German police are investigating the alleged physical and mental abuse of refugees by security guards at an asylum center in the western town of Brach, BBC News reported. Known to receive the most asylum applications of any industrialized countries, Germany has seen a surge this year as thousands flee war-torn countries like Syria.
After a DVD allegedly showing an asylum seeker being abused by two guards was obtained by a local journalist, police in the western city of Hagen raided the center, which is funded by a private security company, the Associated Press reported.
In the picture, a guard is seen pressing his boot against the neck of a handcuffed refugee lying on the floor while another guard nearby looks on. "It's a photo one would associate with Guantanamo Bay," one police officer was quoted as saying. "Both security guards are grinning."
Snapped from a security officer's cellphone, the picture has been widely circulated in the German press, with the popular newspaper Bild running the picture under the headline "beaten, humiliated, tortured!"
"German broadcaster Deutsche Welle commented that the image was akin to those taken by U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004," according to BBC News.
Since the discovery, other residents at the asylum have come forward to make complaints about repeatedly being abused, causing all security staff at the center to be withdrawn and replaced by staff from the security company Stoelting.
Additionally, "the German government has also implemented a seven-point plan to improve the running of asylum centers. Under the new scheme, companies will have to prove that their guards are certified and that enough psychologists are employed at the centers," according to BBC News.
Meanwhile, German citizens have expressed outrage over the picture, Miami Herald reported.
"Any citizen would be shocked by such pictures and want to know whether what the pictures suggest actually happened," government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin on Monday, adding that those responsible for the abuse should be punished.
"It's terrible to imagine that people who have already suffered violence in other countries and come here looking for protection are then exposed to such a situation," said the chief prosecutor of the nearby city of Siegen, Johannes Daheim. "This only reinforces their trauma."
