Thursday, July 24, 2014

Paris: thousands defy a ban and police violence to support Palestine

21 July 2014. A World to Win News Service. As the Israeli massacre in Gaza entered its third week, many cities across the globe saw marches and demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In France, too, there were protests against the Israeli attacks in about 15 cities on 19 July. But the French government banned the planned march in Paris that day, threatening arrest and up to six months in prison for anyone who showed up at the assembly point in Barbes, the main shopping area in the largely Arab and African neighbourhoods of northern Paris.
 
Police blockades failed to stop thousands of youth and many others from coming. The encirclement and then brutal attack on what had been a mainly non-violent demonstration only succeeded in fragmenting the crowd into the twisting side streets of a mainly supportive neighbourhood, where they were able to evade and sometimes fight off the police for several hours. Other youth came to join them.
 
The pretext for the ban was scuffles around two synagogues at the end of another pro-Palestinian march the week before. After failing to prevent the 19 July protest, the authorities and their media mouthpieces tried to politically encircle and isolate the youth who had defied them by labelling it an "anti-Semitic riot", in words echoed by the BBC.
 
This lie was not, as many people think, an attempt to appeal to Jewish voters or even just a question of French complicity with Israel. Contrary to the popular chant, French President Francois Hollande is not Israel's "accomplice". France is an imperialist power that is now highly active in seeking to consolidate and expand its historic areas of influence, including by sending troops to former colonies in Africa where Islam is widespread. Above all its recent turn toward a more openly pro-Israeli policy has to do with France's own predatory interests and aspirations in the Arab world.
 
Instead, this lie reflects the dilemma of a state worried about the way hatred for its own and its allies' crimes abroad is affecting those who are most oppressed and exploited in France itself, especially immigrants and their children, who, because of France's historical colonies and sphere of influence, happen to be largely from Muslim backgrounds.
 
This is what President Francois Hollande was referring to when he warned, in defending the ban, "the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be imported". This is also the meaning behind Prime Minister Manuel Valls' statement justifying the ban as a measure against what he called anti-Semitism "spreading on the Internet, on social media, in our working class areas, among young people who are often directionless, who have no awareness of history, who hide their hatred of Jews behind a mask of anti-Zionism and behind the hatred of the Israeli state".
 
For a long time in France, like in many countries and including much of the Arab world, efforts to gather people in support of the Palestinians have not had much success, reflecting the decline in hopes of radical change among Palestinians and other Arabs in this country (and globally), as well as more generally in France. But over the past two weeks, night after night of television news showing Israeli explosives killing children in Gaza once again brought people into the streets in growing numbers, creating a worrisome situation for the French government.
 
France has a well-oiled political set-up in which reformist parties can often lead public outrage into acceptable channels. Some kinds of big demonstrations against the massacre in Gaza have been and will probably be allowed, but the plans for this protest in Barbes threatened to be what the government considered unacceptable and ended up trying to smash an uncontrollable big gathering of youth from immigrant backgrounds and public housing, some secondary and university students and young professionals, as well as low-wage workers and unemployed – and at least as many young women as men.
 
Some people who had rarely or never taken part in any kind of political demonstration felt that this time they had to be there because they felt a connection between their oppression and the oppression of the Palestinians. The actions of the French government itself worked to bring that out. The ban and the threat of brutality helped turn a slogan once chanted almost routinely at demonstrations into an accurate, if poetic, description of the way many people felt about their own situation and what they wanted to do about it: "We are all Palestinians", in some way fighting the same fight against the same enemies.
 
While there is plenty of anti-Semitism in France, including among youth of all nationalities, and Jews, Jewish-owned stores and synagogues are sometimes targeted, that was not what this demonstration was about. Its flag was the flag of Palestine, an oppressed nation, and its target Israel and the French government. It was "anti-Semitic" only to those who, like the French Prime Minister, argue that there is no legitimate reason to oppose what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. It was not like the Catholic fundamentalist, homophobic, proudly patriarchal and often anti-republic (in both the forms of fascism and monarchism) – and, by the way, anti-Semitic – massive demonstrations that the "Socialist" president of the French Republic has found much less disturbing than these youth seeking justice. 
 
