Photos from Berlin and A Disturbing Trend in the Development of the Rights of Immigrants in Spain

Here are the photos from Berlin. This series focuses on most of the major and quirky sides of Berlin that appeared throughout my week in the city. Enjoy!

On another note, a disturbing trend in the regulation of the rights of immigrants in Spain. Recently, the police in Barcelona detained a friend of a coworker at my Spanish NGO who is an undocumented immigrant. The arrest did not occur in a raid in a factory, however. It occurred when the police officers went up to him - a man of Libyan decent - and asked him for his immigration documentation. The same fate fell on another friend of one my Fulbright colleagues, a Senegalese man who was selling DVDs on the side of the street in downtown Madrid. Police officers also approached another friend, who is a student at one of the Universities in Madrid and a Spanish citizen of Ecuadorian decent, to ask for her documentation. According to these individuals, police offices have started awarding commissions to officers who detain immigrants through these means. As far as I know, no such incentive existed before the adoption of this measure in 2009.

I will keep my comments on this issue brief. The rule of law is important in any society. Save for some cases such as the Jim Crow Laws, most individuals should follow the laws of a nation. However, the execution of these laws cannot undermine the basic rights of an individual. Any effort to do so through the arbitrary application of certain provisions of these laws (e.g accosting an individual merely because they look like an undocumented immigrants) undermines the foundations of democracy and, ironically, the rule of law itself. In short, this trend does not bode well for immigrant/human rights in Spain.