The Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy focuses its work on the situation of fundamental and human rights in Germany. The focal points, topics and actions are based on current political issues. Some basic topics keep the committee busy again and again. Key aspects of the current work in keywords are: criminal law, prison conditions and prisoners´assistance; peace politics; right of assembly and observations of demonstrations; refugees, migration and asylum; social civil and human rights; violations of fundamental rights in the name of „inner security“; questions about German and European constitutions focusing on human rights and democracy.

For some of these topics there are working groups that plan, prepare and facilitate actions. On current issues, statements or press releases are issued. At conferences and in publications, the background and relationships of fundamental and human rights challenges are analyzed. Wherever possible, necessary and useful, the Committee stands up for threatened Human Rights and against undemocratic measures directly through strictly non-violent, symbolic actions.

Our work with prisoners´ includes an extensive correspondence with inmates and requests to authorities to improve detention conditions, as well as prisoner visits. Upon request, prisoners receive literature which is sent to the detention centers. A special focus is the critical examination of life imprisonment sentences and its repressive effects on the so-called normal execution (gen pop).

The Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy was founded in 1980. The initiative was taken by persons involved in the formation of the Russell tribunal on the situation of human rights in the Federal Republic of Germany (1978/79). The goals formulated at that time are still its guideline: Courageous, human rights-oriented, and, if necessary, civilly disobedient engagement for the human rights of all people worldwide.

The founding manifesto of 1980 states: „The committee’s main tasks are to report current violations of human rights and to defend those whose rights have been violated (e.g. in the context of so-called demonstration offenses, judicial arbitrariness, discrimination, xenophobia, asylum- and refugee policy), but also to detect violations which do not immediately come to light and are inherent in the social structures and developments (structural concept of Human Rights). The endangerment of fundamental and human rights has many dimensions, from companies to the police, from the ’nuclear state‘ to the peace question, from destruction of the environment to new technologies, from freedom of expression to the right to free assembly, from unemployment to social downgrading, from the numerous ‚minorities‘ to the far from achieved equality of women.“

The Committee is a legally registered, non-profit association. Organizationally, the Committee consists of a membership group and a promotion circle in support of the Committee. We gladly send information and our list of publications to interested persons.

Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy
Aquinostr. 7 – 11
50670 Köln

Phone 0221-97 269 -30, Fax 0221-97 269 -31

info@grundrechtekomitee.de
www.grundrechtekomitee.de

Donations: Volksbank Odenwald, IBAN DE76 5086 3513 0008 0246 18