Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Anaheim (California) fights back against outrageous police killing



Memorial for Manuel Diaz, killed by Anaheim Police

Woman shot point-black by rubber bullet after diving to save her child from police attack dog
Photos: Doug Kauffman/Liberation News
On Saturday, July 21, Anaheim police shot and killed Manuel Diaz. According to the OC Register, "A 17-year-old who lives in the neighborhood said she saw the shooting from about 20 feet away. She said Diaz had his back to the officer and was shot in the buttocks area. Diaz went down on his knees, and she said he was struck by another bullet in the head. The other officer handcuffed Diaz, who by then was on the ground and not moving, she added.'They searched his pockets, and there was a hole in his head, and I saw blood on his face,' she said."
Witnesses say Manuel Diaz was simply hanging out when police began harassing him. In response to the killing, friends and neighbors began gathering in their front lawns. Then, without warning, Anaheim police began firing rubber bullets, beanbag shotguns, and pepper-spray bullets indiscriminately into the crowd which included children--even unleashing a police attack dog on a woman holding a child. In the harrowing video, you can clearly see baby strollers and toddlers in the line of fire.
In response to the killing, people immediately came from the area to protest. On Sunday, a large group picketed outside the Anaheim Police Station where the police were holding a press conference about the killing. As the protest grew, demonstrators, who were led by victims of police abuse (including young children), held a protest inside the police station.
As the community continued to mobilize, the Anaheim police then killed another resident on Sunday night. Witnesses say the victim was already handcuffed when he was shot. Another spontaneous demonstration continued until about 4am.
As the situation develops, the ANSWER Coalition will continue to be on the ground supporting the community in their struggle for justice. History shows us that there is no accountability or justice unless the people fight for it. The community will continue to mobilize in order to hold the killer cops and police department accountable.
How you can help:
ANSWER LA has been organizing against police brutality in southern California for years in response to the scourge of police violence directed at working-class communities.

Demonstration in Downey, California to demand Justice for Mike Nida!

End Police Violence! Justice for Mike Nida!

Date: July 28, 2012
Time: 10am
Location: Mike Nida Memorial Site
Imperial Hwy & Paramount Blvd
Downey, California
Contact: answerla@answerla.org or 213-251-1025
Join the Campaign to Stop Police Violence and others as we organize to win justice for Mike Nida. We'll have volunteer meetings, pass out flyers, gather petition signatures and organize for a mass march on Downey police headquarters.

Click here to join the Campaign to Stop Police Violence, a project of ANSWER.
Mike Nida, a union carpenter and father of four, was murdered by Downey police on Oct. 22 with an MP5 submachine gun. Mike had been stopped for 'fitting the description' which is a standard euhpemism for being Black or Latino in a working-class neighborhood. After being stopped for no reason, Mike was assaulted, and fled for his life at which point the officer walked back to their vehicle, popped the trunk, removed the machine gun, and shot Mike in the back multiple times rather than attempting to chase or subdue Mike with non-lethal methods.
Downey police prevented any life-saving efforts or emergency medical personnel from assisting Mike for nearly 15 minutes. His wife was prevented from saying goodbye despite only being a few feet away from where he was left to bleed to death by callous, racist officers.
Since Mike's killing, his family and friends along with the Campaign to Stop Police Violence have sprung into action by attending Downey City Council meetings, holding press conferences, walking local neighborhoods, and petitioning to demand justice. The City Council has fallen into comfortable complicity and silence on the horrific killing and police chief Esteves has done everything in his ability to shield the officers responsible for Mike's death. The time is now to send a clear message to the local government and the Downey police that racist and brutal terror will not be tolerated in the community! Join us as we march to demand:
  • Justice for Mike Nida!
  • Stop racial profiling and police brutality!
  • Jail all racist, killer cops now!

