The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Category: Campaign of the week

ANPI

National Association of Italian Partisans – Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia


19/04/2023

After its establishment in 1944, ANPI’s mission has been to foster the values of democracy, freedom and peace that had inspired the antifascist Resistance. ANPI is open to all antifascists with no distinction of nationality and counts over 130000 members. ANPI Berlin-Brandenburg was founded in 2018 and since then has been promoting these same values in education, arts and politics. We have a standing partnership with the VVN-BdA.

The Resistance in Italy played a crucial role in the military defeat of nazi Germany, which had deployed in the occupation up to eight divisions of the Wehrmacht. The Resistance inspired the drafting, in 1947, of a strongly antifascist Constitution based on the values of democracy and social justice.

In the past year, the current political situation both in Italy and abroad has pushed even more people to become members of ANPI. On April 25th Italy celebrates its Liberation from nazifascism. This year we will meet on Sunday 23 April at Kolle 307 to enjoy performance, music, food and each other’s company in the spirit of antifascism.

Sea-Eye Berlin

We save human lives


12/04/2023

In the deadliest flight routes in the world we look for people in distress at sea and fight against the drowning. Our action is an answer to the failed migration politics of the European Union, which refuse their responsibility for the thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean.

Our group in Berlin wants to support Sea-Eye with all local forces. We try with different ways to make people aware of the subject see rescue, to inform them about the work of Sea-Eye and to collect donations.

At least once a month we organise a meeting in different location in order to talk about joint projects, coming meetings and to plan further actions. You can also get involved if you have a small time budget. We look forward to every new face.

You are also invited to our exhibition „Jedes Leben zählt – Zur Flucht über das Mittelmeer“ (every life counts – on flight across the Mediterranean). The photo exhibition looks at civil sea rescue in the Mediterranean and its importance. The pictures were taken during operations of the organisation Sea-Eye.

Since 2015, Sea-Eye has been active with boats in the Mediterranean, which have been funded by donations. They take people in distress at sea on board, to bring them to a safe European place. The operations of the organisation are carried out over several weeks on different levels, from Crew Training to waiting at safe harbours.

The exhibition shows the different areas of a Sea-Eye operation. The photos reflect the precarious situation of fleein people in the Mediterranean, and show the need for state sea rescue, safe flight routes and the stabilisation of the situation in the countries of origin.

For more information, you can visit our homepage or contact the Berlin group at gruppe.berlin@sea-eye.de

AGIT

Achiving social movements to help future struggles


05/04/2023

AGIT is a public residency and archiving space which engages with the historical materials from left and social movements to address contemporary questions and present day struggles.

Our work operates across three different areas;

  • exploring movement histories and contemporary politics in Berlin and beyond;
  • developing international collaborations focused on building left history, culture, and theory;
  • experimenting with different technologies to develop ways of building and distributing open access archival collections.

Central to AGIT is a series of funded residencies, which will explore different historical materials to make critical interventions in our present. AGIT is a nascent organisation so each residency will leave something behind to help us shape the space going forward, be that a collection of material, or something else. The residences are open to individuals, groups or collectives involved in political organising, theory, cultural, artistic or technological production.

The space is also used on an ongoing basis by a number of social and labour movement groups, and self-organised education initiatives for meetings and other activities.We are open to people running their own events at Nansenstrasse 2, where we can help resource with space, equipment and time. Drop us an email if you have something you want to run.

Sign up to our mailing list here.

We will be holding an informal launch of AGIT as well as the exhibition opening of our first resident, Hussein Mitha.

Wir Weben! by Hussein Mitha
Where: AGIT, Nansenstrasse 2 (near Reuterplatz)
When: Friday 7th April, 19h (NOT Thursday as suggested in our Newsletter. Sorry for the confusion)

Wir Weben! is a site-specific mural created by Hussein Mitha during AGIT’s first residency. The mural celebrates the multiple, contradictory and varied labour and social movement histories of Berlin and takes its name from Heine’s poem about the Silesian Weavers Revolt of 1844. Using vinyl cutting and decal techniques, Mitha combines vibrant colours and abstract forms, with reproductions of texts and images from archival sources.

A single ‘red thread’ at the centre of the piece weaves together historical movements, from the German Revolution to the solidarity campaigns of the DDR, to squatting and political print production in 1970s West Berlin to contemporary housing movements. Through these methods, Wir Weben! pays homage to the possibility of solidarity, but also playfully acknowledges the fractures and junctions between left movements particularly when it comes to building historical movements around anti-imperialism.

Central to Wir Weben! is the role that archival work has in uncovering and revealing political histories. Alongside the mural there will be a small exhibition of all the different historical material that is referenced in the mural.

