Profiling at the Rosenheim police station

I always found it hard to reconcile with people protesting racial profiling. I felt somehow, it was untrue but i guess it was because i had not come into the reality of such an incident.

As a research worker in Austria, and having lived in Germany for more than a year in the past, it was shocking to say the least of how border control police workers accurately profile anyone who did not look German ('wondering what that will even mean') traveling across the border.

On my way to a conference at Obergurgl, Tyrol from Linz, Upper Austria, i had to pass through Rosenheim , the border town between Germany and Austria only to be accosted by the police just about 100meters into German territory.

The police requested for my passport to which i handed over my Austrian residence permit. To my surprise, the police (Bundespolizei) did not accept the residence permit as a form of identity. I was kept at the Rosenheim police station for over two hours with police protection. They needed someone in Linz to go to my room, take my passport and send it to the Linz police station to be faxed to them.

As absurd as it sounds, this is how the German police reasons. I was probably going to be kept in the cells because the keys to my house were in my pocket as we argued on such a silly demand. How was someone ever going to enter my house, search my drawers, find a passport and report to the police station.

Unfortunately, this is what happens to many people. The police chef and his co-workers exploit foreigners at their will. Even after confirming by telephone conversation from the Linz Police station that i was a resident in Linz. The police officer looks at me and says, "what if you stole this residence card?"

I was charged 25€ for not carrying my passport and given a poorly written receipt that the police could not even spell "zwanzig" correctly or just didn't care because the money was just going to be shared amongst them.

Indeed, after such an incident, one has to come to reality that the Bundespolizei, Deutschland really has a specialty in racial profiling and that such issues are happening on daily basis. Who can really protect us from the police?

>>>this article was a contribution to the deutche welle article on racial profiling: http://www.dw.de/are-the-german-police-using-racial-profiling/a-16921363<<<<< (#polishit)