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Country: Germany
Topic: Kawczynski / Jail / Refugees / Yugoslavia
Date: 02/11/2001
Location: Hamburg / Germany
Author: Marko D. Knudsen for RNN



RNN Exclusive/

'Rudko Kawczynski to be imprisioned in Germany, on Former concentration camp facility, for Civil Rights activities in 1990'

On November 9th 1990, several hundred Roma engaged in a protest march from Germany to the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva to demonstrate against the organization's Roma refugee policy. At the border the group of refugees was refused entrance into Switzerland. They then blocked the border station in Basel for seven days.  

Due to this demonstration, more than 2000 Roma from former Yugoslavia received staying permissions in Germany. Most of them would have died most probably if they had been deported, in this time to that area. It is for this demonstration that Mr. Kawczynski has been sentenced to a 50-day jail term.

Mr. Kawczynskis lawyer fought through all instances, ending up at the German constitutional court in 1994. The constitutional court has not made any decision until now.

More than 60 Roma organizations protested during the UN World Conference against Racism(Durban/South Africa September 2001) and on a press conference against German deportation practices.

For years the legal prosecutor waited for this decision to be made, but finally took action on end of October, lacking legal backing, sending Mr. Kawczynski a letter that he was to be imprisoned.

He was delayed until 19th of November to go to Neuengamme.

The former sight of a Nazi concentration camp, half of the Neuengamme facility today is a memorial, the other half a prison. Until today, Roma and Sinti get imprisoned here in a place where their parents and grandparents were killed.

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