Repression angainst initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh

Oury Jalloh - It was Murder

In memory of Cemal Kemal ALTUN

Cemal Kemal ALTUN escaped the fascist militry coup in Turkey and aplied political asylum in Germany. 30th of August 1983 his asylum claim was rejectet by the administrative court in Berlin. On order to not being tortured and killed by the Turkish police Cemal Kemal ALTUN took his life in his own hands and he jumped of the 6th floor of the court building.

Rally in Bitterfeld (East Germany) by the refugees on hunger strike

On Wednesday 21st of August the refugees on hunger strike in Bitterfeld will hold a rally at the Marktplatz (market square) at 12 O Clock.

Press release of the hunger-striking asylum-seekers in Stuttgart

Press release of the hunger-striking asylum-seekers in Stuttgart, 29/07/2013 We, refugees from Main-Tauber-Kreis, are staying in the street in front of the Ministry of Integration in Stuttgart for the last 12 days. We are refusing to receive the food packages in objection to deprivation of our right to choose our food freely as well as many other inhuman conditions confronting us as refugees. Today makes it 12 days since we left our lagers to be on the street in resistance of the isolating conditions within society. In order to receive answers to our demands (mentioned in the 1st statement), we are going to do the next step: We, striking asylum seekers in Stuttgart correlated to other asylum seekers’ struggles in Germany, started our wet hunger strike today on Monday 29/07/2013 and announcing hereby this new step of our struggle. This decision is based on our disappointment: The district authorities offered the opportunity for discussion together with representatives of the Ministry and the refugees on 25th of July. The expected discussion turned out to be a press conference used by both authorities to justify the current situation rather than giving a solution to our problems. We the protesting refugees feel highly disappointed and fooled hence we decided to go on the next step of hunger-strike in demanding for our basic and legal rights. We don’t want to be afraid of deportation nightmares during the night anymore; when we wake up in the morning, we don’t want to find ourselves within the walls of isolated camps. When we take our steps on these streets, just as any other person in this society, we refuse to face the oppression of ‘Residenzpflicht’. We, the refugees in hunger-strike demand our dignity: 1) Abolition of “Sachleistungsprinzip” 2) Work permission for everyone 3) Abolition of “Lagerpflicht” 4) Unlimited medical care 5) Possibility to learn the German language 6) Stop of all deportations 7) Asylum for all asylum-seekers, because every refugee is a political refugee 8) No more discrimination! 9) Abolition of “Residenzpflicht” Contact: refugee MAIL: maintauber@yahoo.com Tel.: 015212252097 (Mian), 015216256902 (Imran) facebook.com/RefugeeProtestStuttgart

Justice for Trayvon Martin! People say George Zimmerman is guilty!

In response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin, the ANSWER Coalition immediately took to the streets around the country. In San Francisco, we picketed at 24th and Mission St. before marching to 16th and Mission St., up to Valencia St. and back to 24th and Mission. The march grew and grew, with eventually over 450 people taking the entire street from sidewalk to sidewalk, as the community came out of their homes and stores to stand for justice for Trayvon Martin.
On Saturday, July 13, George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in a second-degree murder trial. Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a young Black man, in cold blood on the streets of Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. After killing Martin, Zimmerman roamed free for 44 days before the angry response of millions of people forced the state to take action.
The sequestered jury of six women, all white except for one, came back with a not guilty verdict after only two days of deliberations. The verdict is a travesty, a continuation of the complicity of the racist, so-called criminal justice system that refused to treat the murder as a crime and has now left a vigilante free to roam the streets. The system of racist brutality carried out against poor people and people of color in communities from Florida to New York to California to Texas and elsewhere is on the offensive.
The acquittal of George Zimmerman means there will be more George Zimmermans. They have encouraged the growth of racist vigilante attacks on Black people. This is a pattern of racist violence that  allows the cops to get away with murders like those of Oscar Grant, Alan Blueford and Manuel Diaz and countless others.
 Demonstrations across the country:
San Francisco
Sunday, 4pm
Powell and Market
Oakland
Sunday, 4pm
Oscar Grant Plaza
Washington, DC
Sunday, 6pm
Malcolm X Park
New York City
Sunday, 6pm
Union Square
New York City
Sunday, 5pm
Borough Hall, Brooklyn
New York City
Monday, 7pm
Hunts Point Plaza, South Bronx
Boston
Sunday, 6pm
Dudley Square Station (Washington St. at Dudley St.), Roxbury, Mass.
San Diego
Sunday, 5:30pm
Highland Park in City Heights near Fairmont Ave and Wightman Street next to the library and across from the police station.
Sacramento
Sunday, 12 noon
Federal Building (5th and I Street)
Syracuse
Sunday, 2pm
Onondaga County Courthouse (401 Montgomery St.) 
Albuquerque
Sunday, 4pm
Civic Plaza
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, 6pm
Malcolm X Park

