The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Category: Campaign of the week

Dzień po

The day after collective


05/01/2023

The Polish government consistently tries to limit reproductive rights by making access to abortion and contraceptives difficult. In response, grassroots feminist initiatives provide basic medical services to fight this christian fundamentalist push.

Currently, we need to replenish our stocks of the day-after contraception pills, so we invite you to an info event about the “Day After” (“Dzień Po”) collective.

Soli event for grassroots feminist organizing for reproductive rights in poland – Discussion, polish snacks and more.

You can support us directly by bringing “the day after” pills!

07.I.2023 Solicafé Schlürf (Regenbogenfabrik)

17:00 Food, Glühwein, polish Schnaps, cocktails
18:00 Discussion on grassroot feminist organising for reproductive rights in Poland.
20:00 DJane(s)

There will be a short presentation and discussion about grassroots pro-choice organizing in poland and the idea of “demedicalisation” basic medical aid. There will be polish food, soli cocktails, polish schnaps and music to dance to.

We strongly encourage you to donate contraceptive pills based on ullipristal acetate (ellaOne or generics), or donate money.

Please don’t bring pills based on levonorgestrel – we rarely need them and anyway levo is a scam (we can elaborate on that during discussion!).

Get some EllaOne pills and come over!

In 2017, the polish right-wing government established a law to make the day-after contraceptive pill a prescription drug. This happened after a short three-year period during which one could access emergency contraception over the counter – according to EU recommendations, and shortly before a near total ban on abortion.

In response, we started the “Dzień Po” („the day after”) collective to provide direct access to emergency contraception that for many people in poland – especially young and those living in smaller cities – has become unavailable due to conservative and misogynistic politics.

As a collective we are also a part of pro-abortion movement and we wish to change the societal approach to what is commonly accepted and what is stigmatized: what is legal, regulated or criminalized.

We work in the paradigm of demedicalization and intersectionality. The current political situation in poland shows how crucial a grassroots solidarity movement is for providing access to basic medical services.

Come and hear more about our actions and participate in a discussion on approaches to demedicalized help. You can also bring gifts – emergency contraception with ullipristal acetate or generous donations that we’ll exchange for pills. For more information contact us at dzienpo@riseup.net.

Discussion will he held in English. German translation possible.

Note: we try to base our work on contreaception based on ulipristal acetate (ellaOne or others), because other contraceptive pills (PiDaNa, Levonoraristo, Unofem, Hexal, Postinor, Levonorgestrel Stada, Stada) need to be taken much quicker, and it is much more difficult to get them delivered on time.

Regenbogenfabrik (Rainbow Factory) Berlin

Neighbourhood Centre for Kids and Kulture


15/12/2022

Regenbogenfabrik Berlin is a children’s, culture and neighborhood center in the middle of Berlin. We have a wide range of offers for Berliners and guests from all over the world. Have a look: here on our website or live at Regenbogenfabrik, Lausitzer Straße 21a, 10999 Berlin.

The rainbow factory is a children’s, culture and neighborhood center in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Occupied in 1981, we still see ourselves as part of the housing and tenant movement and are committed to building and maintaining self-governing, collective and emancipatory structures from below.

As a collective, we work without bosses and make decisions together and in a grassroots-democratic manner according to the consensus principle. Solidarity and cooperation form the basis of our joint work. For the rainbow factory, every job is of equal value, which is why every job is paid the same.

Volunteers are also integrated into the decision-making structures. Each of us bears responsibility for the entire organization. We reject pressure to perform and thoughts of competition. In addition, we are committed to the greatest possible transparency of operational processes and decisions, both within the collective and in relation to the outside world.

About the factory

The Rainbow Factory was declared a monument in 1998. We learned that from a dry letter from the Berlin administration and were surprised. We were perhaps frightened because in the letter the authority imposed on us that changes in or on the building must be discussed and coordinated with the responsible monument protection authority with immediate effect. It wasn’t until 2004 that we discovered that we could also use it to tell exciting stories.

