THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
A university teacher has taken the government of Berlin, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, to court over what he describes as “racist mistreatment at the Immigration office Berlin”.
The case, filed by Mbolo Yufanyi Movuh, a lecturer at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences (ASH), Berlin, will be heard on Thursday (9 February) at the Berlin District Court,
Movuh, who is also a renowned refugee and migrant activist, had a filed complaint under the Berlin State Anti-Discrimination Act in December 2021.
In a press release he issued recently, Movuh, who has been active in anti-racism campaign for more than two decades in Germany as a prominent member of the VOICE Refugee Forum, said:
“The racist state mechanism separates people into two groups; “Us” and “the Others”. The divide runs along lines defined by language, country of origin and phenotypical markers. The result of such separation is the conclusion regarding human worth, with the group marked as “Others” bearing negative attributes while those marked “Us” assail in superiority in latent supremacy complex. This ideology doesn’t end in the back rooms of Neo-Nazi Clubs, it continues and spreads to the daily rhetoric of political parties in the German parliament and state workers in official positions. This must be opposed vigorously!”
He added: “After 25 years of living here with such torment and racist discrimination, I would like to conclude by saying that I hope the court will help to abolish racism in this society, even though I know that the fight against racism is and will be a long one”.
Movuh has received the support of several civil society groups.
“Yufanyi Movuh is known for defiantly breaking racist laws in Germany to achieve meaningful progress in life, an example being the obtainment of his PhD even through hash political harassment and racial discrimination from the judiciary and administrative branches of the State,” The VOICE Refugee Forum, The CARAVAN-for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants (Berlin), and Peer Exchange of African Communities for Empowerment (PEACE) Germany said in a joint press release on the case.
“We will closely follow and observe the proceedings of the events and the handling of Mr. Yufanyi’s complaint. If necessary, we feel compelled, together with all interested people, to document the experiences and happenings at the State Office for Immigration and to check to what extent people’s experiences correspond with the central anti-discrimination law enacted by the Berlin Senate,” the groups added.
“We call on everyone affected by institutional racism, not only in Berlin, to get in touch with us so that we can formulate our concerns together and look for solutions collectively.”
Sola Jolaoso
For more information on this case, please visit: http://www.thevoiceforum.org/node/4807
