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Category: Campaign of the week

Boycott Qatar 2022

For the good of the game: Boycott Qatar 2022!


17/11/2022

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is a tournament unworthy of football. So many rules of both sporting and political fairness are being violated that it seems irresponsible to take part in this event, whether as an active athlete, official or just as a TV viewer.

Therefore, we think it is important that football fans protest against the tournament in Qatar and against FIFA’s policies. Please support our initiative #BoycottQatar2022 through your own discussions, actions, events – and last but not least through your support for our call to action.

The following call to action has so far been supported by about 100 groups and several thousand individuals (as of the end of September 2022). You can add your support here:

The 2022 football world cup in Qatar is a project unworthy of football, because it violates the fairness imperative of sport and politics. Hence, we consider it to be irresponsible to participate in the event, whether as an active player, as an official, or as a TV spectator.

THE ABSENCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

FIFA claims to take human rights seriously. In a May 2017 decision FIFA declared: “FIFA strives to create an environment free of discrimination both within its organization and in all its activities”. According to article four of FIFA statutes this includes the rejection of any kind of discrimination related to religion, gender or sexual orientation. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, women are discriminated against by law, and the abjuration of Islam is a capital crime. FiFA’s decision pro Qatar is consequently irreconcilable with “an environment free of discrimination”.

Visitors to the world cup face sanctions if they identify as homosexual or queer, or wear inappropriate clothing such as shorts or strapless tops.

INFERIOR WORKING CONDITIONS

Facilities for the football world cup are being built mainly by migrant workers who drudge under inhuman conditions. They live in substandard housing, are sometimes cheated out of their wages, and work in inferior conditions. They are denied the right to terminate their contracts themselves, and in some cases they were not given leave to even visit their home countries. Several reports claim that several hundred workers have died on the construction sites.

FIFA has officially demanded an improvement of these conditions.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have asserted, however, that this did not result in effective improvements.

NO FOOTBALL CULTURE

Qatar lacks a historically evolved football culture including traditional clubs and an established fan base. Football here is mainly an artificial implant bred by money, and the new stadiums amount to Potemkin villages. Most of them will be partly or completely dismantled after the world cup because homegrown football in Qatar does not need them. It is noteworthy that the Al-Shamal world cup stadium seats 45,000 in a town of only 11,000 people.

COMMERCE INSTEAD OF FOOTBALL

The decision to select Qatar as the site of the 20022 football world cup was taken on commercial grounds and was not based on athletic considerations. Qatar considers the football world cup the culmination of its investment into developing sports as a major national business focus. FIFA, in turn, aims at opening new markets for football in Islamic countries.

Qatar is a compliant partner who will autocratically implement FIFA’s sponsor- and profit-oriented policies. Qatar 2022 will be another example of the internationally emerging tendency to award the most popular big sport events – football world cups and Olympic games – to authoritarian or dictatorial states because the exaggerated demands of FIFA and IOC become increasingly unacceptable to democratic societies.

SUSPICION OF CORRUPTION

The award of the 2022 football world cup to Qatar has been accompanied by rumors of corruption. Several reputable media outlets report that several millions of euros have been paid out as bribes prior to FIFA’s decision pro Qatar. It is possible that these allegations will only be substantiated at a time when it will be impossible to revoke the award of the world cup to Qatar. This would give prestige to a country that is alleged to have obtained the award by means of bribery.

OUR DEMANDS

As football fans we do not live in cloud-cuckoo-land. We are aware that commercial interest and manipulation have been part of football since its pioneering days. These are facts of life we have to live with. However, there are situations when critical commentaries are not enough, when a stance has to be taken. The football world cup in Qatar is such a case, too many principles have been violated. There still is time for FIFA and its member organizations to reconsider, to revoke the decision pro Qatar and to ask another country to host the world cup. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that this will happen.

It would be the duty of the DFB (German Football Association) to send the right signals. The clearest and most decisive option is for the Germany to withdraw from participation in the world cup as was proposed by the former president of DFB, Reinhard Grindel. If the DFB does not do this, then at least a comprehensive justification of this decision should be given. The DFB needs to take a resolute stance on the human rights situation in Qatar. Furthermore, it should financially support those human rights organizations and fan groups that critically question the action of the government of Qatar in this matter.

Athletes and coaches of the national team are dedicated to football would very much like to participate in the world cup. Nevertheless, they could support statements and campaigns critical of Qatar’s actions in aquiring the pro-Qatar decision of FIFA, and of the inhuman treatment of the migrant workers effectively building the stadiums.

TV stations and other media reporting from the world cup in Qatar should dedicate significant airtime to report on the political and human rights problems of the country.

