Scandal about the planned deportation center at BER Airport – No deportation center anywhere!

Press release from 03.08.2022

“Today’s publications by FragDenStaat, rbb and the ARD political magazine Kontraste demonstrate the questionable means the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior is resorting to in order to push through the construction of a deportation center at BER Airport, bypassing its own coalition partner and the state parliament. It is not only a political scandal to keep these plans secret even from the own finance minister. From the very beginning, the Ministry of the Interior intransparently cooperated with a flimsy investor, which is later presented as the supposedly only option.

The real scandal is that a deportation center is being built at BER in which refugees are deliberately isolated and locked up. Planned is a deportation detention center to hold 120 people and perspectively the center could even be expanded to a deportation prison,” says the press spokeswoman of the initiative “Stop Deportation Center BER” Alexis Martel.

“The shady deals of the company Harder & Partner were and are known to the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior. Apparently, JĆ¼rgen B. Harder can determine the political conditions in favor of its new large-scale construction site “deportation prison”. This is in his interest: Because millions can be earned with the racist business.

While European governments are increasingly undermining the right to asylum, Brandenburg and the federal government are pushing for even more deportations. Since the plans for the deportation center became known, we have made it clear: No one is illegal. We stand against all forms of racist detention of refugees, whether it is called custody pending departure, deportation detention center or airport asylum procedure.

We do not accept the systematic racist oppression, deportation and discrimination of people! That is why we resist the detention and deportation of people and will prevent the deportation center at BER. Our resistance has only just begun.”

No deportation center at BER airport!
No deportation center anywhere!

Press contact:
Alexis Martel (Initiative “Stop Deportation Center BER”)
Email: stopdeportationcenterber@riseup.net
Twitter: @Abschiebez_BER
Instagram: @stopdeportationcenterber

More information:
https://fragdenstaat.de/blog/2022/08/03/ber-abschiebezentrum/
https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2022/08/berlin-brandenburg-flughafen-ber-investor-stuebgen.html
https://www.fluechtlingsrat-brandenburg.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/22_08_03Kein-Abschiebezentrum-am-BER-in-Schoenefeld_2.pdf

About “Stop Deportation Center BER”
The initiative was founded at the end of 2021 to organize against the planned deportation center at BER Airport and to take the protest to the streets and online. Most recently, the initiative worked on a campaign against the questionable investment company “Harder & Partner” and called for an online day of action (see also https://dumpharder.neocities.org/).