Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
35
Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
G E R M A N Y
UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination
In March Germany came before the UN Committee
for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
in Geneva, as part of its four-yearly review. AI took
the opportunity to brief CERD with its concerns about
continuing allegations of police ill-treatment of
foreign nationals in Germany. In its Concluding
observations the Committee expressed concern about
"... repeated reports of racist incidents in police
stations as well as ill-treatment inflicted by law
enforcement officials on foreigners, including asylum
seekers, and German nationals of foreign origin".
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CERD urged Germany to "... strengthen existing
educational measures for
civil servants who deal with
issues involving foreigners, including asylum seekers,
and German nationals of foreign origin".
UN Convention against Torture
On 26 June, the United Nations Day of Remembrance
for Victims of Torture, the German Foreign Office
official, Dr Ludger Volmer, declared Germany’s
intention to accede to Articles 21 and 22 of the UN
Convention against Torture and Other, Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(Convention against Torture), which allow both
individuals and states to make complaints directly to
the Committee against Torture, the body of experts
which monitors states implementation of the
Convention. He also reportedly declared his country’s
commitment to the drawing-up of an additional
protocol to the Convention against Torture, which
would provide for a system of visits of the Committee
to states parties.
Allegations of police ill-treatment
In the period under review AI learned of the
sentencing of police officers who had been convicted
of ill-treating detainees in several separate incidents.
Munich’s District Court (Landgericht München I)
reportedly convicted a 34-year-old police officer
during an appeals trial on 17 May of ill-treating and
wrongfully depriving two detainees of their liberty.
The court gave the police officer a suspended 18-
month prison sentence. The police officer was also
reportedly dismissed from the police force. A second,
more junior, police officer was reportedly given a
suspended prison sentence of 10 months, while two
other police officers were acquitted of ill-treating the
detainees. The convictions related to incidents which
occurred during Munich’s October Festival in 1998,
during which a handcuffed detainee was beaten by
police officers, resulting in him sustaining serious
damage to an eardrum. In another incident, a second
detainee was reportedly hit across the head and
punched in the stomach by police officers. In 2000 a
court had originally sentenced the 34-year-old senior
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UN Doc CERD/C/58/Misc.21/Rev.4, 22 March 2001 -
police officer to two years nine months’
imprisonment, while his three subordinates were
given suspended prison sentences of 14 months.
In April Rottweil District Court (Landgericht
Rottweil), Baden-Württemberg, reportedly upheld the
convictions of two police officers who were accused
of ill-treating a 28-year-old man, who they had
mistaken for a criminal suspect they were pursuing.
The police officers had reportedly originally been
convicted in October 2000 and were suspended from
duty. The police officers violently detained the man as
he left his house during a police chase in February
1999 in the town of Rottweil after reportedly
misreading footprints in the snow. One of the police
officers allegedly grabbed hold of the man, while the
other police officer repeatedly hit him with his torch,
resulting in the detainee’s hospitalization. The police
officer, who held the detainee, was given a suspended
prison sentence of nine months, while his colleague
accused of striking the detainee received a 14-month
suspended sentence and was dismissed from the police
force.
Police counter-complaints
AI was informed of a case in which police lodged
counter-complaints against a Nigerian national who
had alleged police ill-treatment in relation to an
identity check in May 1999. Julius Osadolor, then 28,
alleged that he had been physically and verbally
abused by police officers after being detained at
Bochum railway station on 4 May 1999. He alleged
that, while being strip-searched at a police station on
Uhlandstraße, a police officer hit him to the ground,
after he verbally protested against a police officer
searching through the memory of his mobile
telephone. Julius Osadolor provided AI with medical
documentation stating he suffered multiple bruising as
a result of the incident. He was also deemed by a
doctor to be unfit for work for seven days.
AI wrote to the German authorities in July 1999
expressing concern that Julius Osadolor may have
been treated in a cruel, inhuman or degrading manner
by the police officers in Bochum, urging them to
investigate Julius Osadolor’s allegations. AI received
a response from the Ministry of the Interior of North
Rhine-Westphalia in November 1999, stating that
Julius Osadolor had allegedly refused to provide the
two police officers with identification upon request,
and so was detained. The Ministry of the Interior
denied that Julius Osadolor was ill-treated in custody,
but stated that, pending the conclusion of the
investigation of the state prosecutor it could not take
any further position in relation to the case. Moreover,
the Ministry of the Interior stated that Julius
Osadolor’s German wife, Eva-Maria Osadolor, who
witnessed the police officers detain her husband, had
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