If the majority of the participants in this banned protest were from an Islamic background, that is certainly not because others were excluded – those who came were welcomed. It was the Jewish Defence League (on their Web site) and not the pro-Palestinians who threatened violence against the small groups in this march who carried banners reading, "Jews for Justice for Palestine". The problem is not that some people feel a special connection with Palestine but that not enough other people recognize the justice of the Palestinian cause, at least not enough to risk what these youth did.
 
But Islam is exerting a growing attraction among them, and one factor in that is the French state's own policies and propaganda.
 
It is telling that some reactionary commentators are referring to France's 2005 ghetto youth rebellion as a "French Intifada" and calling for the French government to treat second and third-generation immigrant youth the way Israel treats Palestinians, as an alien element to be walled off and gotten rid of. Yet in that rebellion religion did not play the role that it does among immigrant youth today.
 
Despite the overwhelming secular character of the 19 July protest, when some people began to chant "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), it was taken up widely. A few people carried Turkish flags to associate support for Palestine with that country's reactionary Islamist governing party. And, like the Islamists, the shamefully few self-defined leftists who participated had nothing better to offer than tailing after Hamas, an organization that was born and still lives for the goal of religious rule and not the liberation of any people.
 
Some Salafist women university students proclaimed, "We're here to say to Palestine that we have awakened for you." In the face of the last few weeks' events, far too many people are still asleep. But being pulled into religion is not becoming awake.
 
The fact that these young women and many other youth have adopted Islamic fundamentalism means that they have rejected French oppression and some aspects of the French slave mentality only to enslave themselves to another oppressive world outlook, that of religion. Their hope that Islam offers a way out of oppression is an illusion. 
 
Even before Israel existed French governments tried to cast their colonial mission as a fight to civilize Islamic populations. But the vilification of Islamic populations as a weapon in the hands of the French imperialist ruling class in its moves abroad and at home is only one side of the question. The other side is what it will take for more people to awaken from feeling they have to choose between the imperialist republic and the Islamic "community of the faithful" whose promises are no less a lie.

Solidarity with the people in Gaza and in Kobané!

Demo in Berlin against Imperialism, Occupation, Nationalism, Antisemitism and Fundamentalism!


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Palestine now: the situation and mood in the West Bank

14 July 2014. A World to Win News Service. The following are edited notes of a conversation with three feminist academics who have just returned from a visit to occupied Palestine.

We arrived two days after the bodies of the three kidnapped settler youth were found. The Israeli authorities had been blockading Palestinian communities and arresting people before that, with the excuse that they were looking for the three, but after that it got worse. What we saw was collective punishment on a mass scale, resulting in the arrest of at least 700 people, many of whom had been in prison before. The security forces had lists of people they were looking for. These raids were a way of creating an atmosphere of terror.

Our first night was in East Jerusalem. Israeli settlers, in this case often recent immigrants from the U.S., as well Russia and Eastern Europe, are moving into Palestinian neighbourhoods and forcing the inhabitant out. Local Palestinians identified many of the settlers in the Old City as yeshiva (Jewish religious school) students. There are also whole families with young children. The women are in a "permanent state of pregnancy", with multiple young children in many families.

Settlers appropriate land often by using fraudulent documents showing that they or their family owns the property, and the police evict the Palestinians living there. Sometimes it's a building or a whole floor of a building, sometimes just an apartment or even a single room. Once they move in they make life intolerable for the Palestinians around them. They bring their guards, and they and their children harass the Palestinians constantly to make them leave.

This process may appear similar to what would be called "gentrification" in North America, but in East Jerusalem and Hebron, it's a violent process. It's ethnic cleansing.

For example, in the Old City of Jerusalem, in one apartment complex, there is only a single Palestinian family left. They can't use the main stairs because settlers harass them. Instead, they have to take an old, dangerous staircase to go in or out.

Walking through East Jerusalem we saw a highway where, we were told, settlers in their cars often try to run down Palestinian children walking there. One of our hosts is known in the community and speaks Hebrew, so people come to her for help. Children come to her and say, "Help we're being chased by settlers." This is daily life.

