The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Category: Campaign of the week

Support local activist in DR Congo

Fundraiser for Daniel Kalalizi


30/04/2025

Daniel Kalalizi is a Congolese climate justice activist and physicist. He was born and raised in Goma, from where he had to escape because of the attacks by M23 rebels. He now lives in the area of South Kivu, which is also heavily affected by the terror of the M23. He works on the ground with the local population and risks his own life daily by just staying there. Climate justice activists are heavily targeted by militant groups and by the government, and are under threat to their lives.

To be able to continue his work, Daniel needs money, which will most of all be used to provide food, clothing and other essentials for the local population.

If you want to know more about Daniel and his work, you can reach out to him over

and read this interview he recently gave on how the climate crisis and environmental degradation threaten livelihoods in the DRC.

You can also read this interview that Daniel gave to The Left Berlin.

Please donate here if you can and share this call for donations with everyone.

Thank you!

Exposing Zalando

Initiative by pro-Palestine employees in the company


23/04/2025

On October 9th, 2023, Zalando’s Management board publicly took a staunch pro-Israel stance to the objection of many of the company’s employees. Those employees were not only repressed, but some of them were actively persecuted. Despite the genocide in Gaza getting worse, pro-Palestine voices in the company, specifically those of Muslim background, were threatened, smeared, and in some cases outright fired, creating an atmosphere of intimidation inside the firm.

After traditional guardrails (HR, compliance, Works Council etc.) failed to protect these employees’ labor and civil rights, a group of employees has worked on exposing Zalando’s anti-Palestine censorship and retaliation campaign.

“Zalando cannot continue to deceive (and make money out of) its customers, shareholders, and employees with this DEI gimmick”, says Mohamad S., an ex-employee who was fired for pro-Palestine speech and is now heavily involved in this effort. “Either they actually commit to these values or the stakeholders have the right to know of the grotesque discrimination taking place on the inside”, Mohamad continues.

After Zalando ignored requests to de-escalate the dispute, Mohamad and his colleagues started an online campaign (See @exposingzalando page on Instagram) to publicize the results of an investigation they conducted by gathering current and former employee testimonies, leaked communications, legal documents, and employee questionnaire results.

“We don’t comment on individual cases” is the line that Zalando’s management has been using internally when asked about this issue, most recently by the CPO (Chief People Officer, the main person responsible for Human Resources) in a panel discussion called (unironically as far as we can tell): “How can businesses drive an inclusive democracy?”

Zalando’s management, in the backstages, are expressing expectations for this news to just “fade away.” They seem to focus their discussions on how to deny the facts and smear some of the people involved in the campaign, rather than addressing the actual issue.

Mohamad further comments: “While we recognize the ubiquity of these incidents in Germany, we urge everyone not to let Zalando normalise them. Despite what the pro-Israel elites, such as Zalando’s management board, would like you to think, our observation is that the German legal system has proved reliable in defending the rights of pro-Palestine advocates. The repulsive tactics that Zalando uses to intimidate its employees only work if they remain clandestine. We will make sure they are uncovered.”

Save Peppi Guggenheim

Save our extra class cultural events with the laissez faire factor!


16/04/2025

Peppi Guggenheim in Berlin is much more than just a neighborhood bar—for 15 years, it has been a one-of-a-kind meeting place for music, art, and community in the heart of the district of Neukölln. Peppi has an extensive cultural program: Outstanding jazz concerts and performances take place on Fridays and Saturdays, DJ evenings on Thursdays, and PeppiOke every first Monday in the month. All of this takes place on a donation basis, which would not be possible without the volunteer engagements of the numerous culture lovers who regard Peppi as a home away from home.

But Peppi’s existence is now at stake: Corona and an onerous tax debt have brought the bar to its knees. The tax office has now decided to Peppi’s disadvantage in connection with losses at the bar due musicians, artists, and volunteers receiving free drinks. While Peppi’s program has never generated real financial profits, it has attracted the support and huge dedication of a passionate, multinational team. 

We now need you to help save Peppi—and thus our motto: come, enjoy, drink, donate!

Why is the Peppi that important?