Monday, July 23, 2012

Aurora Today’s Sand Creek Massacre 1864

n July 20th 2012, James Holmes, a 24 year old white man, entered a Colorado movie theatre and opened fire on the audience, killing 12 people and injuring 58. 
The Uhuru Solidarity Movement shares the following piece from Mohawk Nation News as a reminder that the Euro-American culture of violence  rests on the pedestal of the genocide of the Indigenous people and the enslavement of Africans.
We recognize that what occurred in Colorado was not an anomaly, but the inevitable by-product of a social system fueled by unceasing violence and brutality waged against the majority of the world’s peoples. Overturning the culture of violence means standing in solidarity with the liberation of Africans and Indigenous people.
AURORA TODAY’S SAND CREEK MASSACRE 1864
Posted by Mohawk Nation News on July 21, 2012
MNN.  July 21, 2012.  The Aurora theatre killer, James Holmes, grew up in San Diego California.  His mother sent him to Denver to study for his Phd in neuroscience.
Americans are horrified about the chaotic, horrific, tumultuous and bloody mass murders in the movie theatre showing “Dark Night Rises”.  Yet they live unconcerned over the top of our graves. This hemisphere is soaked in our people’s blood, all killed by psychotic mass murderers.
Aurora is 100 miles from the site of the Sand Creek massacre, November 29, 1864.  Old Denver families were behind this mass murder of Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women and children.
In the spring of 1864 the Cheyenne and Arapaho were ready for peace.  They met with US Officers, Evans and Chivington, at Camp Weld outside of Denver.  No treaties were signed.  The Indians were offered a sanctuary at Fort Lyon.  Black Kettle and over 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho travelled south to set up camp on Sand Creek, near Eads, the town later built on top of the massacre site.  Some dissenters headed north to join the Sioux.

General Samuel Curtis sent a telegram, “I want no peace till the Indians suffer more”.  700 Cavalry volunteers called “100 Dazers”, assembled in Denver.  The camps of Chief Black Kettle, White Antelope, Left Hand and others, lay in the valley before them.   Chivington, with mostly drunken troops, headed to Sand Creek with 4 Howitzers.   Black Kettle raised both flags of peace.  Chivington raised his arm for attack.   Cannon and rifles pounded the camp.  The Indians scattered.  The frenzied soldiers hunted down and murdered the men, women and children.   A few warriors managed to fight back.  Silas Soule of Massachussets did not allow his soldiers to fire into the crowd.
Troops continued the murders all day.  One bragged about killing 3 women and 5 children who were screaming for mercy.  They murdered all the wounded, mutilated and scalped them.  They cut open the pregnant women’s bellies and laid the fetus on the bodies.  They plundered tipis and divided up the herd of horses.  Black Kettle’s wife was shot 9 times and survived.  The Cheyenne Dog Warriors who opposed the peace treaty provided sanctuary for the survivors.
The Colorado volunteers returned to Denver as heroes, with scalps of women and children.  Colorado residents celebrated.  Chivington appeared on a Denver stage telling war stories and displayed 100 Indigenous scalps, including pubic hair of women.  Many of the elite of Denver society today are the children of these murderers.
Eye witnesses came forward and reported the murders.   Silas Soule testified against Chivington, and was murdered by Charles Squires.  It was found to be a carefully planned massacre.  Asked why kids were killed, “Nits make lice”, said Chivington.
As word of the massacre spread, the Indigenous resistance to white expansion stiffened.  This massacre led to the Little Big Horn battle on June 25-6, 1876 where General George Custer and his men were wiped out by the Lakota lead by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.
In December 29, 1890, the US 7th Cavalry commanded by Samuel M. Whitside lead the massacre of over 350 Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek.
We have had to live with these horrors since the arrival of the invaders, while they send their “cry babies” to doctors for counselling.
That mindset to slaughter people was brought here.  80 are shot and killed daily in the US, not counting stabbings and death by other means.
Orders always come from the top.  On December 26, 1862 Lincoln sanctioned the hanging of 38 randomly picked Indian men and boys without trial, the largest mass hanging in US history.  One week later, January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves.  The Blacks then formed the regiment called the Buffalo Soldiers who proudly massacred the Indigenous for their masters.  Today both races celebrate their plunder with medals and the theft of our land.
Was James Holmes trying to mimic the mindset of those Denver people? If he is insane, then Washington, Grant and Lincoln, and all the other presidents who gave orders to totally annihilate us, are all insane as well.
The Americans must be reminded of this continuing genocide.  If they don’t know their history, it is bound to repeat itself.  The lesson is: be careful what you ask for,  you might just get it.
The movie-goers went to the theatre to see murder, death, chaos and plunder.  Then they got it for real!
As Bob Marley sang about, “Buffalo soldier, dread-lock rasta.”
MNN Mohawk Nation News kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, workshops, to donate and sign up for MNN newsletters, go to www.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Archives.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0
AURORA TODAY’S SAND CREEK MASSACRE 1864

Saturday, July 21, 2012

No Drones To Turkey!

