Residence requirement endangers homosexual refugee

Abdulrahman Akkad

Abdl Akadd Abdulrahman has had a long odyssey. One and a half years ago, the young man from Syria publicly outed himself as gay. He posted a video on Facebook, which exposed him to hostility and threats. As a result, he requested that his residence requirement (Wohnsitzauflage, a german legeslation, that requires refugees to stay in a certain for three years) be moved to a city in another region. When the trial dragged on, he had to run away and was forced to violate the residence requirement for security reasons. After moving back and forth for months because he couldn’t rent his own apartment in another region, the residence requirement was finally completely abolished after he emphatically pointed out his precarious situation in the Foreigners’ Office.

According to the Atheis Refugee Relief another procedure must be found with regard to the residence requirement. We support the residence requirement as an instrument to help integration, but in the case of a group that is also subject to persecution here, the residence requirement must be abolished without replacement for these persons, which is also legally possible. In addition, those affected, most of whom are secular and humanist thinkers, have no problem integrating here, as they particularly share our values of freedom.