A Syrian refugee, award-winning journalist and human rights advocate filed a complaint today to the Administrative Court in Stuttgart, challenging an unlawful, violent and seemingly racially motivated border control by German officers at the French border. With the support of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), Society for Civil Rights (GFF) and European Network Against Racism (ENAR), the complainant asks the court to confirm the illegal nature of the control. These measures violate fundamental rights under German law, as well as founding principle of EU law, namely the right to move freely in the Schengen zone.
“This is how racialized people like me are handled at German borders,” says the complainant, Sandra Alloush, who is also vice chair of ENAR. “Having documentation and long-term residency didn’t protect me from police violence. Yet, bringing this case makes me think something good can come out of the trauma.”
In June 2025, Alloush was on a train headed to Germany for a regular work trip. Shortly after leaving Strasbourg, the train crossed the border from France and officers came on board. Alloush showed her French residency permit and a document which confirmed the renewal of her passport, but the officers insisted she could not enter without a passport. She was forced off the train, and asked to come to the police station, even though she was not under arrest. Alloush tried to assert her rights, but officers grabbed and pushed her, inflicting pain and threatening to break her arm. At the police station she was strip searched, detained, and ultimately made to walk back to France. Alloush experienced immediate physical pain and continues to suffer psychologically from the consequences.
“Alloush has shown exceptional courage in taking this case against Germany,” says Hanaa Hakiki, directress of ECCHR’s border justice team. “In doing so, she is standing up for all of us, for our right to live in states governed by the rule of law, not arbitrary, dangerous and short-sighted political decisions.”
EU law stipulates that border controls within the Schengen zone may only be re-introduced as a justified exceptional measure. Though Germany’s justifications do not stand, it has kept permanent border controls on all of its borders since September 2024. Their necessity due to alleged alarming irregular migration is not backed up by available federal police statistics.
"People are refraining from crossing borders for fear of the police,” says Laura Kuttler, legal expert from the Society for Civil Rights (GFF) in Berlin. “These controls undermine the EU's fundamental right to freedom of movement. We want to put an end to this unlawful practice at all German borders."
“This case is not an isolated incident,” says Emmanuel Achiri, policy advisor at ENAR. “Rather it reflects a broader and systematic pattern of racialized policing at German and European internal borders. Under the guise of combatting so-called irregular migration, European states including Germany have effectively legitimised racial profiling and violence targeting racialised migrants but also racialised European citizens and residents.”
This complaint follows in a series of legal interventions on European border violence by ECCHR. It is also one of a number of cases supported by GFF to challenge German internal border controls.