Selective empathy and dangerous nationalism: “Kurdish terrorists, Turkish revolutionaries”?

By Dilar Dirik

In no way am I questioning the legitimacy of the Gezi Park protests. The overwhelming demonstrations in Istanbul, which have now spread across the country, illustrate the increasing dissent among the people in Turkey against the government’s horrid human rights violations and authoritarian rule. These protests need solidarity – they are necessary and positive developments. And it was about time!

However, without attacking the movement, I have to ask the global media: Where were you during thousands of Kurdish protests and uprisings that preceded #OccupyGezi? Kurds have been killed, beaten up, tear-gassed, arrested, and tortured on their protests (with popular support) for decades in Turkey, much worse than the images we see today.  Millions of Kurds occupied the streets in Turkey this year and this sort of terrifying police violence is not at all new to them. The difference is that nobody cared. Why?

I have heard of stories of protestors who say things such as “The police attacks us like we are terrorists”. This weird arrogance is very problematic. Would these protests take place in the South East of Turkey (i.e. the Kurdish cities), instead of Istanbul, the protestors would be called "terrorists", "separatists" and "traitors", the police would be praised as heroes! I don’t wish for any more pain, but perhaps these protests will create empathy and open some Turkish people’s eyes to what Kurds face every day in Turkey. If Turks get to walk in the shoes of those that the state politics and its media alienated them from, those that they have perceived as "terrorists" for decades, but in whose position they now find themselves in, perhaps this will constitute a change in their consciousness. As Kurdish MP Selahattin Demirtas explained: "It's the time to understand the Kurds". 

Newroz 2013 in Amed (Diyarbakir)

To be clear, I am definitely not against these protests. In fact, I passionately follow the events and hope for genuine changes. But where was the world and the anger of the Turkish population after the murderous massacres in Roboski (Uludere) or Reyhanli? Who looked after the Kurdish mothers that were collectively beaten up on the streets, lungs filled with pepper spray, just because they wanted to celebrate Newroz, the new year of Mesopotamia? Where is the anger over lynchings of Kurds and Alevis in Istanbul? Where was Turkey, when the military burnt every tree in the Kurdish East? Were the Kurdish demonstrations that were attended by millions of people over decades, never worth being fashionably termed as a “spring”? Why is police violence against Kurds not frowned upon? How many news outlets reported about 19-year-old Sahin Öner, who was killed by a tank in Amed (Diyarbakir) a few months ago? Don’t Kurds deserve the same solidarity and media attention? Why is there such a selective empathy when it comes to who is rising up in Turkey?

Another troubling factor is the increasingly nationalist color of the protests. Though it would be ignorant to generalize this multi-facetted movement, especially in the light of the complex political culture of Turkey, it is important to pay attention to the dangers that a rise of anti-AKP Turkish secular nationalism could bring about, if certain parties take advantage of the unrest. Turkish flags, national anthems –Just to oppose the AKP, some resort to the “We are Atatürk’s soldiers” mentality which is, however, responsible for prevalent racism and numerous human rights violations in Turkey.  Certain groups seem to fear a loss of “Turkishness” under the current AKP government, mostly because Erdogan is perceived as an authoritarian Ottoman sultan with his increasing Islamization of Turkey and who defies Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s republican principle of secularism. But Erdogan never degraded “Turkishness” in his eyes; he actually continued to oppress non-Turkish groups and to reinforce punishments on those that insult Turkey or Turkishness, just as his secular precedors.

