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Germany: Deportation after 27 years sparks
Kurdish family's anger
9.4.2008
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April
9, 2008
Berlin, Germany, -- A Kurdish family
protested in central Berlin Tuesday at the
deportation to Turkey of a 51-year-old woman to a
city she does not know in a country whose language
she does not speak. Khadra Oumairat, mother of seven
and grandmother of three, fled the Lebanese Civil
War to come to Berlin with her Lebanese husband in
1980, more than 27 years ago.
The Oumairat family described how some 10 to 15
armed police burst into their home in the
Schoeneberg borough of Berlin at 8 am on Wednesday
last week.
The officers handcuffed all those present and hauled
Khadra off to the airport to put her on a flight to
Istanbul.
After wandering the airport there in despair with
virtually no money, she finally found refuge with a
friend of the family in the city.
The dozen-strong group of family members and
friends, with a baby in a pram, held up makeshift
placards in front of the Berlin City Hall on
Alexanderplatz.
"Deportation has torn our family apart," and "We
demand our mother back," was scrawled on them.
"She has three grandchildren here in Berlin," her
son Ismael, 27, said in fluent, although heavily
accented, German as intermittent drizzle fell over
the central Berlin square.
Khadra had four children when she arrived and gave
birth to a further three in Berlin. She herself was
born in Beirut in 1957 to Kurdish parents who had
fled Turkey during World War II,www.ekurd.net
according to the family.
Khadra's father then abandoned the family to return
to Turkey and take another wife. But he subsequently
registered the children from his first marriage with
the Turkish authorities as having been born in
Turkey.
According to these documents, Khadra was born in
1954 and is thus 54, not 51. The family claims that
all the children were registered as having been born
- improbably - on the same day, although in
different years.
Berlin Interior Ministry spokeswoman Nicola
Rothermel said she would not comment on individual
cases, but that the information available to the
authorities was "different."
"Her identity has been cleared up, and the
deportation has taken place in full compliance with
the law," Rothermel told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Khadra Oumairat had failed repeatedly to comply with
conditions set out for her to meet, and the case had
been running for years, Rothermel said.
A special application as a "hardship case" - the
last possible avenue open to her - had been lodged
as long ago as 2004, Rothermel said.
Ismael insisted that his mother had been seeking
Lebanese citizenship and had presented documents to
the authorities proving this just a week before she
was deported.
He described dramatic scenes when the police burst
into the Schoeneberg flat where the family lived.
"My sister tried to jump out of the window before
the police seized her," he said.
"They were all armed. They thought we were going to
resist them."
Reinhard Klich, the lawyer acting for the family,
described the police action as "really brazen."
He expressed outrage at the way armed officers had
stormed the flat, locking the men present - husband
Yousseff and two sons - in a room.
"It's unbelievable," Klich said, pledging to pursue
the case on civil rights grounds.
Diana,www.ekurd.net
Khadra's 21-year-old
daughter, denied reports that the family were all
recipients of social welfare, insisting that she was
studying and that at least one brother had a job.
And she expressed anger that the family had not been
able to say goodbye to their mother.
"She had no money. She should not have been deported
to Turkey. They should rather have sent her to
Lebanon," she said.
The family believe the background to the case lies
in attempts by the Berlin authorities to rid the
city of Kurdish criminal gangs that have gained a
fearsome reputation in Germany and other European
countries.
"But she is an innocent housewife and grandmother.
They can't put everyone in the same basket," Diana
said.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
DPA
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