The Truth about Christians Amoung the Refugees
Executive summary
A female interpreter of Eritrean origin, who lives in Germany and of whom neither the Muslim migrants nor the locally hired Muslims know that she is a Christian, revealed what she experienced in refugee shelters in Germany:
- Adult Muslim migrants threaten and physically attack Christian and Yazidi refugees.
- Muslim migrant kids do not play with Christian refugee kids, then they explain that they hate them, just like their parents do.
- Locally hired Muslim interpreters and security men seem integrated on the outside, they grew up in Germany, went to German schools and have jobs, but when they are among themselves, they reveal their true colors by stating that Germany must be Islamized, and that they disdain Germany and its values.
- In mosques in Germany, pure hate is preached against people of other religions.
- Muslim migrant women want to out breed Christians, because they want to annihilate them.
German aid organizations and Christian politicians have confirmed her words with their own experience. They also added that Muslim interpreters intentionally mistranslate the words of Christian refugees to make them unable to obtain asylum, cover up Muslim mobbing on Christians, and arbitrarily move Christians to the end of the charity recipients’ list.
Incognito in refugee shelters: Everything Christians live through
What a Christian female interpreter hears in shelters, is terrifying. An article by idea editor-in-chief Daniela Städter.
Wetzlar (kath.net/idea)
Only 14 per cent of refugees who filed for asylum in Germany in 2015 were Christians – over 73 per cent are Muslims. Recently, there have been aggravated reports by Christians about discrimination by Muslims in refugee accommodations. Even some Muslim interpreters and security duty coworkers would put pressure on Christians. A Christian female interpreter observes this, but she is not detected as a Christian. What she hears in the shelters, is terrifying. An article by idea editor-in-chief Daniela Städter.
In September 2016, the call of a long-standing German top female politician reaches the Evangelical News Agency idea (in Wetzlar). She has contact to a female Christian engaged in refugee assistance, who could tell controversial things about the situation in German refugee shelters. Nevertheless, the name of the woman shall not be mentioned. Subsequently, a discussion takes place in Wetzlar among the female politician, an expert in the field of refugee issues, and the 39-year-old Christian female interpreter originating from Eritrea. She speaks Arabic fluently and has already worked in various refugee shelters as an interpreter – mostly only with Muslim colleagues.
The woman acts “undercover” at it. Nobody suspects that she is Christian. The native-born Eritrean fled for Germany in 1991 on her own. She is thankful that she was taken in openly in her new homeland and was supported in many ways. Later she wants to give something back and begins to help in refugee shelters five years ago or so in an honorary capacity. She has been active mainly as an interpreter since the summer of 2016. That she is Christian, she has not mentioned it in the accommodations since the beginning. Because of her knowledge of the Arabic language, she notices quickly: “Christians are getting subjugated, intimidated and harassed by Muslim refugees. That is usual.” Often nobody realizes the mobbing, by which Yazidis and homosexual refugees are affected, too.
“Germany must be Islamized”
Security duty coworkers and interpreters are, according to her data, almost always Muslims. They make, says the 39-year-old, a very nice impression at the first glance: “Most of them grew up here, often studied, have esteemed occupations, and they behave open-mindedly.” However, that changes as soon as they are “among themselves”: “Then they show their true colors and say sentences like ‘Germany must be Islamized’. They disdain our country and our values.” The young woman is appalled, and for a long time she does not want to take this for real. She still withholds that she is Christian in order to learn more. Among other things, she visits the Quran courses of various mosques: “There, pure hate is preached against people of other religions. The kids get that here, in Germany, taught to them from an early age.” It is similar in the refugee shelters. She notices how Muslim boys refuse to play with Christians. The female interpreter tries to mediate: “You are Muslim, he is Christian. What difference does it make?” The five-year-olds answer her:
“With the Christians, I do not play. My parents hate them, too.” The female interpreter becomes frightened: “They fled from the war to Germany and should be happy after all, that a Christian country takes them in.”
We, Muslims must get more kids than the Christians
She also tries to establish contact with the Muslim women. Many of them, despite their young age, have already had multiple kids. She cautiously wants to enlighten them about contraception methods. “After that, some women told me: We want to multiply. We must get more kids than the Christians. Only this way can we annihilate them.” As she objects and says that it is, after all, the Christians who help them, she bumps into rejection. Helping the Christians is a sin.
The might of the interpreters
The European Mission Community (in Penkun, Vorpommern) has lived through the might of the Muslim interpreters, too. Its chairman, Frank Seidler reports that at the hearings at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, they sometimes falsely rendered the testimonies of Christian refugees within the asylum process. That is why now, a Persian-speaking coworker is accompanying the refugees to the interviews, so that he can directly intervene in an emergency: “Since then it has been running better.” Seidler tells further about an Afghan having converted to Christianity, who was beaten up in his collective accommodations and was injured very severely. After he was helped to press charges, there were immediately countercharges by multiple Muslim refugees. The process is still running, although he counts with cessation, because testimony stands against testimony: “Unfortunately, we have already gone through this lapse often.” But where this leads is that the attackers think that they could allow themselves everything in Germany and would never be held accountable, so says Seidler.
