“Protection of refugees and human rights are an integral part of our democracy”: this is the message that 145 welfare and human-right organisations have made to the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) ahead of today’s party congress. The message states that refugees coming from many different regions of the world have by now become an integral part of local society. Horrible deeds committed by individuals, such as the attack in Aschaffenburg, should never lead to the “stigmatisation or exclusion of the rights” of whole groups. CDU helped make this debate move forward through the bill that was rejected last Friday and that rekindled the current discussions on the crackdown on citizenship, residence and asylum laws: this threatens the message that fundamental and human rights “either apply to everybody or do not apply at all”. In addition, demands to send back people seeking protection at the internal borders of Germany, the repeal of family reunions for people eligible for subsidiary protection, the repatriation to war and crisis zones, and the general detention of all the people who have to leave the country are “seriously illegal”. The call literally states: “During the election campaign, please abstain from any rhetoric or demands that further divide our society and pit people against each other”.