Deportation Class

At a time when both the German socialist government and even the conservative opposition are calling for the acceptance of immigrants into the country in an effort to avoid economic decline, refugees are still being deported by the federal police forces. The expulsion of refugees brings border issues to the heart of country as refugees are often shipped out through border checkpoints located at major airports.
In response to this situation and the participation of Lufthansa, Germany’s main airline, in the expulsions, the activist group No One Is Illegal assembled online and offline exhibitions of posters poignantly entitled Deportation.Class. Posters by various artists played with Lufthansa’s official advertisements and promotional materials, altering their messages and design while criticizing the role of the German airline in the deportation of refugees. The exhibition was placed on the website of the German newspaper Kölner Stadtrevue in May 2000.
Deportation.Class was initiated last spring in response to the increasing incidence of abuse by police and border guards. In May 1999, Aamir Ageeb, a Sudanese man, died while onboard a Lufthansa aircraft. Federal Border Guards allegedly abused the 30-year-old man so brutally that he suffocated during take-off. Earlier, in August 1994, Nigerian Kola Bankole was also reportedly killed on a Lufthansa flight. So as not to disturb ordinary passengers, the deportees board through the plane’s back entrance and are seated in the last row and are often separated by curtains. No One Is Illegal reports that 10,000 people are annually deported from the Rhein-Main airport alone, half of whom fly Lufthansa.
Six months after Kölner Stadtrevue put up the online exhibition of posters, Lufthansa’s lawyers demanded that the newspaper remove the work. They claimed that the identical use of the airline’s colors and logo is illegal. The lawyers even went so far as to say that some of the posters suggested that Lufthansa was directly linked to right-wing extremists. Lufthansa threatened that anyone violating the corporate image would be fined 10,100 DMarks.
No One Is Illegal, however, was not intimidated by the threats and announced that they would be monitoring all deportations carried out by Lufthansa with increased attention on an international level. A number of servers offered to mirror the online poster exhibition for the activist organization.
Soon after, No One Is Illegal teamed up with like-minded organizations across Europe to form Deportation Alliance. The network monitors and encourages various forms of protests against the deportation of refugees back to their home countries. The website recently introduced a new support project using popular frequent flier programs offered to clients by various airlines. By joining this Active Miles Program, activists can win free “miles” each time they organize a protest or any kind of action. The number of miles an activist receives is based on the importance of the action and the energy invested in it. For example, a small e-mail campaign may get you ten miles. But a weekend-long protest, organized by one of the program’s participants, was awarded with 250 miles. Winning activist miles entitle one to enter the website’s Border.Lounge.
In addition to information about Lufthansa’s involvement in deportations, the Deportation Alliance exposes the participation of other European airlines, including British Airways, KLM, Iberia, Austrian Airlines, and Tarom. Instead of using their promotional materials, the activists behind Deportation Alliance often alter the airlines’ websites simply by swapping the original text with one that criticizes their role in the deportations. The No One Is Illegal campaign (www.contrast.org/borders/kein) began in June 1997 following Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, and over 200 groups and organizations had joined up within a few weeks.

01.06.2000