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
Syrian woman expelled from Berlin refugee camp for defending human rights
Mujer siria expulsada de un campamento para refugiados en Berlín por exigir derechos
Syrische Frau wurde aus Notunterkunft in Berlin hinausgeworfen, weil sie ihre Menschrechte einforderte
Vivian ist eine junge Frau aus Syrien. Sie ist vor dem Bürgerkrieg, der in ihrem Land tobt, und vor den Folgen, wie Arbeitslosigkeit, Hunger und sozialem Chaos geflohen. Alleine ist sie die Route aus dem Mittleren Osten nach Deutschland angetreten. Jedoch ist ihre Geschichte in Deutschland nicht von Zuflucht sondern (symbolischer) Gewalt, Erniedrigung, Frauenfeindlichkeit und Missbrauch geprägt. Die folgenden Ereignisse sind ihre Beschreibungen.
Yesterday, 15.10.2015, late at night an Afgan refugee has been shot by the Bulgarian border control police, after 50 refugees tried to cross the border Sredets to Bulgaria from Turkey. Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs is using an excuse that the refugees didn’t obey the orders to stop and even though they were not armed the Bulgarian police was compelled to use such force (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/16/afghan-refugee-shot-dead-police-turkey-enter-bulgaria).
This is of course nothing new and surprising for how the EU’s member states deal with the influx of people trying to come within its borders. Let us just remember the rubber bullet shootings by the Spanish border police in February 2014, when an unknown number of people trying to reach “Spanish” side of Ceuta drowned. This is the reality of the European Union’s immigration and asylum system which rather spends money to enforce its borders than help the people who are fleeing desperation from their settings, which is a direct product of Western Europe’s colonialism and decades of interventions by the world superpowers in the 20th century.
If we read the Frontex budget report for the years 2014 and 2015, we see an increased budget injections in external border controls. Citing Statewarch and EU’s budget expenditures to Frontex:
‘The 2015 budget of EU border agency Frontex has been increased by 17.5%, from €97 million to €114 million, with the largest share of the extra funding going towards Joint Operations at Sea Borders.’
The EU leaders are currently discussing of giving Turkey 3 billion financial resources and other political-social benefits for its citizens (e.g. better VISA-FREE travel). The idea is to keep (at least) 2 million refugeeswithin Turkey’s borders and ask for its help with enforcing EU’s external borders (source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/big-decisions-unlikely-migration-summit-eu-leaders).
Turkey is suppose to be a so called safe county, but we all know that is on the verge of a small civil war (mostly with Kurdish people or people with different political orientation), if we just look at the events that happened few days ago in Ankara, where more than 100 people were killed by most likely state sponsored suicide bombing. Citing The Guardian newspaper:
‘Turkey is currently the main source of the 700,000 people who have entered the EU this year. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is to travel to Istanbul on Sunday for talks with the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, only two weeks before a crucial general election in Turkey, leaving her open to charges that she is boosting the victory chances of his governing Justice and Development party.’
But the borders are not just on the edges of the Fortress Europe, but also inside it. They are the borders that separate people, who are illegalized by the fascist European Union’s immigration and asylum system, from European citizens. The good example and a symptom of such system is LaGeSo which dehumanizes people to non-beings, who are supposedly claiming benefits from the German state. But let us not forget that Germany is benefiting from such system and has historical and recent responsibilities towards countries that people flee from.
This is why making the so called “refugee” crisis, named by the EU’s institutions and mainstream media, a political issue that must directly adress the EU’s fascist immigration and asylum system, its neo-colonial practices and capitalist-neoliberal development in the recent years. No, there is no “refugee crisis”, but only European xenophobia towards human beings!
Next post will focus on the recent happening at the Balkan route borders and camps.
Until then: Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!!
Landesamt für Gesundheit und Soziales, Turmstraße 21, 10559 Berlin
The aim is to organize a gathering in front of the LAGESO as a central place, where Refugees first arrive in Berlin, register and thereby start their existence as Refugees.
For every simple thing Refugees have to visit the LAGESO. So since weeks the Reality in front of the LAGESO is an “emergency situation”. Hundreds of people are going every day to this place. There are people who stay there for more than 3 weeks and waiting for further process. Continue reading →
The aim is to organize a gathering in front of the LAGESO as a central place, where Refugees first arrive in Berlin, register and thereby start their existence as Refugees.
For every simple thing Refugees have to visit the LAGESO. So since weeks the Reality in front of the LAGESO is an “emergency situation”. Hundreds of people are going every day to this place. There are people who stay there for more than 3 weeks and waiting for further process.
We want to make the movement My right is your right visible not only to confront the state official’s at LAGESO and raise publicity with our existence, critique and requests – but also give a sign to the newcomers: They have rights, we are not in line with recent political decisions cutting the right to ask for asylum, with the unacceptable conditions of overloaded refugee housing, with new border controls and fences – short: with what they try to sell as a “solution” of the refugee crisis.Continue reading →
this is the protocol of our first meeting to form a group for a “lager mobilisation” in berlin and hopefully later in brandenburg (lager = asylheim, unterkunft, notunterkunft, zeltunterkunft. unterbringung usw.).
we announced this idea on the big general antiracist/antifascist-meeting last week at SO36 and around 15 heard our call – a big “thank u” to each one of u! if i missed something in this protocoll, please use the comments secetion for corretction or critique.
as u will see, there was an introduction for our new freedom fighters why the lagers and lager system are shit and why there is a need to mobilize against these unhuman system. after the introduction with some videos, small presentations and direct dialogue, we had a two hours long brainstorming round about our goals and what we can do practicaly. after this round we decided to do a small test-action Continue reading →
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.
Hundred of refugees wait in Turmstraße (Moabit) for their permission documents to an accommodation place. The people are told to do not leave the waiting queue – they must stay there all the time, including their children. Water and food supply is low, it lacks water bottles (there is only one water tap while temperatures rise to 40 degrees today), umbrellas and stuff for shade, also snacks like fruits. What is more, there is need of people who feel able to coordinate actions and supply.
Am Berliner Landesamt für Gesundheit und Soziales (Lageso) in der Turmstraße (Moabit) gibt es gegenwärtig einen Notstand: Dort warten seit Tagen hunderte Refugees in der prallen Sonne auf Wartenummern/Papiere/Unterkunft/? und das #Lageso kriegt es nicht hin, eine vernünftige Wasser- oder Lebensmittelversorgung aufrecht zu erhalten, von Schattenplätzen ganz zu schweigen. Dazu wird den Leuten, sie sollen die Warteschlange auch mit ihren Kindern nicht verlassen.
Heute sind es 40 Grad, es fehlen laut Leuten vor Ort neben Wasser in Flaschen, auch Getränkebehälter (es gibt nur 1 Wasserhahn), Schattenspender (Sonnen oder Regenschirme, Sonnensegel etc.) und Obst/Snacks. Und mehr Leute, die dort koordinieren.
Declaration against the expulsion of 100 refugees out of their shelters onto the street by Berlin Government. The expulsion came by surprise at short notice, one day in advance. The statement is signed by various cultural institutions of the town, including one of the big state theatres, Maxim Gorki Theatre.
News of Berlin Refugee Movement – from inside 