When the church bells ring at 4 p.m., Mheddin Saho flinches briefly. He is sitting less than 50 meters away in the garden of Gisela and Gerhard Zierer in Rottenburg an der Laaber in Lower Bavaria. In the past two and a half years, the two have become something of the surrogate parents of the 27-year-old Syrian. The ringing of the bells reminds Saho of the day when he should have been deported for the first time. That morning the police picked him up to put him on the plane to Spain – for Saho, but also for his two helpers, a terrible experience that could possibly be repeated soon.
Saho has been blind since he was born. Nevertheless, in 2014 he managed to escape from Idlib via Turkey and then on to Spain. That could now be his undoing. Because a court has decided that it is not Germany but Spain that is responsible for Saho’s asylum procedure. In the short time, Saho has integrated himself in an exemplary manner. He is studying for a master’s degree in English at the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) and also works as a translator.
Gisela and Gerhard Zierer, both active in the Protestant community, are proud of their “foster son”. You can feel and hear that: “Mheddin completed the B1 test and the naturalization test in self-study. His lecturers think highly of him,” enthuses Gisela Zierer.
Saho seems composed when he reports on the horrors of the war at his home in Syria – that changes quickly. A mixture of desperation and anger speaks from the man – about the German asylum procedure, the judiciary, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), the German constitutional state. “I just don’t have any more strength,” says Saho.
His asylum procedure has been dragging on for two and a half years. A lot has happened during this time to somehow prevent deportation. A petition is currently running in the Bavarian state parliament, which will be dealt with after the summer holidays and the Protestant parish in Rottenburg recently sent a resolution to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Interior Ministers Horst Seehofer and Joachim Herrmann. Some fellow students and lecturers at the LMU also sent a letter of protest to the same addressees. “We appreciate Mr. Saho as a highly motivated, intelligent and committed young scientist. He is very popular with students and teachers,” it says there. It would therefore be “inhuman” to tear him out of his environment.
The SPD MP Ruth Müller hopes that a petition will turn things around
The Member of Parliament Ruth Müller (SPD) is significantly involved in the petition in the state parliament and hopes that this “moves the case and Mheddin can stay here”. It is unreasonable to deport a blind person to a country where nobody cares and whose language he does not speak. “I hope that the public sympathy from many parts of the population also signals that this is not humane treatment,” says Müller.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the Bamf continues to demand the transfer of Sahos to Spain. The federal authority refers to the Dublin III regulation, according to which the member state into which the person seeking protection first entered or which issued him or her a visa is responsible.
In an interview with Saho, it quickly becomes apparent that he has had to deal intensively with paragraphs and cumbersome official German over the past two and a half years: “According to Article 17 of the Dublin Regulation, Germany has the option of entering the asylum procedure on its own,” he explains. In fact, the paragraph says that “for humanitarian reasons or in cases of hardship”, the jurisdiction criteria can be deviated from. From the point of view of the Bamf and the Regenburg Administrative Court, however, “even taking into account Mr. Saho’s blindness”, it cannot be assumed that he will be subjected to “inhuman or degrading treatment” in Spain.
Saho sees things differently: “There is no care for disabled asylum seekers in Spain” and only very few buildings are barrier-free. He cites a UN report from 2019. It also states that refugees with disabilities are in a “precarious situation” and are at high risk of “humiliation, abuse and violence”. According to the Federal Foreign Office, Suho’s medical care can be guaranteed in Spain, but accommodation in “accommodation tailored to special needs” cannot. The situation in Spain for a blind refugee is at least uncertain, if not dangerous. Saho is supposed to be deported anyway.
Saho rocks back and forth – and comes to a standstill for the first time when he traces the first attempt at deportation. “The police picked me up in the morning without any warning – just in time for the bell.” They did not show any empathy for the severely disabled person: “I hit my head and stumbled – my blindness was irrelevant,” says Saho. Saho was already on the plane when he panics and yells for help. The pilot then refused to take off. The next time they would handcuff him away, a police officer is said to have said.
When asked by the SZ, a spokesman for the Lower Bavaria police headquarters announced that the allegations could not be understood and that the officers themselves were “very concerned”. However, the extent to which the German constitutional state is affected is limited. Saho was detained in custody for three days in Eichstätt. That was “the worst time,” says Saho in a shaky voice. “I was completely isolated from the outside world” and there was “not a single accessible room,” he says.
Thick clouds move over Rottenburg and Saho’s facial expressions darken. Nevertheless, he laughs cynically at some points when he reports on the next act of his “Asylum Odyssey”. Ten days before the deadline, the Bamf suspended the transfer to Spain. If the deadline had expired, the Syrian should no longer have been transferred. The authority justifies this with a due “decision of principle”. With Saho this meets with incomprehension. “Why does a fundamental decision have to be made after two attempted deportations?”. His answer: “The whole process should start all over again”.
The long-standing procedure has left its mark, and Saho lacks the strength to continue. The reasons for the judgment of the administrative court are still pending, but Saho has already decided not to appeal. “I have no more hope”. The Zierer family did: “Mheddin has given up – we are continuing to fight”.