German tourists told to be rights pests

Germans holidaying abroad this summer are being called on to “look beyond the palm trees” and pester staff in ­foreign airports and hotels about human rights concerns, the Berlin foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Launching an unusual appeal to the 44m Germans who travel overseas every year, Günter Nooke, a close ally of Angela Merkel, the chancellor, and the foreign ministry’s human rights envoy, said, “human rights were being trampled under foot” in top destinations such as Turkey, Egypt and Thailand.

Compared with most other countries, Germans spend more time and money on holidays, he said, and emphasised that spoiling the tourists’ fun was not his intention. Nor did he want to encourage boycotts of destinations such as Myanmar or North Korea. Rather, tourists should be more aware of their own economic and political power.

Tourists to destinations such as Turkey – which attracted 3.7m Germans last year – should be aware of the limits on press freedom and “deficits in the country’s legal system”, and could engage with local people on these issues.

Equally, visitors to Egypt – where 1m Germans travelled last year – could ask hotels for information on why emergency powers have been in place since the early 1980s.

Tourists visiting the Olympics in China next year could organise “private meetings” with local citizen groups, although he warned against actions that endangered visitors or locals.

Regine Spöttl, of Amnesty International, said she was “thrilled” by the appeal and said visitors to luxury hotels in Dubai, for instance, should confront hotel managers over the working conditions of low-paid Bangladeshi women staff, who regularly faced rights abuses.