Press Release Oranienplatz 25.5.
We stopped our hungerstrike two weeks ago (27.4) because we started talks with Aydan Özoğuz (Staatsministerin bei der Bundeskanzlerin, als Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Migration, Flüchtlinge und Integration), with the promise of further negotiations. Two talks followed after the interruption of the hungerstrike. Aydan Özoğuz promised to pass our letter of demands to the Minister of Interior de Maizière (Bundesminister des Inneren).
The following day the police violently tried to evict the Mahnwache and the protesters by taking away all our stuff. They sharpened the rules and restricted us to just one blanket and one pillow per person. We were not allowed to lie down and sleep anymore, only just to sit, even in the night. So also when it rains we are not allowed to use any common shelter apart from individual umbrellas. They also took away the underneath plane where we used to put our isomats and blankets to not get wet and dirty. Immediately after the eviction, minutes before our publicly announced press conference, they brutally arrested one of our fellow activists, Patras Bwansi for the accusation of peeing in public. This was clearly just a pretext to prevent him from taking part in the press conference.
Despite all the intimidation and provocation of the police we went on with our political protest activities. The next day we formulated our demands in the letter to de Maizière, which Aydan Özoğuz had promised to officially forward to him. She had also assured to inform us immediately about his feedback and to stay in contact with us until we receive his official answer. At the same meeting Frau Lüke (Integrationsbeauftragte des Senats von Berlin) had agreed to provide us with a safe and dry place for the nights, because the weather and police conditions made staying at Oranienplatz impossible. The plan was to sleep there, but to continue with the Mahnwache at Oranienplatz. Three days later when we contacted her, she said it was not possible to give us any space, and we should not waste our time but just follow the agreement about O-platz made by the Senat in April. We have never accepted that agreement because it was full of confusion and violence, based on colonial ideologies.
Nevertheless we continued with our protest day and night, even though we are not allowed to even lie down and protect ourselves adequately against the weather. Still the situation remains dramatic with police repression. We are trying to contact Aydan Özoğuz through her lawyer and via mail and phone, but no answer. In the same way we strictly condemn the police repression upon our comrades who went on hungerstrike at Alexanderplatz, who have now been evicted and been deported back to the Lager in Sachsen-Anhalt. One of them is now in Deportation Prison. We demand his immediate release.
We are here and we will fight!
Freedom of movement is everybody’s right!