KURDISH-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES AND FRIENDS URGE CONGRESS TO OPPOSE THE SALE OF ARMED AERIAL DRONES TO TURKEY

In December 2011, the Turkish military launched an operation using U.S.-supplied F-16 jets that resulted in the killing of 34 civilian Kurdish boys and young men along the Turkey-Iraq border. As reported by mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Associated Press, the attack was guided by predator drone intelligence that was provided to the Turkish military. The Turkish government has demonstrated grave irresponsibility by continuing to avoid a public investigation, threatening members of the victims’ families, and disallowing them to file cases with the courts.
The Kurdish Grassroots Advocacy Group, a grassroots group supported by a collection of American and Kurdish-American organizations, communities, and individuals in the United States, strongly encourage Congressional opposition to the sale of armed aerial drones to the Turkish military on the grounds that the proposed deal could put civilians in Turkey at great risk and generate new security problems in the region.
Letters to Representatives

LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE

Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

Drone

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Demonstration of the striking refugees in Regensburg (Germany)

28th of Juli at 2pm Demonstration: No one is illegal! Start: Neupfarrplatz, Regensburg (Bavaria/Germany)

Thursday, July 12, 2012

NO BORDER CAMP COLOGNE/DÜSELDORF 2012



web banner - gross

Join us at the camp and in the struggle against racism

An action camp featuring protests, workshops, discussions and networking
From 13 to 22 July, there will be a NoBorder camp in Cologne which is being organised by an open collective of anti-racist groups and activists. Come to the camp! Contribute your ideas, actions, and workshops! Get involved in the decentralised preparations! The camp will be what you make it!
(short version of the call below)

WHY A NO BORDER CAMP?

Europe’s borders have many shapes. They encompass the European Union and they also show outside of the Schengen area in neighbour and “transit states”. There are also interior and invisible borders that pervade society. Similarly they express themselves through relations characterised by exploitation and dominance, which are also based on gender. While non EU states such as Ukraine and Tunisia have been committed to intercept migrants and refugees before they can even reach the Schengen area, the EU member states make use of structural violence: racist stop-and-search operations carried out by the police, precarious working conditions, detention in refugee camps or deportations operated from the airports of major European cities. These are only a few examples of manifestations of racism towards those who are perceived as “different”, exposing the deeply entrenched racism in European societies.
However, these borders are constantly transcended: When refugees revolt in camps near the EU’s external borders, when migrants stay despite precarious living conditions or when they organise themselves in solidly united collectives. What’s more is that discrepancies have become apparent between states maintaining the European border regime. Even though 2011 turned out to be the most fatal year for refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, the Arab spring caused a temporary collapse of Europe’s extended borders. And also within the European Union, political conflicts have erupted concerning the austerity measures authoritatively pushed forward by the German state. They are particularly evident in Southern European protests against economic attacks which were justified by the crisis and the impoverishing policies imposed by more affluent European states.

WHAT’S THE AGENDA OF THE NO BORDER CAMP COLOGNE/DÜSSELDORF?

As participants of the camp, we’d like to create a space in which demands can be made, listened to, supported and knowledge shared – where refugees/migrants/PoCs1 can find room to organise themselves. We’d like to develop strategies that allow us to surmount existing divisions amongst people and to unite in our fight against racism. Through our actions we’d like to raise awareness and to overcome the feeling of powerlessness. Because structural racism has its effects, the group organising the preparations predominantly consists of white2 people. However, we intend to create an environment that enables and encourages everybody to participate in the preparations of the camp. The camp will exert political pressure on the people responsible for the deportation apparatus and on those profiting from it. Actions during the camp can temporarily suspend the border regime and resistance and self-organisation can effectively prevent deportations! An action day against the deportations from Düsseldorf International Airport is scheduled on the 21st of July which won’t leave beneficiaries of the deportation apparatus like Air Berlin unmolested.

