Federal President Joachim Gauck during a speech at the naturalisation ceremony in Bellevue Palace in Berlin on the occasion of 65 years of the Basic Law.
Bundesregierung / Photographer: Henning Schacht
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22 May 2014
Speech by President Joachim Gauck on the subject of immigration.On the occasion of the naturalisation of 23 new German citizens, President Joachim Gauck expresses his positive view on immigration in Germany. The country needs immigration, says Gauck, and furthermore, there is a "new German "We" - a union of the diverse".
Navid Kermani, German-Iranian writer during a speech at a celebration in the German Bundestag on the 65th anniversary of the Basic Law coming into force.Bundesregierung / Photographer: Guido Bergmann23 May 2014
65th anniversary of the publication of the Basic LawThe German-Iranian author Navid Kermani holds a speech in the German Bundestag, in which he sharply criticises an amendment to the German constitution made in 1993: "It is, of all things, the constitution, in which Germany seemed to have laid down its openness for eternity, that today excludes those who are most desperately in need of our openness: the politically persecuted. A wonderfully succinct phrase – "The politically persecuted enjoy the right to asylum" – was, in 1993, transformed into a monstrous decree of 275 words, vilely piled atop one another, steadfastly intertwined, so as to mask only one thing: Germany had effectively done away with asylum as a basic right".