Monuments are many things: stores of knowledge, storytellers, eye-catchers, places to live or study. People live or work in them, crafts are learned, applied and passed on from them. This has been celebrated in Europe for several years on Open Monument Day. We go along with it and year after year we get a new opportunity to tell our story from a new perspective.

The Rainbow Factory is not spectacular architecture. But it is part of an ensemble, it tells the story of the Kreuzberg mixture of living and working in a very small space. We are glad that we can continue this story today.

No Border No Nation

On Saturday17th December from 5pm until 10pm, there will be soli drinks, Glühwein, waffles and music in the Regenbogen Café, Lausitzer Straße 22. All profits from the event No Border No Nation will go to raise money for the costs of refugees fighting for the right to stay.

Free Mumia Berlin

Mumia Abu-Jamal – 40 Years in Jail. We want Freedom NOW


08/12/2022

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American journalist and Black Panther who has been imprisoned in Pennsylvania, USA, since 1981 for an alleged police murder. Since his youth with the Panthers, Mumia has reported on racism, exploitation and resistance in the USA. At the time of his politically motivated conviction, he was chairman of the African-American Association of Journalists in Philadelphia. He reported us-wide on murders of unarmed teenagers of color by police officers on the news programme NPR in the 1970s. His work earned him the honorary title of “The Voice of the Voiceless” in PoC communities at the time.

After the conviction of 1982, which was criticized as class and conviction justice, hundreds of thousands worldwide protested for many years against the planned execution of Abu Jamal. In 2011, the death penalty against him was finally overcome. Since then, a melange from the ultra-right police lobby association Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), local and US judicial celebrities, law and order politicians from both state parties in the USA, right-wing media networks and, more recently, even a once hopefully started reform prosecutor named Larry Krasner, has been trying to keep Mumia in prison for the rest of his life. Everyone involved knows that he did not commit the alleged crime for which he was convicted. The latest “rule of law” in this context took place at the end of October 2022, when a judge noted that there had been racism in his earlier trial and witnesses may have been paid for their statements, but concluded that the evidence for the former was insufficient and had also been submitted too late. Incredibly open, she said that even if the jury had known that the witnesses had received benefits for their testimony against Mumia, that would not have changed the outcome of the trial… political persecution in a Criminal (Justice) System.

However, Mumia is actually guilty of one offense: since his arrest in 1981, he has been reporting from the depths of the US prison system that has replaced the old and officilally abolished slavery. Along with Angela Davis, he is one of those who has given us an understanding of the devastating social impact of privatizing the prison system and of the prison industry. Mumia gives many prisoners a face and shows the fundamental relations of violence in society with their examples. At the same time, he reports on hope in the darkest dungeons of society, showing that we can always and under all circumstances resist. He is now one of the most published journalists from the US and is translated into many languages. We understand what those, who keep Mumia further imprisoned after 41 (!) years, are afraid of.

But there are also some who believe that it’s all about one person – the many activities just for him? We see it differently. When we take to the streets for Mumia Abu-Jamal’s freedom, we know that we are doing this for the freedom of all thrown into modern US slavery, some 2.14 million prisoners who have to stand on the assembly lines of a state/private prison industry for decades due to racist and classist reasons.

When we take to the streets for Mumia, we do so for all those who are threatened with the death penalty, a dangerous instrument of terror by the rulers due to racist and classist reasons.

When we take to the streets for Mumia, we do the same for tens of thousands of struggling prisoners across the U.S. who, according to their own labor strike statement of 2016, have renounced “being slaves.”

If we take to the streets for Mumia, then also for all sick prisoners, because
Mumia’s legal successes in this area and the pressure of the street have already enabled thousands more prisoners to receive medical treatment.

When we take to the streets for Mumia, we do the same for the fighting prisoners in the US, whom the state prefer to bury alive forever: Freedom for Leonard Peltier, Veronza Bowers, Kenny Zulu Whitmore, Mutulu Shakur, Ed Pointexter, Kamau Sadiki, Rodney Reed, Ruchel Cinque Magee, Rob Will – Free Them ALL!