Living conditions of refugees and migrants in Düsseldorf and Cologne

The camp will also look into refugees’ living conditions at the respective locations and try to reinforce present struggles and self-determination! The compulsory internment in asylum seekers’ accommodation far away from city centres are part of a racist segregation policy. It harms people both physically and psychologically and refugees constantly try to take action against this kind of accommodation as a systematic attempt to humiliate and to isolate them. The aims of the detention centres’ refugee policies, which heavily rely on deportations, are followed up by other repressive measures, like the Residenzpflicht or the interrogation of refugees who try to obtain a permit to travel that take place at the central alien office in Cologne.
There are many places in which people who are directly affected by these measures have initiated actions: Conferences or campaigns against the Residenzpflicht and protests against accommodation in refugee camps and the food stamp system, also bringing up the issue of racist police violence. This may saw people in Berlin having action days against deportation hearings, in Thuringia, Eastern Germany, the Break Isolation Camp against accommodation in refugee camps will be held and people are joining them from all over.
Other spots in Cologne represent the conditions which migrants/PoCs/black people (…) and their descendants who, despite having grown up in Germany are still considered “foreign”, have to face: In 2004 in Köln-Mülheim the far right terrorist group NSU committed an attack aimed at the colour population using a nail filled bomb. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution which has some involvement in the NSU’s serial killings has its headquarters in Cologne as well. In Mülheim and in other parts of Cologne, Bulgarian and Romanian migrants are currently subjected to public hostility and continuous police raids. The central record of foreigners which registers people without a German passport on racist criteria, and which thousands of “partner departments” can access, is one of the most extensive databases in Germany and is also in Cologne.

Main focus Anti-Romanyism

In Germany and in Europe structural discrimination, social stigmatisation and everyday-racism are historical continuities. During the 3rd Reich Roma were persecuted, defamed and murdered. The Federal Republic of Germany has never assumed responsibility as the successor state. Instead many Roma and Sinti are still being denied the right of residence, stigmatised and face deportation. Anti-Romanyism, the stereotypical perception and the widespread rejection of Roma and Sinti does not only manifest in marches and pogroms which have recently taken place in various Eastern European countries. They only represent the violent climax. In Germany Roma are confronted with racist agitation in the media and social exclusion. Roma who migrate from countries such as Romania or Bulgaria to Western European countries, because of an increasingly aggressive racism and their extreme poverty, will find themselves persistently discriminated against and subjected to general suspicion in populist campaigns directed at them. This is currently happening in Leverkusen where the media uses terms such as “Mafia” when speaking about Roma families, the police carry out raids and make use of racial profiling when stop-and-searching people in public transportation.
On a local level, racist prejudices enter public discourse without resistance, the media being more than complicit in this. The social situation that’s constituted by the consequences of persecution, expulsion, and poverty is considered an intrinsic trait of Roma people, followed by a demand for more repression against them. An ostensible cause for the imagined threat in one of the anti-ziganist campaigns in Dortmund was the presence of people working as sex workers who migrated from Bulgaria. Stigmatised in multiple ways (as sex workers and as women) their work has been put on a level with violence and organised crime to illegalise their already precarious working conditions.
Other than that, social exclusion manifests in regular collective deportations which even concern families who have lived in Germany for more than twenty years, based on so-called readmission agreements, to Kosovo, Macedonia or to Serbia. The deportation practice and the methods used against Roma in Germany traumatise the people affected and force them to live under inhumane and marginalised conditions in the ex-Yugoslavian states. All over Europe, the white majority tacitly accepts the fact that Roma are only allowed to stay in camps, “in their part of town” where they can “move freely” while white people ponder how they might be able to colonise the moon.
The campaign “alle bleiben!” (“everybody stays!”) which fights for the right of residence to be granted to Roma has staged protests at the latest collective deportations from Düsseldorf Airport which lead to a life without perspectives that’s characterised by social exclusion in Kosovo and Serbia. The activists stick up for people threatened by deportation and try to get the flights to depart with as few passengers as possible. The No Border camp intends to pick up on these struggles against deportation and for better living conditions and to bring attention to the resistance of Roma activists. Let’s support and show our solidarity with Roma-activists! Stop all deportations!

From detention camps to deporations, from Sarrazin to the NSU – let’s attack racist realities!

