The Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg team

Meet the Clinic team

Frau Prof.'in Dr. Gabriele Buchholtz – Head of the RLC

Gabriele Buchholtz is a junior professor (with tenure track) for social security law with a specialization on migration or digitalization at the University of Hamburg since November 2020. She is writing her habilitation about the topic of integration administrative law.

Mailin Loock (Ass. jur.) – Instructor

Mailin Loock is a research assistant for the RLC Hamburg and is responsible for training our advisers since November 2020. After a year of voluntary service in Ecuador, she studied law at the Universities of Hamburg and Istanbul from 2011 to 2017. In 2015/2016 she took part in the first training cycle of the RLC Hamburg and from then on became involved as a advisor for the clinic, especially in the “Poliklinik”. From 2018 to 2020 she completed her second state examination at the ”Hanseatischen Oberlandesgericht”, including positions at a specialist lawfirm for migration law, at the project "Regionales Völkerrecht und Zugang zur Justiz in Lateinamerika" of the “Gesellschaft für international Zusammenarbeit” (GIZ) in San José, Costa Rica and at the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency. Since finishing her second state examination, she has been working as a consultant for immigration law petitions in the "Linksfraktion" of the "Hamburger Bürgerschaft". She also works as a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences. She is aiming for a doctorate on the subject of effective legal protection in asylum law supervised by Prof. Dr. Nora Markard (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster).

Karina Purenkov (Dipl. jur.) – Project coordination

Karina Purenkov is a research assistant at the RLC Hamburg since November 2020 and is responsible for the coordination. During her law studies at the Georg-August University of Göttingen she worked as a student assistant for the RLC Göttingen. Since 2018 Karina has been volunteering at the Weisser Ring e.V. where she advises people who have been victims of crimes and takes on public relations activities. She is also a member of the "Deutsche Juristinnenbund".

Mehria Lührig (RA’in) – Head of RLC-KnowYourRights

Mehria was born in Afghanistan and grew up in Hamburg. She is a founding member of RLC-KnowYourRights, where diversity and freedom from discrimination are particularly important to her. She studied at the University of Hamburg and took part in the committees of the student council and in different committees of the Astas, where the focus of her work has been equality and combating discrimination of all kinds. Her commitment continued during her legal clerkship in the staff council, as well as outside of the university. Due to her own experience with discrimination in many ways, it was very important to her to stand up for others from an early age by supporting others in various ways. Mehria attaches great importance to treating everyone equally, protecting minorities from discrimination and strengthening them. In addition to managing the RLC KnowYourRights, she is also involved in other ways. Due to her varied voluntary activities - in which she is represented in various institutions and committees - she has a well-developed network, which is particularly advantageous for the work in the RLC. In her work she especially promotes equal opportunities. In addition to her commitment and her job, Mehria is also a popular lecturer at her alma mater.

Mir Amanullah Ashuftah (Dipl. Ing) – 

Aman and his family fled to Germany from Kabul / Afghanistan in 1989. Since then he has volunteered for various minority issues and fights against all kinds of discrimination. As a member of a political party, he takes part in various committees with focus on migration. Aman has been working as an interpreter and translator since the beginning of the Refugee Law Clinic. As a specialist with his multitude of languages (Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Tajik, Russian), he is also a great support for training our interpreters. Aman has completed different courses for interpreting and translating for courts and authorities, interpreting training and supervision and is a language mediator by profession. Therefor he is a great help to our interpreters, particularly during their training. Furthermore, through his own experience and his volunteer work over the past 25 years, he has a strong understanding of integration and was able to build a large network, which helps him with developing new projects about integration promotion.

Mohammad Saluha – 

Mohammad Saluha studies social economics at the University of Hamburg. Since October 2015 he is been working as an interpreter and consultant in various projects of the "Deutsches Rotes Kreuz" and for the organizations “Flüchtlinge Willkommen" and "Bin e.V”. Since April 2019 he has been part of the coordination team of the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg and is responsible for the interpreter training.

Hanna Khorasani – 

Hanna Khorasani has been studying law at the University of Hamburg since April 2017 and specializes in European and international law. Since February 2020 Hanna has been part of the coordination team of the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg, as a student assistant. Political and societal issues are very important to her, which is why she has been politically active in various areas in the past and began her training at the Refugee Law Clinic in October 2019.

Tom Werner –

Tom Werner has been a law student at the University of Hamburg since October 2016. In October 2017 he started his training at the Refugee Law Clinic, leading to him advising for the clinic on a regular basis since the beginning of 2018 till the end of 2020. He is part of the founding group of the project “Abschiebehaftberatung Hamburg“ a cooperation between the Law Clinic of the Bucerius Law School and the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg. Previously, he has worked at “Insel hilft e.V.” where he prepared german courses for refugees. Tom is a part of the RLC coordination team as a student assistant since February 2020.

