How legal information can support refugees’ fight for their rights in Germany

Author: Ida Flik

This article is by Ida Flik and is part of Changing the Narrative. Articles in this series are written by student or early-career journalists who took part in The Local’s training course on solutions-focused migration reporting. Find out more about the project here.

In April, a group of refugees sued Germany’s federal state of Saxony for putting them at risk of Covid-19 infection by requiring them to stay in mass accommodations. And won.

The initiative to do so was started by the Sächsicher Flüchtlingsrat (the Saxonian refugee council) which is part of the network of PRO ASYL, a human rights organization advocating for refugees’ rights.

“Of course the residents from the mass accommodations knew that the mandatory infection prevention measures were not kept,” Wiebke Judith, legal policy advisor for PRO ASYL, explains. “But legal counseling was important so they realized: ‘I can file a lawsuit about this!'”

They are not the only ones who have stood up for their legal rights during the pandemic.