What do the “NSU” (National Socialist Underground, a far-right German terrorist group), the right-winged organisation “Pro Deutschland” or the controversy about Thilo Sarrazin’s theories (a German politician promoting a restrictive immigration policy) have in common with deportations carried out in practice by the German authorities and the everyday life of refugees in detention centres? We conceive racism as a widespread societal and institutionalised reality that cannot be assigned to the margins of society or be trivialised as isolated cases. Racism is ubiquitous, people are turned into “others” on a daily basis, pushed to the fringes of society having to endure generalised stereotyping and prejudice. This resulted in the serial killings of the Neo-nazi murderers of the NSU remaining unknown to the public.
Instead, the victims and their families were accused of having been involved in criminal activities by the investigators. This strategy of reversing guilt has a long tradition in Germany. The refugee Safwan Eid was accused of an arson attack on a refugee camp in 1996; the asylum seeker Oury Jalloh who burned to death in a police cell in 2005 had allegedly caused his own death by setting fire to the mattress that he was tied down to. According to this logic, people who are discriminated against in a racist manner represent the cause of just that discrimination – it thus being a problem of those who have to endure it and not those who gain privileges from it, i.e. the white German majority. Anti-Islamic racism often claims that Muslims, or those who are perceived to be Muslims, are associated with terrorism and fundamentalism. In anti-Islamic racism, the sexualistation of women defined as “Muslim” works through the urge to “unveil everything” in an interplay with their deprivation of self-determination and emancipation.
This widespread racism saw another climax in 2010 in the controversy caused by Thilo Sarrazin in which the social democrat combines his biologism with cultural racism. Whether people use the colonialist category of “race” as a pretence or replace it with the term “culture”, both inevitably ascribe certain characteristics to people. Thus turning them into “representatives” of some arbitrarily defined group. And it wasn’t just during the Sarrazin controversy that people were classified according to their “usefulness”. This is the point where racism becomes something ordinary and gains the support of the tacit majority, when Roma are collectively deported to the hard winters of Kosovo, when refugees have to put up with discriminatory laws such as the heavily criticised German Residenzpflicht or when PoCs keep being asked “where they’re really from”.

Action focus Deportations

This year’s No Border Camp will focus its actions on Düsseldorf International Airport which serves as a hub for the European deportation apparatus. Collective deportations are coordinated by FRONTEX, the European border protection agency which wages war against refugees on the EU’s borders. The agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union also fights refugees and migrants long before they reach the actual European borders, for instance at the West-African coast and turns people in the need of protection into “illegals” while they’re still on their way to Europe. FRONTEX uses more than 10 million Euro to finance the so-called “Return Operations” during which charter planes head for various airports in different EU states to “collect” the deportees to then secretively deport them using violence. These flights depart from all over Europe – we know of collective deportations to numerous countries departing from Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK – amongst others. However, there are protests against charter deportations operated by Frontex at many points of departure. Most collective Frontex deportations concern migrants and refugees from Nigeria, and are obviously meant to intimidate migrants who have left Nigeria, which is one of the most populous African countries. Refugees who have organised themselves have been trying to defend themselves against the “hearings” carried out by the German Federal Police in cooperation with the Nigerian embassy for years. People are simply “identified” as Nigerian citizens to be deported using the papers which are then issued. These hearings and deportations will also be a topic to be discussed over the duration of the camp.
The biggest airline in Düsseldorf, Air Berlin, provides planes for deportations to Kosovo and Serbia and therefore profits from the nasty deportation business. That’s why people have started to organise resistance: 70-75 seats were booked for a collective deportation in early February 2012 – ultimately only 16 people could be forced to take the flight. Demonstrations and blockades at the airport meant a significant interference with the business as usual at Düsseldorf International and we’ll try to follow up to this with further actions!