Settlers are now moving into an Armenian (Christian) community next to the Jewish quarter in the old city in Jerusalem. The settler youth constantly spray slogans like "Jesus is a son of a bitch" on the walls to let people know they have to leave. The slogans are put up and then cleaned off and then put up again constantly.

It took us two hours to drive from Ramallah to Hebron in the West Bank, which is about 50 kilometres, in order to go around the checkpoints.

The Israeli military had closed down Hebron a few days before we got there. They blocked off the Palestinian area, not letting anyone in or out overnight. Then after that they wouldn't allow males under 25 to come or go.
There are less than a thousand Israeli settlers in the old city of Hebron, but in the name of protecting them the entire Palestinian population is subject to daily denigration and violence. Their lives are deliberately made miserable. In the old city about 12 kilometres of a main street are closed off to Palestinians. The Palestinians who live there can't have ordinary visitors and need special permission even for family members to come. The roofs of people's homes are on the street level and the living areas are below that. The people who live there aren't allowed on their own roofs.

We met a family who told us about an unusual snowstorm. The snow piled up on the roof and water was leaking into the rooms below. The father had to apply for permission to go up and clean off the roof. He was given ten minutes to do that, and it was hard for him because he was partially disabled from once having been shot in the leg. Meanwhile, Israeli kids were playing on the roof as they liked, making snowmen and so on.

The same man told us how he was sitting in his living room one day when he heard water running. He looked out and saw settler youth standing on his roof and peeing down on his doorstep.

There are a pair of Palestinian primary schools, one for girls and the other for boys, in the area of Hebron that is closed off to Palestinians. The children have to go through checkpoints to get there, and on the way they are often harassed by settler youth. Sometimes it's verbal; sometimes they throw rocks or bottles of urine. The settler kids go to their parents and complain about the Palestinian kids, and their parents come and get the school closed down. But Palestinian parents aren't allowed to come to the school.

On Jewish religious holidays the checkpoints are closed and so the road is too. Since the buildings are all connected, the children can go from roof to roof until they reach the school. The IDF (Israeli army) spray-painted insults on the walls of the home of a lady who lives next to the school, and they harass her for allowing children to pass through her house to get to school.

Hebron is a Palestinian city, but the settlements are under control of the IDF and the Palestinian police in the old town are not allowed to protect Palestinians from the settlers.

Israeli security forces control the checkpoints in and out of the old town. Palestinians have to wait in line to show their identity cards, sometimes for hours. This makes daily life impossible. The soldiers are particularly hard on Palestinian male youth. They are supposed to inspect ID cards and then give them back, but sometimes they just put the card in their pocket and make the owner wait in the sun for three or four hours. Since you can't move around without an ID card, you have no choice but to just stand there. They deliberately provoke people. The night before we got there, a kid who had been made to wait a long time started to get excited and they shot him in the leg.

The checkpoints are a mechanism of punishment as well as control. They are a constant source of humiliation.

On the Jewish side of one settlement in Hebron, there is a big sign in Hebrew and English declaring, "You are now leaving free Israel." The settlers complain about restrictions on their movements through Hebron because it is under Palestinian control. The settlers consider it part of their own country where they should be allowed to do whatever they want.

When you cross into the West Bank from Israel, the landscape changes. There is dust and debris everywhere, it's not neat and clean like the Israeli side. The Bedouin villages in the occupied territory are in a very bad state. They are desperately poor. People might have a small garden. They graze animals. The shelters in the villages are made of corrugated sheet metal. In contrast, the settlers have built suburban communities, which resemble gated communities in Florida.

When you enter Ramallah itself, the landscape changes yet again. There are new buildings, some for Western companies like HSBC, others for UN organizations and the Palestinian Authority's administration offices as well as extensive housing development, much of which is unoccupied.

Israeli settlements are not allowed in Ramallah itself. Because it's a Palestinian administrative centre, and a place where Palestinians are allowed to build, Ramallah is where foreign money goes. Bahrain, Kuwait and other Gulf countries fund university facilities. Money from the Palestinian diaspora also ends up here.

