Demo against Asylum Law Package II on Feb 16th

deutsch unten – francais en bas – Türk – Srpskohrvatski  – فارسی– اردو – العربية

No to even tighter laws! Yes to solidarity! Photo: Yusuf Beyazit

16th February 2016 at 6pm
start at LaGeSo (Turmstraße 21, 10559 Berlin) to Bundestag

In the next days the parliament will vote on a new law. This racist law is directed aggressively against refugees.

They Asylum Package II includes:
• “Special reception camps” for people from “secure” countries of origin, or people who are accused to have destroyed their documents, will be opened. In these camps the asylum procedure should be completed in three weeks with the aim to deport people faster.
• People coming from a country where there is war and who have the status of ‘Subsidiary Protection’ shall not be allowed to bring their family from abroad during the first two years of their stay.
• Deportations of people who are sick will be easier. Illnesses that people had already before they came to Germany will not be an obstacle to deportations anymore.
• Algeria, Tunesia and Marokko shall be declared as secure countries of origin in order to deport people more easily.

This Asylum Package II is an act of isolationist politics and division!
Let us not be played off against each other! Let’s get on the streets and be loud against these racist laws, against the violence of camp security and against the Lagers!

For the right to stay and the right to family for everyone!

Solidarity is: resistance!!

supporting groups:

African Refugees Union – International Women Space – Union des Refugiés Berlin Brandenbourg – alle bleiben! – Medibüro Berlin – Moabit hilft! – Weise-Kiez-Initiative – Bündnis für bedingungsloses Bleiberecht – Bündnis gegen Rassismus – My Right Is Your Right – Lager Mobilisation Group – Hände weg vom Wedding – AK Geflüchtete der Naturfreunde Jugend – Wem gehört Kreuzberg – Antifa Friedrichshain

Facebook

Video: Emergency shelter in Wiesenstraße throws out Syrian refugee woman at night

 

Klick HERE for the Press Release which was published few days ago.

Watch the video: https://vimeo.com/154353396

International Women Space got to know Viviana when she was still living the emergency shelter (Lager) at the Wiesenstraße, in Wedding, Berlin. On te 29th of January we went to the Notunterkunft to have a coffee with Viviana and see how she was. The moment we met, Viviana was already showing signs of stress. No wonder, she was one of the few women living in a shared space of a former Basketball Hall with 200 men having only her bed as a place of her own.

IN OUR OWN WORDS Book launch

Refugee Women in Germany tell their stories

WHEN: 19.00 | 25^th November 2015
WHERE: TheaterSpielRaum, Bethanien-Südflügel, Mariannenplatz 2B, 10997 Berlin

 

Refugee Women in Germany tell their stories

In 2013, we, the activists from International Women Space (IWS), set ourselves the task of documenting the lives and stories of refugee women in Germany. We approached the project in the Latin American tradition of testimonial literature – looking to amplify the voice of the voiceless.

“In contrast to conventional writing about the colonial situation, which is produced at the centers of global power and near the apices of class difference, testimonial literature is produced by subaltern peoples on the periphery or the margin of the colonial situation. Thus the margins of empire are now “writing back” in an overdue attempt to correct the Western canon and its versions of “truth”. Testimonial literature has been defined by George Yuidice as an authentic narrative, told by a witness who is moved to narrate by the urgency of a situation (e.g., war, oppression, revolution, etc.).” – Voices for the Voiceless

Pressconference 14.09.2015 Gerhart- Hauptmann Schule #Ohlauer ( Video by Muhammed Lamin Jadama)

Solidarität muss politisch werden! Solidarity must become political!

iwspace

Social Center 4all. This is a good name and a good project and we hope the eviction of the occupation at Englische Straße 20 today doesn’t discourage people to continue trying to find alternative spaces for the thousands of refugees arriving in Germany. It is not only a question of sleeping places, which are absolutely necessary. It is also a question of finding a places where people can self-organize spaces, where projects can be developed, where new communities can be built.

We welcome and support initiatives which take in to consideration that people need more than charity. Today we stood by the occupation for the time it lasted imagining how a women space could function there. How many refugee women we would be able to invite, what kind of activities would we be able to do together. Since the eviction of the Ohlauer School, not to have our own space has been a huge obstacle to our work. And there we were, in front of a house, whose owner doesn’t use, but refuses to let us use. This logic only makes sense in a completely bizarre system, such as capitalism, where greed substitutes reason.

