The Left Berlin News & Comment

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Category: Campaign of the week

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

PerfocraZe International Artist Residency -p IAR

Interdisciplinary Ghanaian artists’ program and a performance ‘hatchery’


13/10/2022

For the past four years, pIAR has served the arts and the queer community as a safe sanctuary for radical artistic programmes, advocacy, ‘artivism’ and cultural intervention. Since 2017, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi [crazinisT artisT] (pronouns: sHit if not she) has rented a new space after six years of active public advocacy and fearless artivism in and outside Ghana. sHits new space is a safe sanctuary and has become a home for ‘all’. pIAR is a paradise for many queer and non-queer creative individuals from all over the world – converging, researching and developing projects that engage global audiences on sensitive issues such as gender/sexuality, racism, class and power relations. Artists in residence are also encouraged to discuss and explore other topics, including decolonisation, multiculturalism, patriarchy, healing practices, indigenous rituals, etc.

Countless people benefit from our studio, workshops and the residency program over the past four years. However we are urgently seeking for funding to purchase a 12 bedroom space with studio facilities that can accommodate at least 26 people including the artists in residence, the pIAR team, interns and mentees that will be directly and immediately affected if we are evacuated from our current home any time soon. The cost of the houses in Kumasi are currently between $200,000 and $300,000 depending on the quality, size, site, conditions of the house and the facilities available.

The new ANTI-LGBTQIA+ bill dubbed the ‘PROMOTION OF PROPER HUMAN SEXUAL RIGHTS AND GHANAIAN FAMILY VALUES BILL, 2021’ by some members of Parliament has endangered perfocraZe International Artist Residency (pIAR)  for our radical visibility as a safe sanctuary. The Bill has created mixed reactions among citizens, religious groups and the queer community. It has doubled up the violence against LGBTQIA+ persons across the country, recording several viral videos of mob attacks on suspected LGBTQIA+ persons without justice for the victims. One of our offices (LGBT+ Right Ghana) was raided by the police in February  2021 in the company of a homophobic landlaord and some residents.

The bill also directly threatens the founder and artistic director of pIAR as a transwoman, artivist, human rights advocate, and the board member of LGBT Right +. It is dangerously determined to prosecute anyone who identifies as queer or is perceived as (following the bill’s definition) an ‘LGBTTQQIAAP+’ person, ally or sympathiser. The bill will also prosecute landlords or anyone who rents their properties or premises to queer persons or LGBTQIA+ inclusive organisations. This is our emergency to raise funds for our own safe house to avoid dealing with the threats our landlord is facing at the moment from the homophobic community..

We understand the cost of our facility is quite expensive but we will appreciate the maximum contribution within your budget or any possible means you can afford to support us.  Please visit our GoFundme fundraiser for further details: 

Our aim is to gradually normalise our queer existence through radical ‘artivism’ and by empowering our younger selves to reclaim our placement in the society. We are determined to break those oppressive binary structures through constant advocacy and educational engagement with the ‘Cis-Hetero’ community. By far pIAR has been very progressive bridging the gab between some of these community through our annual public festival dubbed love fEAST which brings together over 200 people from the queer community and the ‘Cis-Hetero’ neighbourhood for a dinner/party at our current space every January.

Your donation or contribution will be so much impactful for the continuity of the radical empathetic and solidarity created by pIAR. With such a safe house if secured pIAR can continue offering space and support for artivists, workshops, gathering, learning and strategic planning towards safety and security of the community members.

Refugee Movement / OPlatz.Net

Refugee News from Inside


06/10/2022

The OPlatz.net website was created as the voice of the Refugee Movement based at the protest camp at Oranienplatz (“Oplatz”) in Berlin, which was set up in 2012 to protest against the disfranchisement of refugees by the German state. Since the eviction of the camp in 2014, the website as well as the structure of refugee protests have changed and developed. Various groups with different focuses have emerged, including the Oplatz Media Group, which is continuing to fill this website with news about protests of refugees in Berlin, throughout Germany and beyond. It also publishes the newspaper by and for refugees – “Daily Resistance”. You can find a list of protest groups and links to their websites here.

Our Demands

  • Abolish Residenzpflicht (mandatory residence)!
    Rooted in colonial policies, Residenzplicht obliges refugees to stay in a certain area and clearly violates our basic human rights. We reject any restrictions of our freedom of movement and demand the complete abolition of Residenzpflicht-law.
  • Abolish all “Lagers” (refugee camps)!
    Refugees in Germany are forced to stay in “Lagers” (camps) mostly completely isolated from society, under inhumane living conditions and constant surveillance by authorities and Lager-guards. We refuse to live in those prison-like Lagers, we break this isolation and demand the right to choose where and how we want to live!
  • Stop all deportations (also Dublin III)!
    Deportations are an inhumane practice and have to be stopped immediately. Everyone leaving her_his home country has good reasons to migrate – may it be war, political persecution or because of the economic situation – all of these reasons are political in its core. We refuse any categorization of migrants and demand the acknowledgement of the legitimacy of any kind of migration, no matter where people come from.
    The Dublin III regulation is nothing else than a network of human trafficking between European countries and has to be abolished! Germany and the European Union have to accept that the right to move is not negotiable.
    Because freedom of movement is everybody’s right!
  • Right to work and study!
    We dont want your social benefits. We need the right to work and study to provide for ourselves independantly.

10 years ago the Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg and later also the Gerhart-Hauptmann School in Ohlauer Straße were occupied. To mark this anniversary, we want to gather at Oranienplatz from 5.10.-9.10. and celebrate the history of the rebellious refugee movement. With a five-day open-air art “construction site”, we will show the history of the Refugee Resistance Movement and the many facets of the struggles on and around O-Platz.

People who were active in the movement then and now and were present on O-Platz are creating a programme with theatre, graphics, painting, literature, photography and film, in which we trace the stages of the resistance in a variety of artistic ways: From the long march to Berlin to the shameful eviction of the camp by the Berlin Senate and the district.

Ten years after the beginning of the occupation of O-Platz, however, we not only want to celebrate our history, but also make a proposal for a society that sees itself as diverse, postcolonial, grassroots democratic and post-migrant. See the full programme here.