Arşiv

📂 2004

2004 — Refusal of Assistance Despite Medical Warnings Following a Suicide Attempt, Continuing Hunger and Lack of Medication Main court case: Verwaltungsgericht Berlin - VG 32 A 77.04. Related cases: VG 32 A 599.03 and VG 10 A 330.03. This folder contains Charité medical records, my applications for assistance, responses from state authorities, letters from lawyer Harald Lilge, and court materials. They show that, even after my suicide attempt on 7 January 2004, I was forced to continue fighting for accommodation, food, and treatment. This is only a small part of my archive. The Main Facts in This Folder • 7 January: Following a suicide attempt outside the German Parliament, I was admitted to Charité. • 16 January: Charité warned the Sozialamt that returning me to poverty and homelessness could worsen my condition and create a renewed risk of suicide. • 22 January: A medical assessment recorded a high acute risk of suicide. It also stated that my consciousness was clear, my orientation complete, and my thought processes orderly; there were no memory or cognitive deficits, disturbances of thought content, or perceptual disturbances. • 29 January and 3 February: Assistance was refused, first verbally and then through Raatsch’s written decision. A document confirming an application for voluntary return was demanded. • 30–31 January: I applied to the court for urgent accommodation and subsistence assistance under § 123 VwGO. The case was registered as VG 32 A 77.04. On 9 February, the Bezirksamt requested that my application be rejected. • 9 February: An internal administrative note stated that I could return without danger to my life or health. This position seriously contradicted Charité’s warning about a renewed risk of suicide. • 26 February: Lilge refuted the statement attributed to me that I would never return to my country of origin. He explained that my actual position was to exhaust the available avenues of legal protection in Germany. • 26 February: The lawyer explicitly assessed the refusal of all assistance as unconstitutional. He described the requirement to prove how I survived each day as disproportionate and impossible to fulfil. He wrote that demanding that I identify which rubbish bin I had taken food from was absurd. • 22 March: Lilge stated that the residence document would not be issued until 23 April, but that I still had to survive until then. He wrote that I had approximately one euro in my wallet. Withdrawal of the main action did not mean abandonment of the request for urgent assistance. • 31 March: The lawyer informed the court that I was searching rubbish containers for food and could not obtain urgently needed medication. He demanded an urgent decision in proceedings that had already continued for two months. • 14 April: Assistance was finally granted retrospectively from 31 January: €5.13 for January, €154.07 per month from February, and a total retrospective payment of €467.34. My subsequent accommodation was in a building in a severely deteriorated condition, costing €150 per month. I report that I lived among broken doors, rats, and belongings I had collected from the streets. The social-support documents from 2005 and the guardianship decision from 2007 have separate dates; they must not be presented as decisions from 2004. Rights I Allege Were Violated and the Legal Bases for Responsibility • German Basic Law, Articles 1(1), 1(3), 2(1), 2(2), 19(4), 20(1), and 20(3): human dignity, personal autonomy, protection of life and health, effective judicial protection, the social-state principle, and the obligation of state authorities to comply with the law. • AsylbLG §§ 3 and 4, together with § 1a as applicable at the time: basic subsistence and necessary medical assistance; VwGO §§ 86(1) and 123: judicial investigation of the facts and urgent interim protection. The events must be assessed under the versions in force in 2004. • German Basic Law, Article 34: responsibility, generally borne by the state or the relevant public body, for damage arising from a breach of official duty. This is a separate basis of responsibility from individual criminal liability. • European Convention on Human Rights, Articles 2, 3, 8, and 13: protection of life, prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, physical and psychological integrity, and an effective remedy. • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 6, 7, and 2(3); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Articles 11 and 12: life, protection against severe ill-treatment, an effective remedy, adequate living conditions, and the right to health. • UN Convention against Torture, Articles 12, 13, and 16: prompt and impartial investigation of substantiated allegations concerning the relevant treatment, protection of complainants, and prevention of other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. • The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility, particularly Articles 4 and 7: attribution to the state of the official conduct of state organs, including courts; state responsibility arises when that conduct breaches an international obligation. • Rome Statute, Articles 6 and 7: I maintain my reference to international criminal law. The specific intent to destroy a protected group required for genocide, and the requirement of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population for crimes against humanity, must be assessed separately. The Overall Meaning of the Archive and My Firm Position I do not accept this sequence as accidental mistakes. I accuse the continuation of deprivation after the suicide attempt and medical warnings of damaging my health and driving me into a renewed suicidal crisis. Assistance provided later did not undo the earlier hunger, lack of medication, or harm. The dates from 2004 must be compared with the proceedings documented in the other folders. This folder concerns only social and medical assistance. The parallel proceedings must be read together to show how many struggles I was forced to pursue simultaneously and the cumulative effect of that burden on my health. According to my account, I continue today to live with severe illness, loneliness, discrimination, and obstacles to accessing treatment. I experience my situation in Germany as captivity in which my opportunities to leave have narrowed. My firm accusation is that the deprivation and burden of legal struggle continuing over 28 years have destroyed my life. This folder is only a small part of the documented history underlying that accusation.