„We are here because you destroyed our countries“

We have been seeing, through the media, a rise of solidarity amongst the Germans towards refugees. There has been article after article reporting about welcome structures in different parts of the country. Different people are creating websites offering temporary accommodation to refugees, others are collecting basic clothes, food supplements and taking to the refugees camped in front of the Berliner Lageso, the state Office of Health and Welfare. The picture shows a situation maybe found in Lebanon, which hosts more than 1 million refugees, or in Greece, a country facing huge economic crisis, courtesy of Germany, and obviously incapable of offering much more than its citizens solidarity.

The reality in Germany is that we are in one of the richest European countries, which has the proper means and structures to welcome refugees if they wanted. The empathy of the citizens is welcome, their efforts too, but if it stops on the charity level we are done as a political movement. The impoverishment of the people who are becoming refugees is not new and the reasons are in history and can be understood by those who want to know why human beings are using desperate measures to come to Europe. Colonialism, slavery and white supremacy thinking provoked the situation. That is why people are coming to Europe, they are escaping from countries destroyed by the politics of western countries.

The Refugees Are Coming!!!

By ANDRE VLTCHEK: I don’t really know, I don’t understand how it feels: to live in a rich European country, which is rich mainly because it has been directly plundering many poor nations around the world. Or it has been plundering by association, through its membership in some extremist organization like NATO. To live there, refusing to acknowledge why it is rich, how it became rich.

Palaces, theatres, railroads, hospitals and parks in that rich country are built on broken skeletons and restless specters, on lakes of blood and shameless theft.

Then, when one looted country after another begins to sink, when there is nothing left there, when children begin dying from hunger and when men commence fighting each other over tiny boulders and dirty pieces of turf, pathetic boats, or dinghies, begin crossing the waterways, bringing half starved, half-mad refugees to the European sea-fronts decorated with marble. Continue reading on Counterpunch.

from iwspace http://bit.ly/1WotB3d

Paris ‘generously’ allows hundreds of migrants to stay in abandoned school

Migrants walk in the courtyard at the Guillaume-Bude secondary school, near a banner which reads, “Flee from War, Live on the Streets” in Paris, France, August 2, 2015. Some two hundred migrants, some of whom were expelled from a makeshift tent city in Paris seek refuge in the annexe of the secondary school. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe – RTX1MRMF

“We are convinced that we must make the choice of responsibility and generosity. The city of Paris has to show solidarity,” Julliard said. “These migrants have risked their lives crossing the Sahara, the Mediterranean, they fled war in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Eritrea.”

Read full text on RT website.

from iwspace http://bit.ly/1P0xKoF

Taz: Frauen als Flüchtlinge Schutzlos in einem sicheren Land

Von Andrea Dernbach

Auch wer es nach Deutschland geschafft hat, ist nicht sicher. Gerade weibliche Flüchtlinge sind oft Gewalt ausgesetzt – nicht zuletzt in Asylbewerberheimen. 

Das Deutsche Institut für Menschenrechte prangert mangelhaften Schutz für Frauen an, die nach Deutschland geflohen sind. Seit etwa 15 Jahren gelte unter anderem das Gewaltschutzgesetz; es werde aber nicht für alle umgesetzt, die es brauchten, heißt es in einem Policy Paper unter dem Titel „Effektiver Schutz vor geschlechtsspezifischer Gewalt – auch in Flüchtlingsunterkünften“. Dazu gehörten nicht zuletzt Asylbewerberinnen, schreibt die Juristin und wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut (Dimr), Heike Rabe,in ihrer in dieser Woche erschienenen Analyse. Weiter lesen.

from iwspace http://bit.ly/1HxmyKu

VIDEO: German news anchor Anja Reschke uses slot to attack ‘little racist nobodies’ in impassioned call to end hatred towards refugees

The Independent: A German news anchor has sparked a huge debate after using her evening TV slot to wage verbal war on those who racially attack refugees.

Anja Reschke expressed her anger at how worryingly normal it now is to publish “hate tirades” under real names in comment pieces she believes has contributed to a “rise in extreme right wing acts” including arson.

“Until recently, such commentators were hidden behind pseudonyms but now these things are being aired under real names,” she said in the two-minute segment, which quickly went viral.

“Apparently it’s no longer embarrassing – on the contrary, in reaction to phrases like ‘filthy vermin should drown in the sea’, you get excited consensus and a lot of ‘likes’.”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9nLI3UvqI5o?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

from iwspace http://bit.ly/1ManniI