cause he was a foreigner. He claimed that one of the officers then jumped at him and violently twisted his right arm behind his back while other officers had pushed him to the ground and kicked him. The officers, in contrast, alleged that he had sworn and spat at them and had become aggressive. He was then taken to a police station. On the way, officers subjected him to racist insults such as calling him a *censored*ty foreigner. At the station, a doctor diagnosed his arm broken and said he required immediate hospital care. According to medical reports, he also suffered extensive bruising of his left arm, swelling and abrasions to the right side of his face and bruising of his jaw. Investigations were later opened into the allegations of ill treatment and the officers allegations that he had resisted them and used insulting behavior. In December, the Algerian was informed by the prosecuting authorities that his compliant of ill treatment had been rejected (Wochenendmagazin 1998, 4).Another problem, which Germany is not able to cope with, is the high number of refugees trying to seek asylum every year. The famous Article 16 of the West German Karanovic7Basic Law, which granted an almost unconditional right to asylum for any individual fleeing persecution, was written with refugees from the past in mind, especially ethnic German refugees (Hollifield 1994, 185). Hollifield shows that the German government was not specific enough with their law concerning the right for asylum. Whitney explains in his article The World, Europeans Redefine What Makes A Citizen that citizenship, immigration and asylum are all connected issues. After the unification of Germany in 1990, refugees began pouring into the country and in 1992, 438.191 people from the Balkans, Central Europe and elsewhere-claimed political asylum in Germany. Until 1993, German asylum law entitled anyone who set foot on German soil to make a claim and to make years of appeals if the cl...