AND BEYOND THE BORDERS

The aim of the camp is to point out the connection between everyday and institutional racism and to link them to other fields or forms of discrimination. We want to criticise racism as a power relation in society as a whole and to intervene by performing actions. By providing critical media we’d also like to interfere in discourses which relativise racism and trivialise it as a problem of isolated fanatics. In order to achieve this, racism must be put into the context of neo-colonial dominance and capitalist exploitation – following up on the slogan coined by self-organised refugees and migrants many years ago: “We’re here because you destroy our countries!”. The subjects concerning this, issues and challenges will be addressed throughout the camp, we’re planning to do a big action against the sell-out of fertile farmland to banks, investment funds and big corporations that has rapidly increased since 2007. The land grabbing has turned into a massive wave of expropriation which leads to the loss of livelihood of hundreds of millions of peasants and fishers in the global south and as a consequence, migration to cities and to “Western” countries.
We’ll raise the issue of exploitation of migrants and their labour conflicts at the airport, which are linked to other struggles against precarious work conditions: Not only Greece saw mass protests and strikes. The immense consequences of the crisis have exacerbated the already disastrous conditions under which refugees and migrants/refugees/and many PoCs try to make a living. In this case the camp could serve as a space that allows us to intervene by taking into consideration current developments in which protests against everyday impoverishment are combined with migration as a movement against global inequalities. The No Border Camp should be a space that allows refugees, migrants and everybody who wants to join their struggles to develop visions, analyses and practices uniting different kinds of struggles. The camp will give us the chance to combine anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and (queer-)feminist or anti-patriarchal perspectives in order to oppose the concurrence of different forms of discrimination and dominance by providing various resistance strategies to ultimately fight a united struggle against all forms of racism.
white awareness and Empowerment
Racism affects all of us, everybody who is not affected by it in a negative way unknowingly or knowingly benefits from the privileges that it grants them. Racism occurs in the neo-colonial contexts of white supremacy and a white culture of dominance. It defines white as normal and is by no means simply a personal view, prejudice or stereotype. It’s obvious that racism affects people in different ways depending on their social standing, whether they’re white, black, people of colour, people with or without experiences of having to flee their country, as illegalised individuals, as women or men etc. That’s why people who are critical of racism from a white perspective need to fight their own privileges and to actively break through their white normality. Racism won’t just vanish thanks to altruistic intentions! The privileges of the white majority must be named if racism is to be fought since that’s where it emerges from.
We will try to provide the framework during the camp to establish safe spaces to exchange with other PoCs/migrants/Slavic people/Sinti/Muslims/Roma and to network. We want to break isolation and test strategies to focus and to strengthen ourselves. In doing so, we will attach great importance to anti-authoritarian visions. Solidly united we’d like to concentrate our experiences to direct them as strong energies against racism and any form of authority.

No Border Camps
No Border Camps have been organised since the ’90s both inside and outside the European Union, trying to bring transnational protest to border regions and to the European Union’s main offices. No Border camps combine the raising of public awareness and the networking of anti-racist initiatives at hot spots of migration control. They establish a provisional and autonomous space allowing local anti-racist organisations to network, activists to exchange experiences and to reflect and to discuss. No Border camps represent the attempt to get a little closer to the vision of “freedom to move – freedom to stay” by joining people in taking action.

1 PoC – Person of Color / People of Color – Is a term describing people who have experienced racism and serves as an empowering self-designated name. PoCs/migrants/refugees/Jewish people(…) are all self-positionings which are very powerful in political struggles. We oppose an oppressive uniformity and the attribution of external terms thus trying to always mention other positions. One is a PoC if one chooses to use that term for oneself.
2 white – The term white and PoC/ black/ migrants (…) does not refer to biological traits but to social constructions based on arbitrary racist characteristics. White defines a dominant social position which can never be relinquished and always remains effective (just like it would lose its meaning in a non-racist society). To emphasise global power relations, and to reverse them on a linguistic level, we’ll always write white in lower case and in italics.
(German for “mandatory residence”) is a legal requirement affecting applicants for refugee status (Asylbewerber_innen) living in Germany, or those who have been given a temporary stay of deportation (Geduldete). Those affected are required to live within certain boundaries defined by the applicants’ local foreigners’ office (Ausländerbehörde).

Short version of the call

No Border Camp 2012 in Cologne/Düsseldorf
From the 13th to 22th of July a No Border Camp will take place in Cologne. The Camp is prepared by an open network of groups and activists fighting against racism.
The Camp is supposed to be a place in which racism can be fought collectively, with actions, demonstrations, discussions and workshops. We want to actively deal with: everyday racism, institutionalised racism, migration control, antiziganism, living conditions of refugees and migrants, root causes for migration, colonialism etc.
Many people who are part of the preparation process of the No Border Camp are not personally affected by racist exclusion. They did not experience flight or know what it is like to live in an asylum-seeker-camp, to live a life under racist laws, racist harassment and police brutality. But they don’t want to accept this racist status quo. A state from which they all to often even personally profit. They know, that change does not just happen, it always has to be fought for.
People who are discriminated against racially consistently fight against the racist system of abasement and isolation. Resistance by Refugee-activists, People of Colour (PoC), Roma etc. happened and happens in many places throughout Germany. This resistance is a huge problem for the German racist policy and it shall become an even bigger problem!
These anti-racist struggles have to be strengthened even more. The No Border Camp in Cologne can be a place to get to know a lot of different people, to network, to exchange experiences and perspectives, and a place of solidarity.
Not everyone has the same possibilities to organise and to participate in such a camp. Thats why the No Border Camp in Cologne provides:
Legal Help
In case of repression during the Camp and actions, i.e. “violation” of Residenzpflicht or the right of assembly. There will also be addresses to visit. If you have any questions regarding the Residenzpflicht, contact ( in any language): residenzpflicht-nbc@riseup.net
Financial support
For train and bus tickets, food etc. Tents and sleeping bags can also be provided on the camp.
Empowerment spaces
Spaces which are only open for people who experience racism and/or have experienced migration.
Awareness group
Structures which support a respectful and sensitive mutual interaction.
Actions
There is a common agreement on how much risk will be taken during the actions. It is important that everyone can participate and can feel safe doing so. Absolute safety can never be guaranteed.
Communication and Decisions
There will be translations into many different languages. It has to be possible to discuss and to make decisions collectively.
A day of action against deportations will take place in the context of the No Border Camp on the 21th of July at the Düsseldorf Airport. It is also possible to only come to this action.
If there are questions or if specific support is needed, contact ( in any language): noborder-ol@riseup.net
More information regarding the camp: http://noborder.antira.info/
Fight Racism!
For a world without borders!
Refugees Rights! Right here! Right now!
Some people from the preparatory circle of the No Border Camp 2012 in Cologne/Düsseldorf

