Since more than a week a group of people who are forced to live in the #BriennerStr “Refugee Camp” are protesting against the camp. The protest has started after security started kicking a guy who wanted to take some breath for his sick child from the kitchen. in this camp “You are not allowed to take any food out of the kitchen”, even if you have a sick child.
The main demands of the protesters are:
- The security doesn’t have any respect for people. They shout to the children and are brutal and aggressive. Often they are violent to the inhabitants.
- The food is very bad, and sometimes also very old. It makes the children sick all the time. Many people has got poisoned or lost a lot of weight. You can bring food from outside to the camp, but you can not bring the cantine food in the camp.
- If the children come one hour later from Kita or school, they don’t receive any food. You are also not allowed to keep any food for them.
- You are not allowed to bring any bag in the kitchen. they also don’t offer any locker to store your bags. you should just leave it outside in the open space. bags get often stolen.
- They dont offer keys and locks for the room. every one at any time can enter any room. The mobiles and other items get continuously stolen.
- For 900 people there are just 4 shower rooms, and you can use them just in some hours of day.
- Toilets and Showers doent get cleaned regularly. They are often in bad hygienic situation.
- For long time there is a lot of Bed Bugs, that bites the children.
Until now the camp management and the politicians didn’t give any solution to the people. They just show a paper from Lageso that they will close this camp next December. Here is some stuff that has happened in the last days:
1- The camp management puts always pressure on people by lying or tricking them. They tell the police that protesters are smocking Hashish and drinking alcohol there.
2- 3 days ago, they announced a meeting with the camp management and the Lageso and protestors. The protestors decided to bring their own translator to make sure their words get translated correctly. The other side told them they can not bring an own translator and should use the “official” translator. When protestors still claimed a translator that they trust, the camp management and lageso threated them to cancel the meeting and said you can not have your own translator in the room. Finally they had to gave up their own translator.
3- “Moabit Hilft” was also in this meeting as a parter of protestors, but the management throw them out of the meeting.
3- The Burger Amt has offered them a little space in front of the camp to stay and sleep. One day they said because of a “Demo” they have to fence this place and they will remove the fences in 2 hours. Obviously a lie. They dont remove the fences any more.
4- They threat the protestors , if they continue they might get deported!
5- The politicians, camp and lageso made a meeting together to discuss for solutions. This time they didn’t invite at all the protestors, just two hours later they told the protestors about the results. The camp manager was very happy and said: “Thank you, because of you i have got a lot of new money from the city”. Hence the solutions does not solve any of the problems of the protestor.
6- two days ago a woman started throwing up and fainted. They had to take her to hospital. She fainted after the camp management started threatening them harshly on the street.
7- yesterday the child of the fainted woman also collapsed and has been brought to the hospital. he is not in a good situation right now.
The situation is very frustrating. The city politicians and the camp manager deny to talk to the protestors on an equal level and often accuse them in public for having : “Two much costs for the city” and “Not being thankfull”. they threaten and accuse the protestors continiously and want to bring them to a psychological breakdown in order to stop the protest.
Who is responsible:
What you can do is to contact these people and ask them why are they doing this:
Elke Breitenbach: Senatorin für Integration, Arbeit und Soziales
contact on twitter: @ElkeBreitenbach
ASB: The camp management
contact on twitter: @asb_de
Links (German):
Direct Statements from protestors: http://oplatz.net/hauptpunkte-der-kritik-der-lagerproteste-brienner-strase-16-berlin-wilmersdorf
Report from Moabit Hilft: https://www.facebook.com/Moabithilft/posts/1066783273421180
Contact:
Info Phone: 015774163432
Address: Brienner Str. 16, 10713 Berlin (U Fehrberliner Platz)