Advisory board

Prof. Dr. Nora Markard (MA)

As a member of our advisory board, Prof. Markard contributes her expertise and help to the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg. She is a professor for public law and international human rights protection. She studied law and international relations in Berlin, Paris, and London, and has worked in international and European refugee law for many years. In 2012, she was awarded the Humboldt Prize for her doctorate on war refugees. In 2013, she was conferred the Marie Elisabeth Lüders Research Prize by the German Women Lawyers Association (Deutscher Juristinnenbund, DJB). Nora Markard is a founding member of the Migration Law Network and the German Network of Refugee Researchers as well as the interdisciplinary research network of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) on the foundations of refugee research. In 2010/11, she established the Humboldt Law Clinic: Fundamental and Human Rights together with Prof. Dr. Susanne Baer (LLM) and the Australian human rights lawyer Jacqui Zalcberg (LLM). On behalf of the HLC, she presented a parallel report on the treatment of intersex children to the UN Committee Against Torture. Funding acquired during the founding phase later enabled the Humboldt Law Clinic to expand its work to the fields of consumer protection and internet law. Since December 2014, Nora Markard has worked closely with the student organizing committee in running the RLC Hamburg. She is a member of the committee for the Refugee Law Clinics Germany umbrella organization and the Refugee Law Clinics Abroad. Since 2015, she has also been a member of the board of the civil rights society Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e. V. (GFF). 

Helene Heuser (MA)

Helene Heuser contributes her expertise and help to the Refugee Law Clinic as a member of our advisory board. She was a research associate to Prof. Markard since October 2015. She studied law and philosophy in Berlin and Paris, and completed her legal training with the Zweites Staatsexamen (second state examination). During her studies, she worked as an advisor and lobbyist for the Gisti and Migreurop NGOs in Paris as well as for Amnesty International and the contact point and advice center for refugees and migrants (KuB) in Berlin, where she remains a member. After completing the Erstes Staatsexamen (first state examination), she worked for the Arbeiterwohlfahrt Landesverband Berlin e. V., where she was in charge of wardships for foreign minors, and then of legal counseling for refugees, which was financed by the European Refugee Fund and the UNHCR. She is a member of the Migration Law Network, the German Network of Refugee Researchers, and Amnesty International. She gained her first teaching experience at the Humboldt Law Clinic in Berlin. Helene Heuser was head instructor and deputy head of the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg.

Legal supervision

Heiko Habbe (Fluchtpunkt)

The Hamburg-based lawyer Heiko Habbe has been involved in migration issues as a volunteer and legal professional since 1992. He has worked at Fluchtpunkt as a legal advisor since 2015 and spent six years as a Policy Officer at the Jesuit refugee service Jesuiten-Flüchtlingsdienst in Berlin. Heiko Habbe is a long-standing member of the Migration Law Network and was a member of the editorial team for the basic rights report for a number of years. He has worked at Universität Hamburg as an instructor since October 2015, and is also a legal supervisor for RLC advisors.

Björn Stehn

Björn Stehn is a Hamburg-based lawyer for asylum, refugee, and immigration law. He handles cases of deportation prevention for humanitarian and health reasons, human rights cases, and residency cases based on European law. He has been the legal supervisor at the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg during the semester holidays since March 2016.

Founders and former team members

Katharina Leithoff

Katharina Leithoff has been studying law at Universität Hamburg since 2009. After a semester abroad in Aix-en-Provence in 2012 and participating in the Jessup Moot Court in 2013/14, she completed her specialization in European and international law in 2015. Katharina Leithoff founded the Refugee Law Clinic in summer 2014 together with Fiona Schönbohm. She gained her first experiences with international refugee law during an internship with a human rights organization in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010. She was a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Markard since August 2015.

Fiona Schönbohm

Fiona Schönbohm is a co-founder of the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg. From August 2015 to January 2016, she worked for Prof. Dr. Markard as a research assistant and project organizer. She studied law in Hamburg and Aix-en-Provence. She completed her specialization in European and international law. In addition to two years of advanced training as a mediator, she has also completed a one-year seminar on peace studies at Universität Hamburg.

Esther Haas

Esther Haas began studying law at Universität Hamburg in 2014 after completing a bachelor’s degree in business psychology at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. After two semesters at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University, she joined the RLC team in September 2016. She worked as a research assistant until April 2017, and also participated in the RLC training program.

Hanah Abucar

Hanah Abucar has been a research associate to Prof. Markard since September 2017. She was in charge of project coordination.

Sünje Andresen

Sünje Andresen began studying law at Universität Hamburg in 2013. She started her specialization in crime and crime control in April 2016. She first became involved in the RLC Hamburg in early 2015. She completed the RLC training program, then joined the advisory team in December 2015. She worked at the RLC Hamburg as a research assistant since March 2016.

Franziska Jensen

Franziska Jensen began studying law at Universität Hamburg in 2013, after two semesters of philosophy and English studies. In early 2015 she completed a human rights internship at the University of Wellington in New Zealand. She has been a member of the Refugee Law Clinic Hamburg since October 2015 and completed the training to become a volunteer legal advisor. She worked for the RLC Hamburg as a research assistant since April 2016.

Fabian Endemann

Fabian Endemann began studying law at Universität Hamburg in 2013. He is also pursuing a degree in cultural sciences with an emphasis in philosophy at the open university FernUniversität in Hagen. In the Winter Semester 2015/16 and Summer Semester 2016, he studied law, philosophy, and art history at Trinity College Dublin. He began his specialization in European and International Law and his training at the Refugee Law Clinic in October 2016. He is a tutor for the key qualification Mediation. He worked at the RLC Hamburg as a research assistant since October 2016.

Louisa Hadadi

Louisa Hadadi has been studying law at Universität Hamburg since 2016. Her first experiences with refugee support were during her school years, when she and her classmates initiated and ran a refugee sports project. Her family background means she is also well-versed in intercultural exchanges. In spring 2017, Louisa Hadadi spent six weeks volunteering at a community center in Tanzania. She began training as an RLC advisor in October 2017. Louisa worked at the RLC Hamburg as a research assistant since July 2017.