Why did Ousman Sey die?

On July 7 of 2012 Ousman Sey died in police custody in Dortmund (Germany). Before he obviously had a hard atack. The abulance refused to bring him to hospital. Instead the neighbours calles the police who brought hin straight into custody... he never came out alive any more.
Source: http://www.zusammen-ev.de/index.php/component/content/article/51-antirassismus/177-warum-starb-ousman-sey-mahnwache-am-17-juli

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Refugees occupy public spaces in Germany

More refugees in Germany start to occupy public places. Today (10th of July 2012) refugees from the lager in Bramsche-Hesepe startet a protest camp in the Schlosspark of Osnabrück:
http://lagerhesepe.blogsport.eu/





Tadjmohammad Habibi is free!!!

On the Move! Habibi is Free!!Habibi is Free!!

The Afghan refugee activist Habibi was arested right after the caravan meeting in Erfurt due to a racist police control at the main station. He was put into deportation custody and threatened with deportation to Hungary.
He was released from the Erfurt Police detention cell at about 8:30 this morning to go the Eisenberg BAMF in Thueringen to reapply for new asylum.

On behalf of the Break isolation Campaign in Thueringen and The Caravan for the rights of refugee and migrants the solidarity with refugees keep growing, more than 50 young activists responded to the call to protest the arrest of Habibi at Federal police station by the central train station to
demand for his immediate release. Some of the activists stayed over night in front of the police station till his release this morning.

The spontaneous protest yesterday is another beginning of our call to keep the police under control in Erfurt against any abuse of refugees and migrants' freedom of movement. We will continue to denounce any racist intimidation and deportation of migrants from Germany.
More information on the protest action will be posted online later today.

On the move!
Break isolation!


Radio interview: http://radio-frei.de/index.php?iid=7&ksubmit_show=Artikel&kartikel_id=38...



Monday, July 09, 2012

Urgent help for Azad Khodamardi

One the asylum seekers, by name ''Azad Khodamardi'', 25 years old, after 6 days of wet hunger strike in a camp in Tirschenreuth, made a suicide (using many pills that we dont know what) .His room mate called an ambulance in the morning and took him to the hospital.Now he is in CCU but he is Unconscious yet. We don't want to have another Mohammad Rahsepar, so lets do something, anything for him!
http://asylaub.wordpress.com/ 



 

Friday, July 06, 2012

Demonstration for Ali's right to stay


The administrative court of Schwerin (Germany) has rejected the claim of Ali Safianou Touré to be granted a right to stay in Germany on humanitarian grounds. Now the final decision is with the federal ofice in Nuremberg. The Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants is mobilizing for a Demonstration on 26th of July at 1 pm in Front of the federal office in Frankenstrasse 210, 90461 Nürnberg.



