AUDIO: Speeches against the eviction of Gerhart Hauptmann Schule – March 2014
Our beloved Sista Mimi passed away in December last year. She never stopped her political activities or voicing her anger and discontent at this unfair world. The fight goes on and she is still in our thoughts. We wanted to share some photos of her in action with everyone and the last speech we wrote together.
We are human and alive and we have a heart and our blood is red, and all that we do is because we have democratic aspirations. And the occupation of the school is a culmination of such aspirations, affording people the opportunity to choose their own place to live.
It’s been over one year since we occupied the school. We have built a community and this community belongs to Kreuzberg. You can not deny our existence and our will to stay where we feel at home.
Therefore we want to stop with these stressful rumors about a soon to come eviction of our house.
Some say the Senate is searching for alternative houses, but nobody knows anything concrete about these houses. There are also the ever so disputed lists, with names of people who would be granted a house. Not everyone living in the school are part of any list. The Senate refused to come to school and get the names of the people in a transparent way. Names were collected here and there, in different addresses, days and times. People were not previously informed. Some found out about these temporary offices where those who were in one of the lists were given a white plastic card that doesn’t guarantee anything. Or at least we don’t know what they are supposed to guarantee.
We have been open for discussion.
You, Frau Kolat, have come only once to speak to us and then disappeared. All we hear now is that the Senate of Berlin appears to be apathetic towards the state of the people living at the school.
We ask you Frau Kolat, Herr Wowereit, Herr Henkel: Are you planning to throw women and children on the streets? To send the men to Görlitzer Park and then accuse all of them to be drug dealers, criminals who should be put in jail and later deported? Its that your plan?
We say it again: we have a house and our house is the occupied school in Ohlauer Strasse, Kreuzberg. And we are here to demand an open forum, where we can discuss our future.
There is plenty of evidence and information about how non transparent the process and deal with Oranienplatz was done. Until today you did not even keep the promises you´ve made. Now you are trying to repeat the same strategy with the aim of reestablishing “law and order”. Not with the aim of helping people in need who had to flee from unbearable conditions which are partly caused by Germany, the world´s third largest arms dealer. We, the refugees had to leave our loved ones and our homes. We risked our lives and now we, the people living in the school, are not going to accept the same colonial strategy of divide and rule.
We remind you of what the europeans have written in the Article 26 of the Geneva Convention of 1951 concerning the right of refugees:
Article 26 – Freedom of movement
Each Contracting State shall accord to refugees lawfully in its territory the right to choose their place of residence and to move freely within its territory subject to any regulations applicable to aliens generally in the same circumstances.
We know our rights and the fact that we do have the right to choose our place of residence and to move freely within the territory of Germany. That’s why we also remind you of our basic demands:
- Abolishment of Residenzpflicht
- Stop with the deportations
- Close of the Lagers where refugees are stored like non-humans, unable to be part of the society where they are living in.
And last but not least: NO ONE WILL MAKE US FEEL ILLEGAL IN OUR OWN PLANET.
source: https://iwspace.wordpress.com/2015/06/02/sista-mimi-2/