German companies should abstain from any marketing campaigns linked to the world cup and from selling licensed products. They should not buy airtime for commercials.

ORGANIZE RESISTANCE

As football fans we want to manifest our resistance to a football world cup in Qatar. We will use discussions and statements to highlight the ignoble conditions surrounding the world cup in Qatar and the indifference of FIFA.  Furthermore, we state

  • That we will send FIFA mass mailings to promote our protest
  • That we will not buy any products bearing the world cup logo
  • That we will not buy any product from companies actively sponsoring the football world cup
  • That we will not travel to Qatar, and
  • That we will also not participate in any public broadcasts of the games

It is our goal to interfere with the lucrative interaction of FIFA and sponsors with the undemocratic, authoritarian regime of Qartar. It should not remain attractive for anybody to organise a football world cup in such a perverted way, which will lead to the ruin of the game we love.

A 16-page brochure presents the aims, reasons and ideas of our campaign in a compact way. You can download it here for free.

Umverteilen

Let’s take to the streets on 12 November!


10/11/2022

The rent has been far too expensive for a long time. Electricity too. Heating costs are becoming unaffordable. Going to the cinema with the children is cancelled. Butter over 3 euros and Döner Kebab as a luxury product … Who is supposed to pay for that! They talk about 8 per cent inflation, but we notice: many prices have doubled. Only our salaries and pensions have not – Hartz 4 has never been enough. We have less and less to live on.

We need higher wages. Instead, the bosses want us to work longer. Are you crazy?! And the government? A little heating subsidy here, a little more minimum wage there, but it’s not enough. Now we’re supposed to pay the gas levy as well. It’s obvious: above all, they are concerned about the interests of large companies. The government coalition is spending 100 billion on armament, but the “Bürgergeld” doesn’t even compensate for inflation. We are supposed to turn over every cent to pay for the rescue parachutes for the corporations: from Deutsche Bank to Lufthansa to Uniper. In Germany, one of the richest countries in the world, 13 million people, with or without a job, were already living in poverty before the price explosion. Now it’s down to the wire for many. Here and even more so in the rest of the world.

At the same time, the climate crisis is in full swing, unmistakable, on all continents. Especially in the global South, the consequences of the unlimited greed for profit of corporations are becoming apparent: the ruthless exploitation of natural resources and people go hand in hand and more and more livelihoods are being destroyed by the climate crisis. But instead of ending this neo-colonial exploitation and creating safe escape routes, Fortress Europe continues to be sealed off. And instead of holding corporations responsible for this, we are told here to take shorter showers and save on heating – why not shut down arms factories like Rheinmetall?

We are angry! All this is the result of an economy that focuses on profits instead of people’s needs. And worst of all, it affects all those who already live in poverty and insecurity. In the global North, for example, people who are precariously employed or in the low-wage sector, i.e. an above-average number of people affected by racism and women. And even harder hit are the people in the global South, who are exposed to even higher inflation rates and much more drastic consequences of the climate crisis and speculation with agricultural goods and raw materials.
We want an end to this policy that leaves us to bear the costs – and wants to play us off against each other in the process. We need equal rights for all people! We want a climate-just society where everyone has enough in their fridge and warmth in their homes! We need higher wages, social benefits and pensions – for a life in dignity. Energy and real estate companies should be under social control. Rents and heating costs must be affordable.

We are the ones who keep things running and we are the ones who can change things. Every collective wage, the pension and health system and all social improvements in the past were fought for from below. No one will give us a better world, we have to take it into our own hands – together and in solidarity! Whether skilled worker or unpaid domestic worker, whether pensioner or student, carer or refugee, whether pupil or apprentice, unemployed or homeless – let’s join forces!

Our demands are:

  • Price cap for electricity, heating costs & rents!
  • Socialise real estate and energy companies
  • Excess profits tax! No poverty for your profits
  • No evictions, no gas and electricity blackouts
  • Higher wages, higher pensions, higher social benefits
  • Tax the rich
    • Re-introduce wealth tax
    • One-off wealth tax to finance the crisis costs
    • Effective taxation of large inheritances
  • Free & good local transport!
  • Unlimited mobility for all
  • Ban on speculation and fixed prices for food!
  • Solidarity-based basic services for all
  • Economy oriented towards the common good instead of profits for corporations & the super-rich

Forensic Architecture

Investigating human rights violations


03/11/2022

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, investigating human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. FA works in partnership with institutions across civil society, from grassroots activists, to legal teams, to international NGOs and media organisations, to carry out investigations with and on behalf of communities and individuals affected by conflict, police brutality, border regimes and environmental violence.