Pictures are taken at the rally in front of the court in Schwerin.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

The Oury Jalloh trial continues

Oury Jalloh, he was murdered!

dates for the trial:

Monday, 09th of July 2012, 09:30am
Wednesday, 18. July 2012, 09:30 am
Friday, 03. August 2012, 09.30 am
 Monday, 27. August 2012, 09.30 am
 Tuesday, 28. August 2012, 09.30 am
always at Landgericht Magdeburg, Saal A23.
Train from Berlin: Meeting point DB-Reisezentrum at S-Bahnhof Alexanderplatz, 6.20am

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

The Resistance of Asylum Seekers in Aub (Bavaria/Germany)

The tragic situation that we have now, just need a fight to change it


After the suicide of Mohammad Rahsepar, the Iranian refugee who lived in Würzburg, Germany, we saw a wave of protests by refugees against the hard and inhuman condition of asylum seekers. Despite that the government and the citizens, who just recognize the consequences of asylum seekers law on a life of a refugee, this suicide just predicted the future of other refugees and encouraged them to react to the situation, with all power they have. Regarding the current protests in Würzburg  (Bavaria), and the incredible resistance of those refugees who chose to remain in the street, after hundred days of sit in and hunger strike, finally hope and motivation to take part in an action has grown between refugees.
Now, we, refugees of Aub camp, see no other way but to fight for our rights. The rights which despite nationality, language, color, race and religion, put us in a common position against these injustices, as we see that the change of these laws relies on a transnational principle. We, Afghan, Iraqi and Iranian refugees of Aub, after breaking these delusive geographic  and historical borders, came together to fight for our rights and in this way, we will move forward in solidarity with other refugees.
not just for me, not just for you, but for us! It’s been a long time that a resistive movement by refugees for their rights are under. We, refugees of Aub, joined the struggle in solidarity with previous and current fights, and we are determined to continue. Our clear demands are:
1-Cancellation of Deportation In our view, the choice of the place of living is a basic right of any human being. Sending back refugees to the country of origin, based on the political and economic exchange between governments, is against this universal right and stopping Germany from this inhuman procedure, is a demand of refugees in this camp.
2-Remove region borders
We are living in a country which has accepted Shengen yet, we have to live in a limited area. A systematic isolation like this is inhuman and we intend to remove any law which reinforces the isolation project, till refugees could travel whole Germany.
3-Elimination refugee camps
Refugee camps operates as dividing  walls which separates refugees from the society. Insufferable situation of refugee camps, protected by high walls, security guards and even barbed wire, and small rooms for up to five persons, make camps a place to survive not to live. We demand that these camps in which refugees do not have any privacy to be demolished.
4-Asylum court process
The record of our asylum seeker process in Germany could go back to three years yet most of us never received any answer from our first interview. We demand an immediate answer to our cases and we believe that to be kept in uncertain situation and waiting is a kind of white torture. In many European countries, there is a time limit for this process and we demand to make this process a shorter one and of course with time limit.
5-Food packages
In our view, it is a human right to choose what kind of food with which quality, he or she wants to eat. Limiting refugees to have food packages is against the most simple right of any human. Without any doubt, eliminating food packages and giving the right of choosing what a refugee wants to eat, is one of our serious demands.
6-unconditionaly work permit
influenced by main stream media it is now a popular belief that a refugee is only a consumer. It is not right! We demand work permit without any conditions because we believe that the right of working is any human’s right and through fair working conditions we can contribute as a member of society.
7- facilities to learn German
In line with the isolation policy, there is no facility provided by the government to let the refugee to learn German in Bavaria. How can someone live in a country without knowing the official language of that country? We believe that learning German, without any force on the refugee, is a right of a refugee and facilities for learning German, has to be approved officially.
8-choosing the place of living
Choosing the place of living in Germany, is impossible for a refugee. Refugees division in Germany, is in the hands of government and refugee, even if when s/he has a close family member like parents in another state, is not allowed to live with them! We demand to have the right to choose the place of our living in Germany.
We, refugees in Aub camp, have come together to acquire our demands and in solidarity with refugees in Würzburg and Bamberg who are on streets now, in our first steps on 02,07,2012, refused to recive our food packages and after building  a self-made tent in the yard of our camp and another tent in the only square of our town, in front of the city hall, we spent the last two nights out of our rooms and until our demands are met, we will not return to our rooms.
We, Afghan,Iraqi and Iranian refugees in Aub camp, invite all refugees from all nationalities, languages and cultures to not leave us alone in this action. We invite all activists who care about refugee issue in Germany and in Europe to help us creating a transnational wave to remove these inhumanity laws until our demands are recognized. Undoubtedly, there is a long way ahead of us to make it happen yet, the difficulty of the struggle should not discourage us.
(The first statement of the asylum seekers from Aub)
Contacts:
+49-17679837911
+49-15204742933
http://asylaub.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/the-tragic-situation-that-we-have-now-just-need-a-fight-to-change-it/ 

 
 

Sunday, July 01, 2012