That's one factor in the political mood in Ramallah, a former centre of Palestinian activism that was very, very quiet when we were there. The PA will not allow protests. They attacked a pro-Hamas demonstration. People we talked to were extremely contemptuous of the PA, and Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that are connected to the PA. You can recognize PA officials' cars by their license plates, and they drive luxury models.

Ramallah used to be known as a secular city, but that has changed over the last few years. Now many of the young women and even little girls, maybe the majority, cover their heads. This is especially the case in the universities, and not so much in the areas with cafes and restaurants and businesses. We met many people who expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime because they supposedly stand up to Israel. Religion has also become a big part of daily life, much more than when some of us were there in 2005.

There were many demonstrations against the Israeli lynching of the young Palestinian boy while we were in Palestine, and against the attacks on Gaza. Many took place in Palestinian towns and neighbourhoods in Israel itself, not the West Bank. One such demonstration was in Nazareth, where 20 protesters were arrested by the IDF after use of tear gas and sound grenades. Repression is one factor preventing protests in the PA-controlled cities, but there has also been a strong depoliticalization. Many people turn inward, or to NGO-type activities instead of resistance. Many people tend to focus on micro-identities – my region, my town. A belief that Palestinians are different than other Arabs and people in the Middle East. Some intellectuals rationalize that Islamism is once again giving expression to national identity. There is no women's movement. There is an extremely strong atmosphere of political backlash against the revolutionary movements of the 1960s and '70s and up until the Oslo Accords that created the PA in 1993. We haven't seen that so strongly anywhere else in the Middle East.

There are pockets of resistance, but largely functioning through the mechanisms of NGOs and human rights groups. Palestinian youth in Ramallah go to Qalandiya (a refugee camp surrounded by the Israeli "separation" wall, with a major Israeli military presence) to thrown stones at the Israeli security forces. They want to confront the Israeli army.

People have mixed sentiments about what to do, depending on where you are and who you talk to. It's complicated. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has no credibility. People say he is Netanyahu's spokesman in the West Bank.

There's a general disillusionment with the traditional Palestinian left like the PLO and PFLP, especially among youth. Hamas is the only organization with much popular support. Some people talk about launching a third Intifada (the Palestinian uprisings against the occupation in 1987-1993 and 2002-2005). The youth and other people want to be able to express their rage and frustration. It's not clear what that would mean. In Ramallah, it would definitely include targeting the PA.

Can you imagine Gaza has had one of the largest concentrations of refugee camps in the world? Palestinians there are refugees in their own country, and Palestinians from the West Bank aren't allowed to go there. Only humanitarian groups, journalists, and UN are allowed to enter Gaza, but with much difficulty and delay.

Every time Hamas shoots off one of their rockets, they recruit. So does Islamic Jihad.

This whole situation, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the Hamas rockets, actually helps Israel. It's not clear who killed the three settler youth, or for what purpose. No one has claimed responsibility. But it's allowed Netanyahu to link Hamas and Da'ash (ISIS or "the Islamic state" in Iraq and Syria) and put Israel's "security" at the centre of what's happening in the region, in competition with Iran. This also allows Israel to attack the unity government between Hamas and the PA.


Years ago it was difficult to talk about the one-state solution. Now there is much popular discussion of a one-state solution, including graffiti and t-shirts saying "48+67=1", meaning the land Israelis occupied in the 1948 war plus the land they occupied after the Six Day War in 1967 equals one nation. However, many argue there is already a one-state solution: an apartheid state.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

20 years Anniversary of Refugee Resistance in Germany

20 years Anniversary of Refugee Resistance in Germany
The VOICE, OUR VOICE will forever be OURS and can never be silenced!!!
20 years are not enough” - Unite against Deportation and Social Exclusion



