Cemal Kemal Altun

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Memorial stone for Cemal Kemal Altun in front of the building at Hardenbergstrasse 20

Cemal Kemal Altun (born April 13, 1960 in Samsun , Turkey , † August 30, 1983 in West Berlin ) was a Turkish asylum seeker in the Federal Republic of Germany who committed suicide in 1983 during the deportation process in connection with the threat of extradition to the Turkish military dictatorship perpetrated by jumping from the sixth floor of the Berlin Administrative Court. This caused a nationwide sensation. Altun was the first in a series of political refugees from Turkey who had been threatened with deportation since the summer of 1982 and who committed suicide in this situation, and for the first time such a refugee drama reached the attention of a broad media audience. Altun's suicide was the reason for the Alternative List for Democracy and Environmental Protection (AL) and other activists to found the " Fluchtburg Berlin " project , as well as the impetus for the establishment of church asylum in Germany. Since the amendment to the Basic Law in 1993 , which drastically restricted the right of asylum, at least 149 people had committed suicide by the end of 2007 in view of their threatened deportation.

Life

Altun was already politically active as a youth and was organized in the social democratic Republican People's Party . Due to speeches at meetings and leaflets, he was targeted by nationalist forces as a schoolboy and student and was physically attacked several times. After the military coup on September 12, 1980, numerous critics of the regime, including those from Altun's immediate vicinity, were arrested, tortured or murdered. On November 8, 1980, the 20-year-old student Altun fled via Romania to Bulgaria , Hungary , Czechoslovakia and via the GDR to West Berlin to his sister who lived there. A few months later, the Turk applied for political asylum when it became known through Turkish newspapers that the Turkish authorities assumed he was involved in the murder of the politician Gün Sazak . The state security found out about his application and switched on the BKA . The BKA informed Interpol in Turkey and asked whether an extradition request would be made. On the same day, the Turkish government issued an arrest warrant. The Turkish authorities constructed similar allegations against other of their citizens in the Federal Republic of Germany. Over 150 extradition requests have been received since September 1980. At the end of 1983, the Federal Republic of Germany was still examining around 40 percent of these cases; in 20 percent it had complied with the request and handed the victims directly into the hands of their torturers. Instead of asylum, the revelation of his history of persecution resulted in Altun being extradited on July 5, 1982. On February 21, 1983, the federal government approved the extradition of Cemal Altun to Turkey, under whose military dictatorship the young Turk was threatened with "death from inhumane conditions of detention, torture or execution", according to Amnesty International . The deportation was initially stopped by a complaint against the extradition of Altun, approved by the European Commission for Human Rights in Strasbourg on May 2, 1983 . After 13 months under aggravated conditions in the Moabit prison, he was taken out of his cell in March 1983 and taken to the airport. When the Turk was recognized as a politically persecuted person (against which the Federal Commissioner for Asylum Matters of the Ministry of the Interior filed a complaint), the case had already triggered Europe-wide solidarity with Altun.

suicide

Another procedure to clarify the question of whether Altun could be extradited to the Turkish military government took place on August 29 on the sixth floor of the Berlin Higher Administrative Court , which was directly opposite the Zoologischer Garten train station . On the second day of the trial, after the handcuffs were opened, Altun ran to an open window in the courtroom and fell 25 meters and died.

The federal government reacted with dismay and said that an act of desperation could not be expected. Amnesty International placed an obituary notice for Altun stating, among other things:

“The ongoing erosion of the right to asylum and the atmosphere of xenophobia have robbed him of confidence in the Basic Law. At the age of 23 he died as a victim of a policy that placed good relations with the Turkish military above the protection of a persecuted person. "

Amnesty described Altun's desperation as understandable and the attitude of those responsible as incomprehensible.

In a final attempt to clarify the matter, the court awarded Cemal Kemal Altun the right of asylum six months after his death.

His grave is in the Dreifaltigkeitskirchhof III in Berlin-Mariendorf .

Effects

Described by government politicians as an "individual case" - the first known case of a refugee who committed suicide in West Germany for fear of deportation, Altun was followed by well over a hundred comparable cases - the SPD and the Greens were the cause of violent accusations against the Foreign policy of the government ( Cabinet Kohl I ), especially the responsible Federal Minister of the Interior Friedrich Zimmermann . The later Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel , who as State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice is said to have supported the extradition of Altun to the Turkish military dictatorship, was also sharply attacked. Altun's lawyer Wolfgang Wieland , however, did not confirm Kinkel's position; According to him, Kinkel had given verbal assurances that Altun would not be extradited.

Due to the widespread attention it caused, Altun's death had long-term effects on nationwide refugee work, which among other things led to the establishment of Pro Asyl . Heiko Kauffmann from Pro Asyl spoke in a speech on August 31, 2003 in the Berlin Church of the Holy Cross of the fact that this “of ad hoc alliances like the 40th anniversary of the liberation with advertisements like 'hands off the right of asylum', [ ...] through the 'Conferences of the Free Refugee Cities', through regional and national founding of refugee councils , to regular meetings of the associations active in refugee work in Bonn around the UNHCR and ZDWF . "

The establishment of asylum in the church in Berlin can be traced back directly to an initiative collaboration of a support committee for the release of Cemal Kemal Altun.

