and therefore they were penalized only with a caution. However, the presiding judge stated that torture was a crime which violates international and constitutional law.

Many leading figures were quick to condemn torture, but the debate also gave rise to attempts by some to justify it and to argue that in some cases there should be exceptions from the fundamental prohibition of torture. AI remained concerned about the lack of an active, unequivocal response from senior politicians reaffirming Germany's commitment to upholding its international obligations on the prohibition of torture.

New Immigration Act

After about four years of discussion, a new Immigration Act was passed, most of which was due to come into force in January 2005. Under the new regulations, victims of human rights abuses committed by non-state actors and victims of gender-based human rights violations would be eligible for recognition as refugees. However, many of the new provisions appeared to undermine the rights of asylum-seekers and of people without residence permits.