20 years of active resistance by The VOICE Refugee Forum in Germany is a proof that self-organization of the affected persons is the only alternative for the struggle of the oppressed. It is our aim to fight and end the fear and insecurity of being a refugee here in Germany and Europe as a whole.
Founded in 1994 in Thuringia Germany, we, The VOICE Refugee Forum invite you to join us in celebrating 20 years anniversary of refugee self-organization. It is a call for solidarity with grassroots political activism and struggles in Germany and beyond. This Anniversary will be funded only by internal and independent donators to guarantee the autonomy of our resistance.
Our aim has been to fight societal and institutional racism, discrimination and other deplorable and inhuman conditions that refugees are subjected to in Germany. This has been against the backdrop of refugees and migrant rights abuses that are institutionalized through racist laws legitimizing the brutality of the State organs – this, the network of “The VOICE” has been relentlessly confronting since its 20 years of daily engagement and self-empowerment for active resistance.
The anniversary will reflect on the celebration of the longest self-organized refugee movement in Europe and the endless struggles to break the ingrained German state isolation culture and liberate ourselves and the society from the daily discrimination we face in Germany!
This celebration is about ‘You’ as much as it’s about ‘Us’, and hence it’s about our solidarity, our principles, our strength and the victories attained from challenging the injustices we face from the hypocrisy of the political elites and their cohorts who still live in denial of our inalienable rights to human dignity
We celebrate while reviving and reliving the memories of our contributions to the refugee struggles. Remember, the history of our solidarity cannot be complete without acknowledging the sacrifices of the still living and the dead refugees who inspired our survival over the last two decades. Engraving this acknowledgement in our hearts fortifies our strength and aids our success of standing together against the globalized patterns of Imperialism and colonial injustice.
Our persecutors have attempted to divide and rule us, but we have blown their strategy in their face by standing together as a refugee group, united by our principles of justice and equality. Their attempt to intimidate us has failed as we have only become more determined and resolute to stand up for our rights. Their attempt to silence us by cruel and inhuman means has left our voices louder than they can bear as we continue to inspire others to raise theirs.
We are here because you destroy our countries” a slogan of the Caravan-for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants aptly describes the mechanism of Neo-colonialism that has forced many to live as refugees within and outside our home countries. The meaning of this thought-provoking slogan is reflected in the innumerable examples and means through which Western economic and political interests are destroying our lives and home countries.
We are calling on you to share your inspiration with us. Together, we are inspired to continue our struggles to expose the injustice of the nations, their participation in and making of wars and exploitation because these are the major reasons that force us to flee and migrate from our home countries. In Germany and beyond, refugee struggles in many cities presently feeling the brunt of our long years of refugee resistance in Europe.

The 20 years anniversary of The VOICE will be marked with five days of socio-cultural and political events from Wednesday 1 – Sunday 5 October 2014 in Jena.
Once again, we shall reflect on the refugee right to freedom of movement and settlement as well as the importance of continued self-organization of refugees by focusing on identifying and defining criminalization through persecution: Main emphasis will be laid on the analysis of deportations as a crime and the atrocity of deportation prisons.
Program: Unite Against Deportation and Social Exclusion from Wednesday 1 till Sunday 5 October 2014 in Jena

Morning
Afternoon
Evening
1st Day
Wed
Arrival
Schillergaesschen 5,
07745 Jena
Action in Isolated Refugee Reception
Camp in Eisenberg –
Rally from 3 to 5 pm.
Official opening: 7 pm
Pioneering the refugee struggles in Thueringen since 1994
3rd Day
Fri
Critical Solidarity Space: Self- reflection and criticism in the Refugee Movement in Germany and Beyond
“20 years is not Enough” Workshops-different topics running parallel
Mechanism of Neo Colonialism - We are here because Europe destroys, exploits and corrupts the refugee countries
NATO warfare and the silent war by daily persecution of Refugees

General plenary

Anniversary Ceremony with Concerts and Theatre
4th Day
Sat
The DETERRENCE: Eliminate the deportation and Break down the deportation Prisons –
the way forward
Public Rally in Jena and
picnic in the Abolished former Isolation Refugee Reception Camp in Jena Forest with Cultural event
Musical jam/party
in different parts of the city
5th Day
Sun
Reports on Refugee International Tribunal against German Human rights abuses in 2013
Rally in Breitenworbis
Isolation Refugee Camp:
Close the Isolation Lager
Closing: On the Move!
Good bye - to racism and discrimination!
We want another Germany and Europe without persecution!