Of course, we cannot replace the struggles of prisoners, but we can support
them here on the outside by making their demands visible. We can show the rulers that we will not allow steel, concrete, bulletproof glass and barcets to obstruct our view. Prisons, along with war, are the ultimate threats to all of us if we don’t want to fit into self subjugation and our exploitation. Until everyone is free!

Come to the demo on Friday, December 9, 2022 at 6 pm to the Weltzeituhr –
U2/U8-Alexanderplatz -> from there to the US Embassy – Pariser
Platz/Brandenburg Gate.

FREE MUMIA – FREE THEM ALL!
Take care of yourself and others – wear masks and keep your distance!
more information online: mumia-hoerbuch.de & freiheit-fuer-mumia.de

Wir packen’s an

Emergency help for refugees


01/12/2022

Another year has passed in which people were trapped outside the walls of Europe in cold, hunger and misery. Once again, Germany and the European Union stood idly by and a policy of isolation and ignorance was pushed forward. The war in Ukraine has once again shown how selectively human rights and solidarity are interpreted in the EU. While some receive the protection they deserve in Europe, others receive obstacles repeatedly and are denied basic asylum and human rights. They are locked away, illegally deported or subjected to life-threatening conditions on the move. And in the midst of all these injustices, a cozy Christmas season is supposed to come now?

The Berlin-Brandenburg aid organisation Wir packen’s an states: It is time to set an audible sign for solidarity without borders with people on the run, especially at the end of the year. Therefore, they are looking forward to vocal support on this Sunday, 04.12.2021 at 4 pm in front of the Berlin Bundestag building. Several choirs and musicians will contribute their own music and together with all visitors they will sing two songs against the #heartfailure of German and European migration politics.

Among others, DŸSE (mixed genre/noise rock), Nicolás Rodrigo Miquea, Hans-Beimler-Chor, One Voice Chor, OK!choir, Shantycrew Kreuzberg, Berliner Resonanz Chor, Richards Träumchen 59, Berliner Rattenchor, as well as the Sea-Punks (sea rescue) with a speech.

Stop Europe’s #heartfailure!

Niemand ist Vergessen / No-one is Forgotten

Commemorative Campaign for the Victims of Right-Wing Violence


24/11/2022

A website for the victims of right-wing and racist violence in Berlin

Since spring 2019 representatives of commemorative initiatives are meeting regularly  to discuss and prepare the project of a shared website.

The project:

  • We are not an NGO but activists from commemorative initiatives. We accomplish everything on our own.
  • The website is an open project. Groups are invited to join in. If we did not contact or reach some initiatives yet, that are or have been active in this regard, that’s not intentional. We are at the very beginning of the project and at the same time try to involve new activists or groups, develop basic structure of the website and compile the texts and images to be published for the individual victims.
  • We are particularly interested in the feedback and participation of relatives and friends of the victims.
  • This site does not aim at completeness, only the tip of the iceberg of right-wing and racist violence is known anyway.
  • The website will initially be a construction site and posts that have already been posted are currently focusing on a few people. We strive for the site to provide at least an overview as quickly as possible of the victims who are or were already present in the work of individual initiatives in Berlin.
  • The focus is on the memory of the victims, but our position against right-wing and racist violence, the responsibility of the state and its institutions for racism, fascism and social chauvinism should also become visible.

