Refugees

Refugees in Southeast Asia live in legal limbo and are subject to harassment, arrest, and detention. Especially Rohingya refugees are in indefinite detention and have been forgotten by the international media.

What happens to refugees on their way to the European Union? Serbian novelist Vladimir Arsenijević has travelled the Balkan route and kept a diary of his journey.

Declaring Serbia a safe third country was the first of Hungarian repeated violations of human rights. Hungary turned the humanitarian crisis into a purely political issue. It seems that Europe too will choose to follow the politics of closed doors.

A special EU summit of heads of state and government will take place on 23 September. After years of neglect, however, a solidary EU refugee policy cannot be elaborated in summary proceedings and under pressure. A commentary by Eva van de Rakt.

For Europe, the current refugee crisis presents a two-fold challenge: Will we uphold our humanitarian values, that is, do we view the refugees as people in need and with a right to a safe haven? And will the EU act as one – or will national selfishness erode European togetherness?

After images of Budapest’s Keleti train station illustrating the need for a fast EU assistance programme for refugees: the governments of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia reaffirmed their vehement “no” to refugee quotas.

After Danish Jews fled to their neutral neighbours in 1943 and Sweden agreed to offer temporary refuge to some thirty thousand survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, a country deeply averse to foreigners transformed. So can Europe today. An article of the "Berlin Anthology".

Europe has always been a continent of refugees und migrations. The debate surrounding how to deal with these challenges has only just begun. An article of our "Berlin Anthology".

From my hotel room in Budapest at the weekend, I followed the images of Germany’s Willkommenskultur, the country’s policy and manner of welcoming refugees and migrants. They have now been granted permission to travel via Austria to Germany.

For four days now I have been in Budapest, a witness to a drama that I would have considered impossible in an EU capital not long ago.

Frau Meiser doesn't know much about her lodger. Herr Nazim is clean and is neat. He speaks pretty German and his wife is dead. An article of the "Berlin Anthology" about a secret love.

Malika and Fatima are waiting for me by the entrance to the women’s clinic at the Charité. The women are very quiet; I try to strike up a conversation. I ask them how they lived in Chechnya... An article of the "Berlin Anthology".

The true heroes of our world choose to flee, instead of pushing automatic rifles into the hands of their sons. A poem from the "Berlin Anthology".

It does not help to turn the world around. It does not help to shake the Law as hard as one can. Justice refuses to function in a recognizable manner. An article of the "Berlin Anthology".

On the day after the World Refugee Day, five thousand nationalists and neo-Nazis marched through Bratislava, demanding to stop “the Islamisation of Europe” - the police had to intervene. Still, many Slovak politicians are casting about anti-immigration sentiment.

At the southern border of “Fortress Europe”, the Mediterranean has turned into a graveyard. The current migrant crisis in Europe is about more than a risk to the EU’s reputation. It strikes at the core of the EU’s founding values.  A continuation of its half-hearted response to the migration crisis is out of question.

The recent terrorist attacks in Paris evoked strong reactions all around the world. The Hungarian government has reacted with proposals to restrict freedom of speech and by highlighting the problems of immigration.

Assad and ISIS appear to be perfect opposites. In reality, however, they are rather complementary. Whatever aspirations one may have for a cooperation with the regime, neither an end to the war nor safety will be gained through it.

More than six million Syrian refugees are in search of a different, a safer place in their home country and yet only arrive at places that are currently slightly less ghastly.

On November 7, 2013, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that homosexual asylum seekers be granted asylum in EU Member States. An important judgment that is, however, a drop in the ocean in the light of the EU’s policy of closure with regard to asylum and refugee policy.