Saxon Refugee Council: "No one flees voluntarily".

The Saxon Refugee Council considers border controls to curb migration and smuggling to be the wrong way to go. "Increased border controls lead to people seeking alternative routes, most of which are even more undignified and cruel. No one flees voluntarily," Osman Oguz, spokesman for the panel, said in Dresden on Thursday. Tighter controls would not lead to fewer people fleeing. That can be proven by recent figures from Italy.

The Refugee Council criticized Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU), who had repeatedly called for temporary controls on the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic, and sent more state police to the border region. "Above all, Mr. Schuster must be reminded: Asylum is a human right and human dignity is inviolable." Safe escape routes and humanitarian aid instead of hostility and election campaigning at the expense of the often destitute and speechless refugees would be approaches to dealing with them in a humane way.