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What happened in the court trial?
The fax campaign continues!

On Thursday, the 19. 10. 2000 a vigil took place in front of the ministry of the Interior of Saxonia notion in Magdeburg, on the occasion of the impending court hearing in the asylum proceedings of the Nigerian oppositional and caravan activists Adebayo Alabi.
The vigil began at 15.00 o'clock with a demonstration and continued over night up to the next morning. About 60 people took part, in protest against the threatening deportation of Adebayo Alabi.
The vigil took place under the shadow of the recent events in the Nigerian metropolis Lagos. In the neighbourhood of Mushin there had been some heated arguments between some people who respectively belonged to the O`oduas Peoples Congress (OPC) and to the Haussa community. In the process of the ensuing riots, more than 100 people died according to official sources. The actual number of the victims is however reported to be well over 500. More than 20,000 people fled and tried to take refuge in military barracks. The renowned human rights activist and chairperson of the OPC, Dr. Frederick Fasheun, was arrested along with 200 other OPC members. The OPC was accused of having fermented unrest and was banned on Tuesday 17th of October 00 by president General Olusegun Obasanjo.
In the morning of 20. 10. 00 the vigil assembled before the building of the Administrative Court. Representatives of different organizations followed the court hearing. Since the foreigner authority had already ordered the deportation of Mr. Adebayo Alabi on 23  May 2000, although the complaint procedure was still ongoing, he was forced to stay away from his own court hearing in order not to risk arrest.
In the course of the legal proceedings, the attorney gave very detailed and extensive documentary evidence of the political persecution, which threatens OPC members and in particular Mr. Adebayo Alabi in Nigeria. On the basis of different documents he demonstrated impressively that the current government under president Obasanjo does not substantially differ from the past Military regimes in Nigeria.
The judge conceded the endangerment of OPC members to be real, but refused to believe however that Mr.Adebayo Alabi was member of the OPC, insinuating instead that he was pretending to be member of the OPC in order to increase his chances of gaining asylum. The judge tried to justify his claim with the fact that Mr. Alabi had not mentioned his OPC activities in his first asylum procedure. He completely ignored the assertions of the attorney and a testimony by the psychologist of a psychosocial support institute for refugees, according to which he did not talk about his OPC membership, because in the wake of the trauma producing torture detention in Nigeria, he was not in a position to sufficiently assume his interests in the asylum proceeding. He also chose to ignore the reasons stated by Mr. Adebayo Alabi in the form of an oath, from which we shall quote here.
" I would like to explain first, why I had not mentioned my activities and membership in the OPC in my first asylum procedure. At the point in time of the hearing before the Federal Office, I was only a short time in Germany and was not familiar with its laws. Just before the hearing, the official interpreter Mr. Boese, spoke to me outside the door and claimed to know me. He accused me of having already made an asylum application before in Germany. Therefore they would arrest me, put me in prison and deport me. This false allegation and threat was made to me before I even had the chance to present my reasons for seeking asylum and the facts of my persecution. In such a moment, I was threatened with prison and deportation from the authorities of the country where I had come to seek protection from political persecution. I would like you to bear in mind that I had just left Nigeria. There, as is known to you, I had undergone severe torture in prison. The behavior of the translator put me in a state of fear and I felt intimidated. For these reasons, I decided to put my activities in the CD in the forefront. The CD is an internationally recognised organisation, so that, despite the distrust opposite the Decidor of of thefederal office, I saw myself protected by its international renown. The OPC however was at this point in time  much less known (...).
Several observers reported after the court hearing that the judge made an extremely biased and prejudiced impression on them. Thus he was very visibly striving to find points not to have to recognize Mr. Alabi. Also all his questions were directed exclusively towards circumstances, which could be possibly used against Mr. Alabi.
Upon the question of the lawyer, on how many Nigerians had been recognized by him, he replied that over the past seven years he had handled about 100 cases of Nigerian asylum seekers at the VWG Magdeburg and had recognized only one Nigerian up to this time. When the lawyer cited statistics of recognition ratios of other countries, where a far higher number of Nigerians are granted political asylum, the judge answered that the really politically pursued Nigerian refugees went for example to England. Nigerians came to Germany for other reasons, for example to lead a more comfortable life. He expressed this view in the presence of prominent Nigerian human rights activists in exile in Germany, who attended the court proceedings as observers. All the applications for proof, which were submitted by the lawyer - among other things, were summarily rejected by the judge. We therefore have strong reasons to fear that his judgement concerning Mr. Alabi will be subject to bias and prejudice rather than to a fair hearing.

In view of the abundance of evidence, the decision has not been made (public) yet.
Therefore we ask you further to fax to the responsible judge Wagner at the Administrative Court Magdeburg. Please write politely formulated letters, appealing to the neutrality of the judge, who should also be able to exercise judgement independent of the foreign policy targets of the State, in which he is active. Draw the attention of the judge to the dangers, which threaten Mr. Alabi in Nigeria.

Administrative Court Magdeburg
c/o JudgeWagner, Schönebecker Straße 67a
  39104 Magdeburg
Fax: 0391-6067032

Please send a copy of your letter/fax to the International Human Rights Association:

further contact:
Caravan group Halle, c/o Lesecafé, Ludwigstraße 37, 06110 Halle, Tel: 0345-1701242