According to Kauffmann, on the other hand, Altun's suicide "did not lead to a rethinking or humanization of asylum policy in politics". Peter Döbel was of a similar opinion in a comment on the twentieth anniversary of Kemal Cemal Altun's suicide in the heute-journal , in which he called for a reflection on why asylum seekers like Altun keep losing hope and belief in the guarantees of the constitution: “He had to die with us from this fear? Doesn't the Basic Law say : Politically persecuted people enjoy asylum? Doesn't it also say that everyone here can call the courts for help? It is there. "

Memorials

Memorial plaque in front of the building at Hardenbergstrasse 20

Kemal-Altun-Platz in Kassel

In the north of Kassel in the spring of 1988 the square in front of the buildings of the former slaughterhouse used as a cultural center (where Gottschalkstrasse joins Mombachstrasse) was unofficially named Kemal-Altun-Platz. A relief by the Turkish sculptor Eyüp Öz , which refers to Altun's fate, was attached to the side wall of the slaughterhouse building . It shows a hand chained and holding a rose. Together with the inscription “Politically persecuted people enjoy the right to asylum (Art. 16.2.2 GG)”, it is intended to remind of the hopeless situation of deportation prisoners. There has not yet been an official naming of the square, so that it is not an official street name.

Cemal Kemal Altun memorial in Berlin

There is also a memorial for him in front of the former Berlin administrative court, where Altun died. The approximately four meters high, two meters long and one meter wide stone sculpture by the artist Akbar Behkalam is broken open from above and reveals two hands. On both sides of the painting you can read - once in German, once in Turkish: “Cemal Kemal Altun threw himself to his death here on August 30, 1983 as a political refugee from the window of the administrative court for fear of extradition. Politically persecuted people must be given asylum. ”The monument was unveiled in 1996 by the then District Mayor of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Monika Wissel .

Kemal-Altun-Platz in Hamburg

In the Hamburg district of Ottensen , the unofficial site of the former mechanical engineering company Menck & Hambrock was unofficially called Kemal-Altun-Platz by the Hamburg population. Not listed in the city map, even the Hamburg citizenship uses this name in its letters. However, it was never officially confirmed. In September 2012, street signs with the name "Kemal-Altun-Platz" were installed by the Altona district. This met the wishes of the citizens and the district assembly.

Others

ballad

The German lyricist Wolf Biermann wrote a ballad about the fate of Cemal Kemal Altun based on the Heine song I don't know what it should mean… . The bard had already campaigned for the asylum seeker during his lifetime. For example, with a sensational cage campaign together with Petra Kelly , Gerd Bastian and many others, Altun's lawyer Wolfgang Wieland was secretly allowed by the federal government to conduct research in Turkey in order to suspend the deportation of his client in order to determine his innocence further substantiate.

Movie

The German-Turkish film director Ayşe Polat made the short film Fremdnacht about the fate of Altun in 1992 .

The ARD series Ex! What excited the nation was shown in a detailed documentation on the Altun case, which was also published in book form.

book

The book Ganz unten by Günter Wallraff , published in 1985, is dedicated to Cemal Altun, among others.

literature

Web links

Commons : Cemal Kemal Altun  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

swell

  1. ↑ Deutschlandradio : “20 years ago. In West Berlin, the asylum seeker Kemal Altun throws himself to his death ” ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , August 30, 2003 (as of November 2, 2006) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dradio.de
  2. ^ Book Opportunities for Psychosocial Counseling for Refugees, page 211
  3. ^ Deterrence Act passed , TAZ , November 14, 1986
  4. ↑ Rote Ampel , Der Spiegel , February 27, 1989
  5. ↑ Family Center Heilig Kreuz-Passion, Berlin Deportation in case of danger to life and limb?
  6. ^ Anniversary of the death of Cemal Kemal Altun The Face of Asylum Policy , Daniel Bax, TAZ , August 30, 2013
  7. ↑ Seeking refuge - found death - Cemal Kemal Altun 1960 - 1983
  8. ^ Niels Seibert (2008): A state-run suicide. Cemal Altun and protests against extradition. s. Literature.
  9. ↑ Seibert, 2008
  10. ↑ Seibert, 2008. page 193
  11. ^ Speech by Heiko Kauffmann at the memorial event on August 31, 2003. In: Asyl in der Kirche eV Berlin (Ed.): Refuge sought - found death. Cemal Kemal Altun 1960–1983. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.4 MB), November 2003, pp. 22–33, here p. 27. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kirchenasyl-berlin.de
  12. ↑ Quoted after the speech by Heiko Kauffmann at the memorial event on August 31, 2003. In: Asyl in der Kirche eV Berlin (Ed.): Refuge sought - found death. Cemal Kemal Altun 1960–1983. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.4 MB), November 2003, pp. 22–33, here p. 22. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kirchenasyl-berlin.de
  13. ↑ Nordwind No. 25 (Dec. 2005): Places and places in the north of the city , page 8. ( Online as PDF; 4.9 MB ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ))
  14. ↑ Sculpture in Berlin ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Cemal Kemal Altun memorial, 1996  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bildhauerei-in-berlin.de
personal data
SURNAME Altun, Cemal Kemal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Turkish asylum seeker
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Samsun , Turkey
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 1983
Place of death West Berlin , Germany