Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago
Can you imagine an EU without freedom of movement? Can you imagine an EU where you have to go through border controls every time you need to cross from one country to another?
This is the reality of racialized people like Sandra Alloush, a Syrian refugee, award-winning journalist and human rights advocate.
On 26 November 2025 , Sandra Alloush, filed a complaint at a German court, challenging an unlawful, violent and racially motivated border control by German officers at the French border.
Background: In June 2025, Alloush was on a train headed to Germany for a work trip. Shortly after the train crossed the border from France, officers came on board. Alloush showed her French residency permit and a document confirming the renewal of her passport. Officers insisted she could not enter without a passport. She was forced off the train, taken to a police station where officers used violence, strip searched, detained, and ultimately made her walk back to France.
EU law says that border controls within Schengen may only be re-introduced as an exceptional measure. But Germany has kept permanent border controls on all of its borders since September 2024 although their justifications are not backed up by the available federal police statistics.
Sandra Alloush filed the case at the Administrative Court in Stuttgart with the support of the ECCHR, @Freiheitsrechte and @ENARtube .
Read more about the case: https://www.ecchr.eu/fall/germanys-border-controls-erode-core-eu-rights/
Would you like to receive regular updates on our case work? Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.ecchr.eu/en/newsletter-subscription/
Can you imagine an EU without freedom of movement? Can you imagine an EU where you have to go through border controls every time you need to cross from one country to another?
This is the reality of racialized people like Sandra Alloush, a Syrian refugee, award-winning journalist and human rights advocate.
On 26 November 2025 , Sandra Alloush, filed a complaint at a German court, challenging an unlawful, violent and racially motivated border control by German officers at the French border.
Background: In June 2025, Alloush was on a train headed to Germany for a work trip. Shortly after the train crossed the border from France, officers came on board. Alloush showed her French residency permit and a document confirming the renewal of her passport. Officers insisted she could not enter without a passport. She was forced off the train, taken to a police station where officers used violence, strip searched, detained, and ultimately made her walk back to France.
EU law says that border controls within Schengen may only be re-introduced as an exceptional measure. But Germany has kept permanent border controls on all of its borders since September 2024 although their justifications are not backed up by the available federal police statistics.
Sandra Alloush filed the case at the Administrative Court in Stuttgart with the support of the ECCHR, @Freiheitsrechte and @ENARtube .
Read more about the case: https://www.ecchr.eu/fall/germanys-border-controls-erode-core-eu-rights/
Would you like to receive regular updates on our case work? Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.ecchr.eu/en/newsletter-subscription/