There will be Musical jam/party and cultural events to run through evenings of the 20th Anniversary
The VOICE Refugee Forum, Email: thevoiceforum@gmx.de, http://thevoiceforum.org/
Contact for Orgateam/Cultur: 20yearsofthevoice@riseup.net

Donation Account: Förderverein The VOICE e.V. Sparkasse Göttingen, Accountnumber 127829, BLZ: 260 500 01 IBAN: DE97 2605 0001 0000 1278 29, BIC: NOLADE21GOE



20 Jahre Widerstand von Flüchtlingen in Deutschland

20 Jahre sind nicht genug!” – Vereint gegen Abschiebung und soziale Ausgrenzung

The VOICE, Our VOICE, Unsere STIMME, wird immer uns gehören und kann niemals zum Schweigen gebracht werden!

20 Jahre aktiver Widerstand durch The VOICE Refugee Forum in Deutschland ist Zeugnis dafür, dass die Selbst-Organisation von betroffenen Menschen die einzig gangbare Alternative im Kampf der Unterdrückten ist. Unser Ziel ist und bleibt die Beendigung von Existenzängsten und Unsicherheiten, die mit dem Status eines Flüchtlings in Deutschland und ganz Europa verbunden sind.

Gegründet 1994 in Thüringen/Deutschland wollen wir, The VOICE Refugee Forum Euch einladen, gemeinsam mit uns den 20sten Jahrestag unserer Selbst-Organisation von Flüchtlingen zu feiern. Diese Einladung ist ein Aufruf zur Solidarität mit politischem Aktivismus von unten in unseren Kämpfen innerhalb Deutschlands und darüber hinaus. Der Jahrestag wird ausschließlich von internen und unabhängigen Spenden finanziert werden, um die Autonomie unseres Widerstandes zu gewährleisten.

Unser Kampf gilt sozialem und institutionalisiertem Rassismus, Diskriminierung und anderweitig beklagenswerten und unmenschlichen Bedingungen, denen Flüchtlinge in Deutschland unterworfen werden. Dieser Kampf fand und findet vor dem Hintergrund von Menschenrechtsverletzungen von Flüchtlingen und MigrantInnen statt, die durch rassistische Gesetzgebungen institutionalisiert werden, welche die Brutalität von staatlichen Organen legitimieren sollen – das Netzwerk “The VOICE” hat diese Zustände in den 20 Jahren seines Bestehens in täglichem Engagement für Selbstermächtigung und aktiven Widerstand immer wieder schonungslos angeprangert.

Die Feierlichkeiten zum Jahrestag werden die langfristigste selbstorganisierte Bewegung in Europa und unsere kontinuierlichen Kämpfe reflektieren, die wir geführt haben, um die tief verwurzelte deutsche Staatskultur der Isolation zu durchbrechen sowie uns selbst und die deutsche Gesellschaft von täglicher Diskriminierung zu befreien!

Bei dieser Feier wird es genauso um “Dich” wie um “Uns” gehen, da es letztlich um unsere Solidarität, unsere Prinzipien, unsere Stärken und unsere Errungenschaften gehen wird, die wir in der Auseinandersetzung mit den Ungerechtigkeiten und der Scheinheiligkeit der politischen Eliten und deren Anhänger errungen haben, die uns unsere unverbrüchlichen Rechte auf menschliche Würde immer noch vorenthalten wollen.

Während unserer Feier werden wir die Erinnerung an unsere Beiträge zu den Flüchtlingskämpfen nachempfinden und wiederbeleben. Wir werden daran erinnern, dass die Geschichte unserer Solidarität nicht ohne die Anerkennung der Opfer der überlebenden und der zahllosen toten Flüchtlinge geschrieben werden kann, die unser Überleben in den letzten 2 Jahrzehnten inspiriert haben. Indem wir diese Anerkenntnis in unseren Herzen tragen, vervielfachen wir unsere Schlagkraft und werden so unseren gemeinsamen Erfolg gegen die globalisierten Verbrechen des Imperialismus realisieren und koloniale Ungerechtigkeit überwinden.