Our investigations employ cutting-edge techniques in spatial and architectural analysis, open source investigation, digital modelling, and immersive technologies, as well as documentary research, situated interviews, and academic collaboration. Findings from our investigations have been presented in national and international courtrooms, parliamentary inquiries, and exhibitions at some of the world’s leading cultural institutions and in international media, as well as in citizen’s tribunals and community assemblies.

On Saturday, November 5th 2022, Forensic Architecture is organising the conference The German Colonial Genocide in Namibia in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. Between 1904 and 1908, German imperial forces perpetrated the first genocide of the 20th century in then German South-West Africa, involving the targeted ‘extermination’ of large numbers of Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama people and the killing of many others. The conference presents the initial stage of ongoing collaborative research and discusses the effects of these colonial crimes.

While the traumatic memory of the German colonial genocide and the inter-generational harm it caused is ubiquitous in Namibia, especially among the affected Ovaherero and Nama communities Germany’s colonial history and its bloody legacy is still under-represented in contemporary German public discourse.

The conference presents the first findings of research on sites of key importance in the German genocidal campaign around the Waterberg area. An accompanying discussion with representatives from the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama communities, explores challenges and shortcomings in addressing Germany’s colonial negation and the subsequent renunciation of its duty of repair. The contributors demand reparations, restitutions and redress according to the needs of the affected people within and beyond the existing international legal frameworks.

Forensic Architecture is also organising the Three Doors exhibition in the HKW from November 5th until December 30th. The exhibition aims to shed light on deeply entrenched racist structures within Germany – just a stone’s throw from the German federal parliament. It is nearly three years since nine people were murdered in a racist terror attack in Hanau. It is nearly eighteen years since Oury Jalloh was burnt to death in a police cell in Dessau. The victims’ families, friends and the survivors are still struggling for accountability.

La Jaima de Tiris

Western Sahara Support Group in Berlin


27/10/2022

La jaima de Tiris is a group in Germany which wants to tell people about the history, the culture and the struggles of the Sahrawi people. Western Sahara has been fighting for its self-determination for decades and is currently colonized by the Kingdom of Morocco. Until 1975, Western Sahara was a colony of the Kingdom of Spain. The struggles, the history and even the existence of the Sahrawi people is generally unknown in Germany.

La jaima de Tiris was launched on 1st June, 2022 and is open to any interested person. It meets regularly every last Friday of the month, usually in Neukölln. Next Friday, October 28th the group is inaugurating a photography exhibition “Remarkable Saharawi women: from tradition to emancipation”. Through a series of portraits of women we will learn about the life and work of dozens of fighters for the defense of Human Rights in Western Sahara.

The exhibition will be held at Nansenstr. 2 (12047, Berlin-Neukölln) and will be open from Friday, October 28 (19-21h) to Sunday, October 30 (Saturday 14-20h, Sunday 12-18h). Members of La Jaima de Tiris will be present to tell more about their project and their upcoming activities. The official inauguration, as well as the official presentation of the group will take place al 20h.

If you want to contact La Jaima de Tiris, you can write to jaimatiris@gmail.com, or follow their activity on Facebook (@lajaimadetiris) and Instagram (@lajaimadetiris).

Bans Off Our Bodies Berlin

Abortion is a human right!


20/10/2022

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, discarding the 1973 landmark decision that recognized abortion as a constitutional right– a decision with devastating consequences. The result gave politicians across the country further power to regulate our bodies, our lives and our futures.

In response to this decision, the Bans Off Our Bodies movement emerged and began organizing protests in the United States and across the globe. Through demonstrations and public campaigns, we show collective resistance to the lack of reproductive justice in the United States and worldwide as well as advocate for expanded access to legal, safe and accessible abortion everywhere.

US midterms are around the corner and we want to show, no matter who has the political power: WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP THE FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS. As a community, we will restore and reclaim the freedom that is ours, with or without the support of politicians and the Supreme Court.

There is a lot of work to be done here in the EU and Germany too. Both Malta and Poland ban their citizens from abortion. As for Germany, abortion remains technically illegal here, albeit unpunished, if certain conditions are met, until §218 is not abolished. The recent long-overdue repeal of §219a shows us that abortion is still a taboo in this country, even in the medical field.

We started Bans Off Our Bodies Berlin to create a community for those who are outraged, scared and mourning, and for those who want to turn their feelings of powerlessness into action. With regular demonstrations we provide a platform for people from all backgrounds to let their voices, stories and concerns be heard.

We will see you at our next demonstration this Sunday at 2pm on the Pariser Platz in Berlin!!!

If you are interested in helping in any way, please reach out:
Twitter: @BansOff_Berlin
Instagram: @BansOffOurBodiesBerlin