A reactionary response to the Islamic-conservative authoritarian AKP regime seems to be found in good old Kemalist secular nationalism yet again. Neither one is known as an advocate of human rights, though – Kurds know this too well. What started as a protest against the destruction of trees at Gezi Park is now seen as an opportunity for some to raise anti-AKP momentum for their own gains. It is wrong to think of these protests in terms of a simplistic black-or-white "political religion versus secularism" narrative. Of course secularism is desirable, but secularism for the sake of it is not sufficient to establish a true, coherent democracy. Especially in Turkey, secularism has violated human rights, because it was accompanied by harsh nationalist chauvinism that ethnically discriminated against all non-Turks. Were there no human rights violations, extra-judicial killings, village destructions, massacres under secular rule in Turkey prior to Erdogan? Replacing one sort of fascism by another would only turn the clock of Turkish history back a couple of years. The legitimate protests must not be exploited for such interests. 

Resistance is good, resistance is life. But democracy can only come through unity and equality of the peoples in Turkey, not through nationalism and “Turkism”. There are many fascists among the protestors that call themselves “devrimci” (revolutionary), just because they oppose the AKP government.  The real revolutionaries in Turkey who were executed by parties that now declare themselves to be revolutionary would roll over in their graves! A new, alternative thinking must develop in Turkish consciousness that is democratic and secular without crushing the heads of the many ethnic and religious groups that don’t fit into the myth of the glorious Turk.

My hope is that the protestors in Istanbul and all over Turkey let go off this Turkism paradigm. I am not accusing every protestor of racism obviously, but even a small rise of Turkish nationalism could be dangerous. After all, it has a mass-murderous history. Certain parties that oppose the peace talks between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish government may use this movement to disrupt the peace process. This must not happen. Instead, this movement must unite Kurds, Turks, Laz, Arabs, Alevi, Sunnis, Yezidi, Christians, Orthodox people of all genders and demand genuine democracy in Turkey.   While many revolutionary quotes and pictures that are normally associated with the Kurdish movement and the leftist spectrum of Turkish politics were widely shared, two Turkish Hashtags were trending worldwide on Twitter at the same time last night. “Good thing you are here, Atatürk” and “Good thing you are here, Tayyip”. Both of these streams massacred, imprisoned, censored and tortured Kurds and other groups and dissidents. In such an ethnically and religiously diverse region, the people shouldn’t have to pick between two evils...

Social media, international solidarity, creative forms of protests – these are all amazing tools of mobilization in this era. It is great to see such fresh, dynamic, creative global support for the demonstrations in Istanbul. But in spite of hundreds of overwhelming protests in Kurdistan and in the Kurdish diaspora, the Kurdish struggle has been marginalized. This selective empathy, interest and attention is disheartening, when we consider the legitimate demands of the Kurds, who have been politicized from young to old for decades, and who never got this much attention or solidarity, no matter how many tons of tear gas their bruised bodies inhaled. The global media that now wonders why there is no democracy in Turkey must first criticize itself for its own silence, when it came to the oppression of the Kurdish people. Democratization in Turkey must include the Kurds. If this Turkish uprising leaves the Kurds behind, just as the so-called Arab spring left women and ethnic minorities behind, we cannot speak of a revolution in any worthy sense. Tyranny would only change its face again.

Of course, one should express solidarity with the Turkish protestors, but when talking about a “Turkish spring”, please do not forget the hundreds of Kurdish springs that preceded it and which will continue beyond Gezi Park. If the amazing energy of #OccupyGezi gets taken advantage of by certain nationalist groups, the same protestors that have discovered their inner revolutionaries in the last couple of days will continue to watch their football games, when the Kurds get tear-gassed tomorrow. May this struggle form unity and uprising in a meaningful, democratic way that encompasses every group in Turkey. In this sense, resist, Gezi Park, but resist for all!

Twitter users apologizing to the Kurdish people for looking away for so long

Racist attack on Refugee Protest Camp in Berlin

In the evening of 17th of June 2013 a person suddenly attacked an inhabitant of the Refugee Protest Camp in Berlin with a knife causing serious injuries.

The police instead of arresting the intended racist murderer attacked the inhabitants of the Refugee Protest Camp resulting in several arests among them. The intended racist murderer managed to escape.

Foto: Nick Jaussi (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickjaussi/sets/72157634187966306/)