Monday, September 29, 2014

Refugees from Schwäbisch Gmünd denounce Residenzpflicht to participate in 20 years of refugee resistance in Jena


(Wednessday 1st - 5th October 2014). http://thevoiceforum.org/node/3733
As Refugee Activist from Schwäbisch Gmünd, we re-emphasize our determination to ignore any law that undermines our human dignity as we denounce and demand the total abolition of residenzpflicht, racial police control and other discriminating laws that sustains the German state culture of Apartheid.
Since februray this year, we have experienced various forms of repression from the Police through obvious administrative abuse of power by the district Officials.
http://thevoiceforum.org/node/3551
http://refugeeinitiativewittenberg.blogspot.de/2014/04/police-brutality-with-dogs-and-pepper.html
The district Officials have always excalated our peaceful approach against discriminating policies and branded us as trouble makers in legitimation of enforced brutality to Police release of dogs on us in the lager.
Notwithstanding the several uncalled for arrest and pending criminal charges against us, the District Officer responsible for Refugees is attempting to manipulate a negative decision on our asylum process through a letter drafted to The Federal office for Migration and refugees.
Our spontanous protest at the State Paliament to demand urgent intervention on the insecurity we face in Schwäbisch Gmünd attracted the Director of the Integration Ministry who only gave a justification of the repression rather than addressing our complains of insecurity with the district Officials.
We had been profiled racially and controlled in the Train to Jena as participants of a refugee conference in preparation for the 20 years anniversary of Refugee resistance in Germany organised by The VOICE Refugee Forum.
Based on that racial control the Schwäbisch Gmünd Local Authourity have served each of us with fines of 107 Euro based on allegation of violation of Apartheid Residenzflicht Law for which have openly decleared our stand;
“Paying a dime for Residenzpflicht means justification of apartheid law in Germany”.
We have choosen the option of imprisonment to expose the existence of colonial democracy in Germany and demand our fundamental rights to freedom of movement for all as inbibed in the German constitiution and other international laws.
We have organised several events to demask lies that the Residenzpflicht has already been abolished as we call for nationwide solidarity against this continious act of criminalisation and persecution of Refugees in Germany.
http://www.beobachternews.de/2014/09/22/schwaebisch-gmuend-droht-fluechtlingsaktivisten-mit-haft/
https://www.facebook.com/events/487205928049044/
We uphold our determination to be anywhere especially as we express our solidarity with the different struggles of Refugees without fear because No border can stop our political and social engagement.
We call on Refugees to wake up to the challenge of civil disobedience, denounce Residenzpflicht to participate in the 20 years anniversary of refugee resistance in Germany.
Refugees who intend to join us from Baden Wurttemberg should please contact us on; Tel.: 015219006680 or email: thevoice_bdw@yahoo.de

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Demonstration by the refugees in Weißekreuzplatz (Hannover)

Invitation for a demonstration, Saturday, 20th September,at 14.00 H,
Start from: Weißekreuzplatz, Hannover
The refugees in Weißekreuzplatz in need of your support

We are demonstrating in 20th September, after nearly four months of protesting outside in the street and in Weißekreuzplatz, in Hannover, to say no for ignorance of our basic human rights. And we had announced it clearly that, we are as refugees from Sudan, we has the right to be protected, and to be recognized as refugees.
We are demonstrating, to declare again and again, our rights right here and right now. We are demanding from all those who are believe in Freedom, equality and justice to support our demand which is to have a residence permit here in Niedersachsen according to article 23, from the German law. But what is the article 23? and why do we raise it like an crucial demand? to answer this questions, we want to clarify the following:
In 24th May 2014, (when we started our protest camp), we declared our political position and our demand, which is to be recognized as refugees and to be granted residence permission in Germany in order to be able to avoid the violation our basic human rights which we are facing now.
After rounds of talk with politicians and officials, in the last week of May 2014, we, all of us, negotiators from both sides, came to a conclusion that, the best way to find a correct entrance to solve this problem at the level of city and the state is to write a paper of detailed demands from the refugees in the protest camp.
In 26 June 2014, we submitted to you our Note of demands, which included detailed points that allow Hannover city and Lower Saxony state to contribute in solving this problem.
And to make it more clear, direct and well defined legally, we had In 31 July 2014, in an (half day) symposium and discussion podium organized by Amnesty international and Hannover city mitte, we proposed and explained how can this problem can be solved through implementation of the article (23).
"Paragraph 23 Aufenthaltsgesetz enables the state lower saxony to give a group of refugees the permission to stay and work, because of humanitarian reasons, civil rights or political interesets."
Now is the time, to turn the nice, open and respectful talk of politicians and parliament members beside others stakeholders, to concret, solid and practical decisions and doings.
Ladies and gentelmen,
we asking you kindly to support and back us in our campiagn, our right to stay and be protected according to article 23 of German law.
Our rights right here and right now.



