The offices of human rights group Pro Asyl are located in a rather non-descript building near the center of Frankfurt. Here, half a dozen people try to represent the interests of thousands of asylum seekers who have made their way to Germany.

The group gets by without public funding. Instead aid comes from around 15,000 supporters. "Each year we receive around two million euros ($2.8 million)," says Pro Asyl chief Günter Burkhardt.

And there is much that this money can be put towards - now more than ever, 25 years since the founding of Pro Asyl, in September 1986. This year, the United Nations Human Rights Council estimated there were more than 43 million people seeking asylum around the world - the highest figure in 15 years, and the group is as busy as ever.

Pro Asyl was launched in response to a growing number of refugees finding their way to Germany. This fed xenophobia from the right-wing of German politics, and some politicians took advantage of this mood, Burkhardt says. The asylum seeker issue was taken advantage or and turned into an election issue, he adds.

Welfare associations, human rights organizations, church groups and labor unions came to view these developments with alarm, and Pro Asyl was the result, created to act "as a voice for refugees."

Increasing numbers of asylum seekers came to Germany in the 1980s, but many sections of the population reacted defensively, Burkhardt says. There were "very nasty smear campaigns against refugees," he says.

It was said that asylum seekers were not really in need of assistance, but rather had come to Germany to abuse the country's liberal laws.

Legal assistance was hard to come by, says Burkhardt, despite the fact these asylum seekers were entitled to have their cases for asylum examined.

Article 16 and the Third Country Regulation

The rights of asylum seekers are enshrined in Germany's constitution, the Basic Law. Article 16a stipulates simply: "The politically persecuted are entitled to asylum." This article was a consequence of Nazi rule, when hundreds of thousands fled persecution in Germany and the countries it occupied but were unable to find asylum abroad.

However, in the later debate about asylum policy in Germany, the principles of Article 16a were called into question, and in 1993 it was changed to limit refugees' right to have their cases heard in Germany.

The amendment, the so-called Third Country Regulation, ensured that asylum seekers could be refused entry to and deported from Germany; the idea behind the EU-wide agreement was that asylum-seekers would not be forced to return to the country from which they fled. Instead, they would be sent back to their initial EU country of arrival.

Burkhardt says the policy meant that little would change for refugees even after they had managed to escape persecution at home.

As an example, he points to a Somali refugee who arrived in a rickety boat on the Mediterranean island of Malta, where he was held for a year without proper investigation of his claims of political persecution in his homeland. Eventually the man made his way to Germany, and he was facing deportation back to Malta. Now, however, there was a likelihood his asylum claim would not be reexamined, and he would simply be sent back to Somalia.

In such cases, Pro Asyl intervenes with an eye to securing legal counsel for the refugee. This includes providing lawyers and helping asylum seekers submit paperwork and put cases to even the highest courts in Germany and Europe.

For Günter Burkhardt, one thing is absolutely clear: "It is unacceptable for a person to be sent back without their story being checked."

A constant reminder

Pro Asyl also documents and researches conditions at Europe's borders. They uncover where refugees to Europe are coming from, why they have fled, what there final destinations are, and how they've been treated.

Burkhardt says the organization seeks to ensure that the commitment to human rights does not become bogged down in rhetoric, that action is taken. And this message may be gaining traction. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in her message to the rights group on its 25th birthday that the federal government had itself to "apply the critical eye of Pro Asyl."

Burkhardt says, however, that influencing government policy is only a means to an end. That end: to ultimately influence the public consciousness on asylum issues and to raise awareness that the protection of refugees and respect for human rights should be a bedrock of society.

Author: Dirk Kaufmann / dfm
Editor: Nancy Isenson