Pressrelease: 6th day of the refugee hungerstrike at Oranienplatz (14th April 2014)

Today is the 6th day, that we, four refugee activists from Oranienplatz, are on hungerstrike.

We started this hungerstrike to show our solidarity with our comrades who were resisting against the eviction of our protest camp at Oranienplatz on a tree and were denied food by the authorities. Oranienplatz is well known to be a major symbol and center for the political fight against the racist and colonialist asylum policy in Germany and Europe. We started our hungerstrike with three demands:

1) the re-establishment of the info-point and a big tent for our assemblies at Oranienplatz.

2) the acknowledgement of the school in Ohlauerstr. as a self-organized political center of refugees

3) residency permission for all refugee activists who have participated in our protest at Oranienplatz

Over the last days we have been facing heavy rain and cold. Also police are putting repression against our legitimate protest by not allowing sleeping bags, plastic covers against the rain and new things can only be brought, when something is taken away. We highly condemn this practice of denying us the human right to gather and protest peacefully which we should be guaranteed according to article 21 of the human rights declaration. On Saturday night Napuli came down from the tree because she received a letter*1 from Dilek Kolat promising that a bigger Info-tent and a meeting-tent would be built again at Oranienplatz.

Tomorrow, at 7:30pm, Monika Herrmann is supposed to take part in a podium discussion about our protest at Oranienplatz. The protest is continuing at Oranienplatz and that is why we are demanding her to meet us directly, the refugee activists on hungerstrike. We ask Hermann and Kolat to take their responsibility and put everything what has been promised to us into practice. They should give us a big tent for our meetings and take concrete steps to build a stable wooden info-point. Details should be discussed with us tomorrow at Oranienplatz at 7:30pm.

On Sunday it has been shown through a powerful demonstration that the people in the school and the refugee activists on hungerstrike are in solidarity with each other. We continue our hungerstrike until all of our demands are fulfilled. If our first demand is not met until tomorrow night 12pm we are going to enforce our protest to the next level.

The Hungerstriking Refugees in Solidarity with our Fellow Refugees in Schwaebisch-Gmuend (Bad.-Wuert.), Amberg, Cham (Bayern), Lampedusa Hamburg