Experts draw attention to marginalization of refugees, Muslims in Germany

Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), an Ankara-based think tank, organized a panel yesterday to address citizenship rights of migrants and foreigners in Germany and its policies toward these social groups. The panel also focused on political and social transformation taking place in Europe as well as in Germany.

Experts at the event drew attention to the gradually increasing flow of refugees to Germany and some other European countries, since 2014, which peaked in 2015 and saw the onset of discrimination and marginalization.

Unfortunately, in the aftermath of some terrorist attacks in France and Belgium, refugees and Muslims have become the main groups subjected to discrimination and exclusion.

Opening the panel, Soner Tauscher, a research assistant at Diaspora Studies Application and Research Center in Sakarya University, emphasized how citizenship has political as well as a legal dimensions.

With a new German regulation in 2000, a person's birthplace became a prominent factor in defining citizenship, although the blood relation principle had not disappeared. With this regulation, the obligation to choose a single nationality, in cases of dual citizenship, started to be implemented. However, the obligation to choose between the two nationalities was not imposed on citizens of many countries, including citizens of EU-member countries. "Germany has made a minimum A1 level-proficiency in German, certified by the Goethe Institute, a necessary condition to obtain citizenship for families who want to be together. It is obligatory for people from Turkey, but not for the U.S., Israel, El Salvador, Japan, Brazil and others. The decision of the European Court of Justice, however, said that such a policy was opposed to the principle of equality, but Germany has continued applying it nonetheless," he said.

The panel discussions continued with Faik Tanrıkulu, an assistant professor at Medipol University, who drew attention to the low representation of immigrants in the German Bundestag. According to Tanrıkulu, immigrants make up at least 20 percent of the German population.

"However, when you look at the rate of migrant deputies, it is very low, just around 5.9 percent of all the deputies," he said.