Individual contributions to the murdered should contain – insofar as this is possible in individual cases:

  • information about the victim’s personal history and history (not solely related to the crime).
  • The act should be presented with a temporal and local classification.
  • Information about the investigation and trial.
  • Information about public remembrance, the history of initiatives and social reactions

Victim of right-wing and racist violence in Berlin

  • 05. Jan  1980  – Celalettin Kesim (36), in Kreuzberg
  • 12. Mai 1989  – Ufuk Şahin (24), im Märkischen Viertel, Reinickendorf
  • 07. Jan 1990  – Mahmud Azhar (40), in Dahlem (died 6.3.)
  • 11. Dez 1990 – Klaus-Dieter Reichert (24), in Lichtenberg
  • 27. Okt 1991 – Mete Ekşi (19), am Adenauerplatz, Charlottenburg (died 13.11.)
  • 24. Apr 1992 – Nguyễn Văn Tú (29), Marzahn, recognized by the state
  • 29. Aug 1992 – Günter Schwannecke (58), in Charlottenburg (died 5.9.), retrospectively recognized
  • 21. Nov 1992 – Silvio Meier (27), in Friedrichshain, recognized by the state
  • 24. Okt 1993  – Hans-Joachim Heidelberg (28), in Schöneweide
  • 23. Jul  1994  – Beate Fischer (32), in Reinickendorf, retrospectively recognized
  • 26. Jul  1994  – Jan Wnenczak (45), driven into the Spree
  • 06. Okt  1999  – Kurt Schneider (38), in Lichtenberg, retrospectively recognized
  • 24./25. Mai 2000 – Dieter Eich (60), in Buch, retrospectively recognized
  • 05. Nov 2001 – Ingo Binsch (36), in Marzahn, retrospectively recognized
  • 13. Jun 2003 – Attila Murat Aydin (33) (also known as the graffiti artists Maxim), in Treptow-Köpenick
  • 06. Aug 2008 – Nguyễn Tấn Dũng (20), in Marzahn
  • 05. Apr 2012  – Burak Bektaş (22), in Neukölln
  • 20. Sep 2015  – Luke Holland (31), in Neukölln
  • 01. Feb 2016  – Jim Reeves (47), in Charlottenburg
  • 20. Sep 2016  – Eugeniu Botnari (34), in Lichtenberg

This list is certainly not complete, we are grateful for tips and contributions.

Political background

Right-wing and racist killings have been a mass phenomenon, especially since the german reunification. But even in the 80s there were more and more of them.
We want to make this visible using the example of Berlin, because these murders do not happen far away, but here on site – with almost 20 known right-wing and racist murders, Berlin is one of the focal points of right-wing violence in Germany without even adressing the high amount of murders in the surrounding region.

Relatives and friends of the victims often complain that the police and judiciary did not protect the victims. Rather, the “investigative authorities” in many cases are more concerned with disguising the motivation of right-wing / racist perpetrators and the production of “individual perpetrators” by trying to keep the organized background of many of these acts invisible. This is how they protect the perpetrators and prevent them from being effectively combated. It is in particular “Staatsschutz” and “Verfassungsschutz” that strengthen and finance right-wing structures through the system of confidential informants.

Commemorative initiatives

In individual cases, there have been commemorative initiatives for many years. Some regularly organize memorial events, campaign for the renaming of streets or squares after the victims, and design memorial sites. In Berlin these are e.g. the memory of Silvio Meier and Dieter Eich.
In other cases, demonstrations and rallies only occurred briefly after the murders themselves. Or the often scandalously trivialized court proceedings against the perpetrators led to public protests. That was the case after the murder of Ufuk Şahin (1989), Mahmud Azhar (1990), Mete Ekşi (1991), Nguyễn Văn Tú (1992).
The undisturbed murder of the NSU over a decade, while the victims and their relatives saw their names dragged through the dirt, were accused and persecuted instead of the perpetrators and no critical public opposed this, also shocked us. Since then, more and more commemorative initiatives have been forming across the country. Victims of right-wing violence and their relatives should never be left alone in this way again.

Remembrance of cases almost forgotten in public was resumed. In recent years there have been commemorative activities and events for Mahmud Azhar (2017), Nguyễn Văn Tú and Nguyễn Tấn Dũng in Marzahn, Ufuk Şahin, Beate Fischer (both Reinickendorf) and Kurt Schneider (Lichtenberg) (all 2019).

The memory of Burak Bektaş (2012) and Luke Holland (2015) in Neukölln and Eugeniu Botnari (2016) in Lichtenberg were added recently.