Holy orders vs EU borders: how ‘church asylum' is blocking deportations
The church's grounds are buzzing with young men who sit together in groups, play pool, or read the Bible in the garden. The pastor, Gottfried Martens, calls the scene his 'monastery', where people 'pray and work'.
But the 'monks' here are refugees from Afghanistan and Iran, many of whom have converted to Christianity, and who Martens is protecting from being deported.
As the German government attempts to crack down on irregular migration and increase deportations, Martens and four Afghan members of his congregation have triggered a fierce political row over the practice of 'church asylum' and how it obstructs national and EU law.
Churches in Germany have given temporary shelter to refugees for decades under a special privilege that has no firm legal basis, but which grew out of Christian traditions. By convention, churches can flag cases of particular human hardship to regional authorities, and ask for them to remain in the 'shelter of the church'.
In Berlin, Martens successfully applied for four Afghan members of his congregation to remain in this way, although they were due to be deported.
• Merz: Strict asylum policy needed to stop Germany becoming overloaded
The young men had arrived in Germany earlier this year from Sweden, where they had faced being sent back to Taliban-run Afghanistan. Upon arrival in the northern city of Hamburg, the authorities there wanted to return them to the Scandinavian country, which was still responsible for handling their claims, according to EU law.
But the men travelled on to Berlin, where last month local police declined a request from Hamburg to enter the church and arrest them.
The stand-off escalated into a row between the mayors of Germany's two largest cities, with Peter Tschentscher, Hamburg's mayor, denouncing 'systematic abuse of church asylum' in the capital. His own city has been especially hostile to church asylum, as it claims that churches 'systematically undermine the application of European law' by preventing deportations even to other European countries.
Of the four men at the centre of the storm, only two are still sheltering at the church.
One was arrested this week by police officers when he briefly left the church's grounds, and therefore invalidated his claim to sanctuary there. Another had spent six months in Germany, allowing him to leave the church without facing deportation to Sweden as his asylum claim is now reviewed in Germany.
The other two men are hoping they can stay long enough with Martens to also earn a legal right to remain.
Martens, 62, a Lutheran, insists he never aimed to become a 'refugee pastor' and only learned about the public row over his congregation members when he was asked to comment by the press.
When he started more than 30 years ago, the congregation at first included many Germans from Russia, who from 2013 were followed by an influx of Iranian migrants, many of whom converted from Islam.
'Our people are incredibly active missionaries,' he added.
He now offers services in the Persian language which has boosted the congregation to 1,700 members, predominantly of Afghan and Iranian background, including a few refugees who received church asylum.
While overall numbers of church asylum cases are low — rising from 2,703 granted claims in 2023 to 2,966 last year, out of some 250,000 total asylum applications — the heightened scrutiny on places of worship giving sanctuary to refugees reflects hardening attitudes towards immigrants in general.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to step up deportations, including to Afghanistan, and to turn all asylum seekers away at the border, in response to rising public pressure after a series of violent attacks linked to migrants in recent months. It is a stark contrast from the days of Angela Merkel, his predecessor as leader of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU), who voluntarily took in thousands of migrants as a humanitarian gesture in 2015 and 2016.
Günter Krings, the CDU's lead spokesman in the Bundestag on home affairs, said that although the party backed the principle of church asylum, it was 'increasingly used to circumvent legally binding decisions' in particular for internal European deportations
He argued that churches should restrict their claims to 'exceptional cases again'.
Martens insists that his parishioners had been judged unfairly both by Sweden, where the minority government, backed by a hard-right anti-immigration party, is trying to deport Afghan asylum seekers in particular, and by the Hamburg authorities.
Germany has also made an effort to resume deportations to Afghanistan, with the first return flight in over a year taking off earlier this month.
• Friedrich Merz's economic cure for Germany, the sick man of Europe• Why Germany's border gambit threatens the EU's asylum rule book
Amir, 24, one of those sought for deportation, previously lived for a decade in Sweden and was working as a hospital nurse when he was caught under a new policy specifically targeting young Afghan men.
A member of the Hazare minority which has faced repressions from the Taliban, he felt he had no option but to flee, leaving behind his elderly parents who were legally settled in Sweden.
If Amir were to return to Afghanistan his life would be at risk, argued Martens, who said he was aware of two Christian converts who were murdered by the Taliban after they were deported from Germany.
Martens, whose views on migration are nuanced but conservative, hardly fits the image of a left-wing hero. He said, however, that he has also rejected attempts by the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to instrumentalise his pro-Christian activism.
His own health is suffering from the stress of offering sanctuary, and his doctor told him he was 'mad' to do so, he said.
But, he added, 'when I see these wonderful people, I can't leave them alone'.
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