A permanent pressure burdens Christians
The Christian aid organization Open Doors (in Kelkheim at Frankfurt am Main) makes similar observations. It is often hard to prove incidents. “With the incidents, it is not always about violence”, says the coordinator of public relations, Ado Greve, “but rather about forms of discrimination, for example at food distribution, or about threats. A permanent pressure burdens the Christians – especially the converted ones.” When a Christian is being threatened in his mother tongue in the corridor, “We cut through your neck!”, or “We will rape your wife!”, then it triggers great fear. Greve:
“The religious features imprinted by Islam in their homeland are often brought with by the perpetrators. However, to prove that, it is hard in most cases.”
But it should not lead to that the incidents are not taken seriously:
“It is important to give credit to the reports of the affected Christians.”
When Muslims translate falsely
Also from the point of view of the leader of the refugee-related work group within the Central Council of Oriental Christians in Germany, Paulus Kurt (in Munich), false translations by Muslim interpreters are a problem. From the refugees whom he advises, he makes them hand over the filled hearing questionnaires after the interview date at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in order to verify them together with the Christian asylum seekers. Sometimes the data of religion are false there – from an Aramean Christian, for example, becomes an Arabic Muslim. The flight reasons, too, are rendered partially inaccurately and to the disadvantage of the questioned Christians. If they notice this, they file an objection within the legal deadline of two weeks. Nevertheless, many refugees did not even know the expiration date at all, and thus passed the deadlines.
Christians often have no knowledge of their rights
According to Kurt, asylum seekers also have the right for a retranslation of the questionnaire filled in German to their mother tongue. However, some interpreters did not inform the Christians about that at all. By contrast, the interpreters communicated to the coworkers of the Federal Office that the questioned one has waived the retranslation. “By that, the chance of Christians to get a long-term recognition for asylum here drops.” In the accommodations, too, the language barrier is a problem: “There, a Christian gets beaten by a Muslim, because he is eating pork in the communal kitchen – and the interpreter relays to the leadership afterwards that there was merely a general altercation about the use of the kitchen.”
What nobody realizes
According to the data by two Hessian female refugee helpers of the Central Council of Oriental Christians in Germany, it is also often about forms of discrimination in the accommodations, which go on in the background without being noticed. They name, for example, the issuance of articles of clothing. The maintainer of the accommodations provides a list with refugees who should get clothes. The slip of paper is passed to the interpreters who organize the issuance in the respective languages. At the readout, the list gets changed by them. Whoever has a Christian name, will be called at the end, and must take potluck with the rest, they say: “Nobody realizes that.”
The state assumes false preconditions
From the point of view of auditor Thomas Günster (in Fulda) engaged in refugee-related work, it is about a system error. The state assumes integration in the case of Muslim interpreters, most of them having grown up in Germany, toward the local value system, but that has not happened at all. Günster, who stands in close contact with Hessian refugee helpers and supports them at their work, says: “A sort of independence is assumed here, which is not there at all.” Rethinking must happen here.
There are positive developments in Hessen
Meanwhile, there have been positive developments, too, means Günster, who is also the chairman of the Diocesan Group Fulda of the Association of Catholic Entrepreneurs (BKU). Thus the Hessian Ministry of the Interior strives to protect religious minorities from abuses. In addition, too, the teams in the scope of security duty and interpreters should be staffed in the future with coworkers of different religious affiliations: “Minorities among the refugees must be protected and their complaints taken seriously. We must pay attention that the Christian refugees in Germany do not go to the dogs anymore.”
It looks worse in Bremen
The situation in Bremen is worse. There, the City Senate adopted a new Protection Against Violent Acts concept for refugee facilities at the end of October [2016]. In it, however, they did not go into the situation of Christian refugees. The target group of the Protection Against Violence Acts concept is girls, women, and persons who, due to their sexual or gender identity, are particularly threatened by violence. The alderwoman in the Bremen City Assembly, Sigrid Grönert (CDU) [Christian-Democratic Union, a German political party] basically welcomes the concept indeed, but already pointed out in May that beyond that, Christians also feel mobbed by Muslims over and over again.
By contrast, the Bremen City Senate stated in February that “no abuses” on religious minorities are known. Grönert: “That, unfortunately, does not correspond to reality.” According to their own data for the time frame between January 2015 and June 2016, nine cases of bodily abuses in Bremen were reported to Open Doors.
Christians do not press charges out of fear
None of the affected Syrian Christians has pressed charges – out of fear, that the situation could get worse. That abuses are not known to the authorities, simply does not mean that they do not exist, emphasizes Grönert, who is also the assistant chairman of the Evangelical Workgroup of the CDU in Bremen: “It is a pity that the issue is not being taken up over here at us, while a Federal Province like Hessen has recognized the problems. I wish that the issue were taken seriously by politics across the Federation [i.e. Germany].” She is not alone with this wish. Professor Heiner Bielefeldt, UN special rapporteur for freedom of religion and world view, incumbent till the end of October [2016], demanded at the beginning of November an honest discussion about the hints of abuses against Christian refugees in asylum accommodations.
It would be a big mistake of politics to spread the cloak of silence over it, said Professor Bielefeldt.
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