Thursday, September 04, 2014

Young hunger strikers go up against regimes in Morocco and Egypt

1 September 2014. A World to Win News Service. Mustapha Meziani, a 31 year old Moroccan university student, died on 13 August after a 72-day hunger strike. He was arrested after a 24 April altercation between Islamist and secular students at the Dhar El-Mehraz campus in Fez, an important concentration point in the struggle against the Moroccan monarchy. An Islamist youth reportedly died of a bullet wound. The prime minister and other top authorities attended his funeral.

The authorities demanded "firmness" against the organization Democratic Way (Base). Meziani and three others were charged with premeditated murder. People associated with the organization say that neither side had used firearms, so the Islamist's death was suspicious.

Meziani and two others were placed in preventative detention pending trial. Subsequently he and other students were not allowed to sit for university exams, and he went on hunger strike to demand reinstatement, saying that he was innocent of the charges and being illegally punished for his political activism. His father and a friend started a hunger strike themselves outside the hospital where he was being held, but they were soon arrested.

Meziani's hunger strike drew national support as an example of official indifference to the lives of the country's youth. The Moroccan Human Rights Association issued a statement blaming the government overall and specifically the ministers of justice and the prison administration for the young man's death, since he was willing to give up his fast if what the MHRA called his "legitimate right" to attend university were recognized. He was not given medical attention until he slipped into a coma.

The April demonstrations that led to Meziani's arrest were seen as a continuation, to some degree, of the Moroccan youth upsurge that began on 20 February 2011, in the wake of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Massive demonstrations took place across the country, including an attack on a police station in Marrakesh. The monarchy was able to calm the situation by allowing elections to the lower house of parliament and the formation of an Islamist government.

Nevertheless, King Mohammed VI continues to hold the final authority. Most human rights and other groups have accepted the strictures that frame political life in Morocco, where it is illegal to challenge the institution of the monarchy, the "integrity" of the country (this means questioning Morocco's illegal annexation of the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara), and the religion of Islam, but some organizations with ties among university students have refused to accept these boundaries.

On 1 July, Mouad Belghouti, who raps under the name "Al-Haqed", was sentenced to four months in prison in Casablanca for a video on Youtube called "Dogs of the State," about the Moroccan police.

In Egypt, Alaa Abd El-Fattah has also gone on hunger strike. The 33-year-old blogger, Arabic language software developer and political activist is known for his early public opposition to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. For many people his name is closely associated with the youth movement currents in the January 25, 2011 uprising that led to Mubarak's ouster. On 18 April El-Fattah announced, "At 4 pm today, I celebrated together with my colleagues my last meal in prison," vowing not to eat again until he is released. He is one of 25 people sentenced to 15 years in prison for holding a demonstration in front of the Egyptian parliament last November in defiance of a law banning protests.

Let out of jail on bail last March, these youth activists were physically barred from entering the courtroom for their trial in June, and then sentenced in absentia without a trial on the basis of their absence.

Alaa's younger sister Sanaa, 20, is also in prison for demonstrating and has joined him in the hunger strike.

Other jailed activists have also joined him, including leaders of the 6 April Youth Movement. That organization is now banned, and its Facebook page reports that about 30 members were arrested on 1 September when they set up a funeral stand in front on the family residence of a recently deceased member in Bulaq El Dakrour, a Cairo slum district.

Imprisoned supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood are also reportedly on hunger strike.

Alaa's hunger strike, he explained (madamasr.com), was precipitated by his desire to be with his dying father, a lawyer well-known for battling the Mubarak regime and the military in court and the sphere of public opinion. The father, Ahmed Seif al-Islam, died 27 August. He was famous for a message to his imprisoned son, saying that he had hoped to leave him a democratic country but could only leave him the prison cell where he himself had been held.

Also well-known for their opposition to the military regime that took the reins after Mubarak fell in February 2011 are Alaa's wife Manal, his sister Mona, his mother Leila Souief and his aunt, the UK-based novelist Ahdaf Soeuif. This is his third detention since then.

In announcing his hunger strike, he said, his family is "part of the struggle of thousands who never give up and millions who sometimes rise up."

Like many other people associated with the Egyptian youth movements, Alaa initially supported the military in the July 2013 ousting of the elected Muslim Brotherhood government, but since then has tried to dissociate himself from both sides. "We have to remove ourselves completely from the conflict by not raising demands except within the limits of the right to life and the dignity of the body and the freedom of the individual," he said.

Those taking such a stand have been relatively marginalized from current Egyptian political life, since most people cannot imagine not having to choose between the military junta and Islamist rule and this stand does not put forward a viable alternative. It can't address the demands for "Dignity" and "Bread, freedom and social justice" that moved millions of Egypt's impoverished masses as well as middle classes in 2011.

Yet the U.S.-backed military government, like the U.S. and French-backed Moroccan monarchy, despite their electoral spectacles, are trying to crush any opposition that brings their legitimacy into question.
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