Unsere Peiniger haben versucht, uns zu spalten und zu beherrschen, aber wir haben ihrer Strategie durch den Zusammenhalt unserer Gruppe im Geist von Gerechtigkeit und Gleichberechtigung überwunden. Ihre Versuche uns einzuschüchtern sind gescheitert und haben uns nur noch entschlossener werden lassen, für unsere Rechte einzustehen. Ihre Bemühungen uns durch ihre grausamen und unmenschlichen Machenschaften zum Schweigen zu bringen, hat unsere Stimme nur noch lauter werden lassen, als ihnen lieb sein kann – eine Stimme, die kontinuierlich andere Menschen dazu inspiriert hat, auch ihre Stimme zu erheben.

Wir sind hier, weil ihr unsere Länder zerstört” ist der Slogan der Karawane für die Rechte von Flüchtlingen und MigrantInnen, der treffend den neo-kolonialen Mechanismus beschreibt, der uns zwingt als Flüchtlinge in und außerhalb unserer Heimatländer zu leben. Die Bedeutung dieses zum Nachdenken anregenden Slogans spiegelt sich in zahllosen Beispielen und Tatsachen, durch die die westliche Ökonomie und deren politische Interessen unsere Leben und unsere Heimatländer zerstören.

Wir rufen Euch dazu auf, Eure Inspiration mit uns zu teilen. Nur gemeinsam werden wir in der Lage sein, unsere Kämpfe um die Offenlegung nationalistischer Ungerechtigkeiten sowie der Führung und Teilhabe an Kriegen und Ausplünderung als Hauptgründe für Flucht und Migration aus unseren Heimatländern fortzusetzen. Die aktuellen Kämpfe von Flüchtlingen in vielen deutschen und europäischen Städten tragen die Welle unseres langjährigen Widerstandes immer weiter durch Europa.



Anlässlich des 20. Jahrestages von “The VOICE Refugee Forum” werden wir von Mittwoch, dem 1. Oktober bis Sonntag, den 5. Oktober in Jena 5 Tage lang soziokulturelle und politische Veranstaltungen organisieren. Einmal mehr werden wir die unveräußerlichen Menschenrechte auf Bewegungs- und Niederlassungsfreiheit sowie die Bedeutung von fortgesetzter Selbstorganisation von Flüchtlingen thematisieren, indem wir unsere Kriminalisierung durch staatliche Verfolgung identifizieren und entlarven: Der Schwerpunkt hierbei wird auf die Analyse und Beschreibung von Abschiebungen als Verbrechen und die strukturelle Grausamkeit von Abschiebeknästen gelegt werden.

Programm: Vereint gegen Abschiebungen und soziale Ausgrenzung 1. – 5. Oktober 2014 in Jena


Vormittag
Nachmittag
Abend
1. Okt.
Mi.
Ankunft
(Schillergäßchen 5,
07745 Jena)
Aktion im Landesaufnahmelager Eisenberg –
Kundgebung von 15.00 bis17.00 Uhr
19.00 Uhr Offizielle Eröffnung:
Pionierarbeit für die Flüchtlingskämpfe in Thüringen seit 1994
2. Okt.
Do.
Konferenz zu Geschichte, Themen und Kampagnen von The VOICE Refugee Forum in 20 Jahren Flüchtlingswiderstand in Deutschland

