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Parliament plans asylum law change

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Parliament plans asylum law change
A Roma family in Berlin. Photo: DPA

The German Parliament will meet on Friday to discuss plans to restrict immigration from Balkan countries which would see Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina classed as “safe countries of origin”.

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This would mean that asylum seekers from those countries in Germany could be sent back home quicker than before and applications could be rejected without reason. 

Last year there were 22,495 asylum requests from people from Balkan states. But the acceptance rate is low, particularly for Roma people.

Green Party politician Claudia Roth strongly criticized the government's planned restriction of the asylum law on Friday.

Speaking on ARD's Morning Show she talked of a “terrible attack on the remnants of our asylum law”.           

Roth disagreed with the assessment that the three states are safe for all ethnic groups.

There are “huge warehouses” where people are vegetating, are discriminated against and are “exposed to pogrom-like violence,” she said.

But at the beginning of February, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said: “People from these countries are not politically persecuted, so their applications have to be quickly and clearly decided upon.”

SEE ALSO: Asylum seekers up 80 percent in a year

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