Go Film The Police

The Go Film The Police campaign fights for the decriminalization of recording police (brutality), for holding police accountable and to encourage others to act in solidarity with those affected by police violence.


29/03/2023

The Go Film the Police campaign is a call to film racist police violence to make police brutality as a from of organized violence visible, as well as to demand police accountability.

Police claim that they are not racist and/or otherwise discriminatory, that they only use force when provoked and/or threatened. So why do they try so hard to avoid being filmed then?

We regularly hear and see witnesses of racist police violence being criminalized when they offer themselves as witnesses or film and make the abuse of power by the police visible. They are threatened, beaten up, their phones are confiscated, video material deleted and are charged with offenses such as “resistance against law enforcement officers”. The police repeatedly invoke the so-called “eavesdropping paragraph” § 201 StGB (violation of the confidentiality of the word). This states that anyone who unauthorizedly “records the non-publicly spoken word of another on a sound carrier” commits a criminal offense. However, it also states that “it (…) is not unlawful (if) the public communication is made in order to safeguard overriding public interests.” At the same time, the police claim that filming is prohibited.

However, as many legal experts as well as some courts have also acknowledged, police actions in public spaces can never be understood as “non-public”. Therefore the intrumentalization of this paragraph by the police must be stopped, who try to use it strategically to deligitimize evidence and criminalize those affected by their violence.

We are convinced that it is time to act as an alliance against this violent practice of the police and demand the decriminalisation of filming police actions. In a democratic constitutional state, individuals must have the possibility to document unlawful police behaviour. Only in this way can the police be controlled in their work and made accountable. It must be made politically clear that video recordings of police actions are admissible as evidence in court. They serve to make racist police violence visible and to identify and convict violent police officers. Filming must not be prevented. We also demand that any confiscation of cell phones and/or the deleting of videos by the police is prohibited.

Goals of the campaign include:

  • Informing and raising awareness in the public about police brutality
  • Collectively making racist police violence visible
  • Decriminalizing the recording of police actions for witnesses as well as victims
  • Banning confiscation of cell phones and banning the deletion of video recordings by police
  • Accepting video recordings as evidence in court
  • Police oversight and accountability
  • Identification, legal prosecution and conviction of criminal police officers

The campaign also encourages people to record police violence on video themselves. Go Film the Police!

Read our Open letter, and we have just published a guide about filming police in the German legal context. The guide is currently available in German, English, French and Arabic.

Klimaneustart 2030 – Volksentscheid!

Change the Law! Berlin Climate Neutral 2030


22/03/2023

On Sunday, 26 March, Berliners will head to the polls to determine our hometown’s climate future. This “Volksentscheid”, or referendum, has been brought about by us, the citizen’s initiative Klimaneustart Berlin. We worked tirelessly for 18 months to collect a total of 300,000 signatures and thereby force the Berlin senate to hold this referendum, and we are now spearheading the “Yes” campaign.

If 25% of Berlin’s population, or 608,000 people, vote Ja on 26 March, the target date for Berlin to be carbon-neutral will change from 2045 to 2030. This will be a legally binding change to Berlin’s existing Climate protection law. In addition, the law will be changed to safeguard social justice in the transition to a net zero city, and there will be a 95% reduction of all greenhouse gases, not just CO2.

As shown by studies from the Frauenhofer Institut and the Energy Watch Group, 2030 carbon-neutrality is an ambitious but achievable, and above all necessary and worthwhile, target for this historical city. We believe Berlin will be healthier, more future-orientated and better off financially in the long term if the referendum is passed on 26 March. We are also convinced that a resounding Ja! will re-establish people’s faith in the Volksentscheid as a tool for direct democracy, especially given the dire warnings about the climate issued in the last few days.

To be eligible to vote, you must be a German citizen, a resident of Berlin, and above 18 years of age. If you are all these things, we urge you to vote YES/JA on March 26th at your local voting station, which you can find here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1FRlbyP-SN4Kr2HBlVbeyVa-b7-zdL0Q&ll=52.513194324415124%2C13.45246430136719&z=11.

If you can’t vote, there is still a lot you can do to help us mobilise support so we can reach 608,000 Yes votes. Please come along to our Demonstration with Live Music at the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday (2pm-8pm, more info here), and also to our Mass Bike Tour of Berlin on Sunday, the day of the vote (more information on the Telegram groups below). Also, before the weekend you could do us a huge favour by posting about the vote on LinkedIn, or any social media network you use, with the help of this fantastic document courtesy of Leaders For Climate Action.

You can also support the campaign

To find out more, please head here, or message Klimaneustart’s International Outreach Officer at +4917686096878.