BONN: The German parliament has shut the door on hundreds of refugees with a landmark vote that Struck down the guaranteed right of all foreigners to assist asylum in the Country, reports AP. The 521132 vote to dispose of the guarantee, a pillar of postwar German law, came last week after 13 hours of heated debate that mirrored the tumult outside the parliament on the Rhine.
Some 10,000 leftist militants formed a human chain around the government center and pelted the police with rocks, bottles and fire Crackers.
The deputies affirmed a new law that would turn away most refugees at the country’s borders and return those who arrive at sea or airports unless they come from Countries at war or run by dictators.
Struggling under the financial and social burdens of unification, Germany Jeaders have decided they can no longer offer the generous welcome to asylum seekers that has been a basic principle of the postwar governments,
More than two million refugees have entered the country since 1989, costing the treasury billions of marks every year and inciting Neo Nazi’s who withheld more than 3,000 times in the past 16 months.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 4, 1993