Identifikation und Bestimmung der Verbrechen der Verfolgung, Gräuel und Menschenrechtsverletzungen durch Abschiebungen: Berichte von Aktivisten der Refugee Community aus ihren Kämpfen
Öffentliche Diskussion:
Perspektiven der Einheit des Widerstandes – “Solidarität in der Refugee Community statt Hierarchie”
- Wie unsere Kämpfe zur Befreiung der deutschen Gesellschaft von Verfolgung beitragen.
3. Okt.
Fr.
Kritische Solidarität und Selbstreflexion der Flüchtlingsbewegung in Deutschland und darüber hinaus
20 Jahre sind nicht genug” parallele Workshops zu unterschiedlichen Themen
#
Die Mechanismen des Neokolonialismus:
Wir sind hier, weil Europa unsere Länder zerstört, ausbeutet und die Länder der Flüchtlinge korrumpiert.
NATO-Kriegsführung und der lautlose Krieg durch die tägliche Verfolgung von Flüchtlingen
#
Allgemeines Plenum
#
Jubiläumszeremonie mit Konzerten und Theater
4. Okt.
Sa.
Die Abschreckung:
Eliminiert die Abschiebungen und reißt die Abschiebeknäste ein -
Der Weg vorwärts
Öffentliche Kundgebung in Jena
#
Picknick im früheren, mittlerweile aufgegebenen, Landeserstaufnahmelager Jena Forst
Kulturelle Veranstaltungen bis abends
Musikalischer Jam/
Party an verschiedenen Orten in der Stadt
5. Okt.
So.
Berichte vom Internationalen Flüchtlingstribunal gegen Deutschland 2013 zu Menschenrechtsverletzungen
Kundgebung im Isolationslager Breitenworbis –
Isolationslager schließen!
Abschluss:
Good bye - zu Rassismus und Diskriminierung! On the Move! Wir wollen ein anderes Deutschland und Europa ohne Verfolgung!

Musik/Jam/Partys und kulturelle Veranstaltungen an jedem Abend der 20-Jahr-Feier!

The VOICE Refugee Forum, Schillergäßchen 5, 07745 Jena

Kontakt zum Orgateam/Kultur: 20yearsofthevoice@riseup.net

Spendenkonto : Förderverein The VOICE e.V. Sparkasse Göttingen,
Kontonummer 127829, BLZ: 260 500 01,
IBAN: DE97 2605 0001 0000 1278 29,
BIC: NOLADE21GOE

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Recognition of Lampedusa in Hamburg now

Demonstration on 5th of July 2014
12.00 Hachmannplatz, Hamburg-Hauptbahnhof


PlakatDemo57


http://www.lampedusa-in-hamburg.org

Recognition of the group ‚Lampedusa in Hamburg’ – now! Immediate work permission – right to stay e.g. via § 23

For these demands the group ‚Lampedusa in Hamburg’ fights for more than 1 year with uncounted public meetings, visits of schools, universities, neighbourhood-assemblies, churches, with demonstrations and other actions, recently with the Sit in on the place before the townhall, where 5 people were injured by brutal police-attacks and 7 people arrested. For these demands we demonstrated together in the 1 May-demonstration of DGB (council of the unions) and afterwards with a parade. Later that day, a former school-building in Laeszstraße was entered and declared to become refugee welcome centre, the Lampedusa in Hamburg-house.
Declaration of the group Lampedusa in Hamburg, June 2014:
LAMPEDUSA IN HAMBURG HOUSE
> We want to use the house as a historical place of Lampedusa in Hamburg. 
> We want to use the house as a symbol of Nato-War-Refugees.
> We want to use the house to show our professional and creative skills.
> We want to use the house as a school to study, e.g. the german language. 
> The house belongs to us as our fundamental rights – we are sick and tired of sleeping on the street. 
> We need the house to protect our dignity. 
> We need the house to stay together as one big family.
> We need the house to continue our legitimate political fight. 
Today, after the end of the winter emergency programms, many members of the group are homeless and again on the streets of this town Hamburg, to which they belong since more than 1 year. They worked in diverse professions in Libya to provide for their families in their countries of origin, had to flee because of the NATO-bombs and did not find opportunities to build up a new existence in Italy after their dangerous flight over the Mediterranean Sea. They want to live in Hamburg and we want them here. They have become part of our lifes, they and we need this house. We, friends, neighbours, colleagues, fellow students, supporters, fans will demonstrate again and again and again until the Senate of Hamburg recognizes this.
Lampedusa in Hamburg – they are here to stay!
Immediate Recognition of the Italian permission for the right to stay and work!