  • Culture for Everyone – Our events—whether international jazz or performances—are and will remain admission-free so that truly everyone can enjoy them.
  • Cultural Legacy – The concerts are professionally recorded and filmed, live-streamed, and archived so that they are accessible for everyone—something that the bands highly appreciate.
  • Neighborhood Hotspot – Peppi is a social anchor point in Berlin-Neukölln. A lively place for encounters, where openness, tolerance, and coexistence are lived.

You can donate to Save Peppi Guggenheim or find out more information here.

Day of Action Against the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum

This Pact Kills


09/04/2025

10 April 2025 → One year after the EU Parliament adopted the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, we will not stay silent. We will take to the streets, raise awareness, and resist.

This Pact kills. It abolishes asylum and movement, criminalizes migration, and strengthens state repression. Once it enters into force (June 2026) it will further isolate, render invisible, make precarious and deport people arriving in Europe. It fuels far-right policies and turns Europe into a fortress of exclusion.

We say NO to borders. NO to state-sponsored racism. NO to this attack on human rights.
Anti-migration policies impose a world where survival is a daily struggle, where borders kill and where people are criminalised. The EU Asylum and Migration Pact is not an exception, but a laboratory of repression, neo-colonial exclusion and state-sponsored racism.
It is the perfect tool for far-right and fascist governments to fuel, fund and legitimise their national anti-immigration policies.

Fighting the Pact is an indispensable and urgent part of a broader struggle for social, civil and human rights.

On 10 April 2025, one year after the adoption of the Pact, we will not celebrate. We will take to the streets and protest everywhere at the same time: in the capitals of our countries, in the EU institutions, at the borders, in every detention centre. We must continue to fight for open borders, the decolonisation of Europe and rights for all.

The Berlin action Letters of Resistance takes place on Thursday, 10th April at 6pm in the MarktKulturHalle, Hanns-Eisler-Str. 93.

Familien für Palästina

Families for Palestine


02/04/2025

Familien für Palästina is a collective of people united by our commitment to fight for a free Palestine. Besides that, care work is a common fact of our lives – whether it is care for children or for others in our community. Our notion of families includes single-parent-families, human-animal bonds and queer people. It is also aspirational: We strive towards a world where colonial and imperialist border regimes, prisons and capitalism no longer determine how we organize our intimate relations, our livelihoods and our communities.

We are a mixed group – Palestinians and non-Palestinians. We recognize that the struggle for a free Palestine overlaps with the struggle against structural racism and imperialism everywhere. Many of us have also been active in different movements and communities for many years and have experiences with migrant, anti-racist, refugee, queer, Mad/psych survivor and intersectional feminist struggles.

We started out by going to protests together. We try to make protest spaces welcoming to children when we can. All children are our children. We believe that fostering multigenerational community strengthens the Palestine movement as a whole. That is as much about including young ones and their caregivers as it is about honoring the experiences, lessons and sacrifices of the older generations.

We practice mutual aid. We work closely with Infinity Team in Gaza, a group who came together to provide basic necessities (hygiene, food, water) and financial support among the displaced people. They also organize educational and emotional support activities for children. We are full of admiration for the creativity and determination they have shown to provide some relief in the most difficult situations. Being in direct contact with them is nourishing us to practice hope and not succumb to despair. The money that we raise at our events supports their work. We have organized several fundraisers with different thematic focuses, always offering activities for children as well as youth and adults. Our fundraisers are very successful thanks to a network of collaborators and supporters, especially Food4Palestine.

We have collaborated with many other organizations in Berlin as well: the Internationalist Queer Pride Berlin, pa_allies, Palinale, HeArt of Gaza exhibitions, Frauen Machen Druck, Al Festival, Gaza Komitee and Görli Winter Market among others.

We also organize political education for children and families in our communities, because our schools and the vast majority of German media convey dehumanizing and racist ideas about Palestine. Our community’s children – whether they are Palestinian, Muslim, Black, Jewish, … —  are growing up with the knowledge that Palestine is a rich culture with a long history, and that fighting for Palestine is an urgent cry of justice. The Palestinian resistance is an inspiration for all of us.