Muenster / Germany (RNN Agency) 20.04.1998

Together with the votes of SPD and GAL the town council resolved to ask of the North Rhine-Westfalia minister of the interior Franz-Josef Kniola to make use of the possibility to take in the Roma for humanitarian reasons. This possibility is embodied in th e Foreigner Law, as long as the Roma are exposed to danger and inhuman conditions of life in their home countries. The background is that approx. 50 Roma families must reckon with a soon deportation to Ex-Yugoslavia.

The CDU rejected the resolution " because the rules of equal treatment for all refugees in Münster would be abrogated by this", said town councillor Magdalene Gefroi. Since the minister of the interior Kniola (SPD) declared himself against the right of re sidence for Roma groups, the CDU- party leader Werner Stolz considers the resolution as an "island solution" with which the the town councillors want to relieve their conscience "without changing anything in the matter itself". Hery Klas (GAL) characterized the position of the CDU as "morally blamable". The Roma would have to reckon with their deportation to a "home country" that actually does not exist anymore. SPD party leader Theo Straßer pleaded for the Roma. On the other hand he warned against raising "wrong hopes" of the Roma.