- Until everyone is free
On the 16th of october 2013 in front of the German embassy in Vienna people came together for a solidarity demonstration for the hungerstriking non-citizens in Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.
Refugees from the Vienna protest camp and supporting citizens wanted to show their solidarity with their brothers and sisters in this hard time. The protesting Non-citizens had taken their fight for papers and acceptance to Berlin after many of them already had hungerstriked in Munichs Rindermarkt few months ago, followed by a 300 km protest march across Bayern reaching Munich in september.
The hungerstrike is the last call of the struggle for freedom. Until now no responsible politician was willing to meet with the protesters.
Today is the 9th day that they did not take any food and during last three days they are not drinking water. Several people were brought to hospital and the number of collapsing non-citizens increases every hour. They collectively decided as a consensus to refuse force feeding. As soon as they are able to leave the hospital they come back to continue the protest.
Apart from the harsh and repressive rules of not allowing tents and only one sleeping bag per person the german police is mainly ignoring them. The extremely bad weather conditions make the struggle more difficult. They chose hungerstrike – as a strong and collective decision – to fight against violent politics of isolation and repression.
The rally in front of the embassy in Vienna addressed the representatives of the german government to take responsibility. The protesters also claimed the release of the political prisoners Özgür Aslan and Yusuf Tas, who after his deportation from Austria is now closed up in a german isolation cell in Stammheim. Both of them held a hunger strike to resist against their criminalization and their taken freedom.
Slogans of solidarity and unity where exclaimed. Also the last statement of the non-citizens in front of Brandenburger Tor was read out. “We are Lampadusaeans and thousands other refugees who are dying on the European borders but we could reach here and we extremely condemn these mass executions. We want our very basic human rights, which are equal life conditions like Citizens do have. Neither you nor anybody else can deprive us of them.” (see complete statement and more information on www.refugeestruggle.org)
Solidarity statement of Refugeecamp Vienna (14.10.2013):
We, the refugees from the refugee protest in Vienna, want to communicate that we stand on your side. In this moment we share your pain. We declare our deepest solidarity with the non-citizens in dry hungerstrike and demand that their voices should be heard immediately. The german government – like the austrian authorities – and their european border system is the direct responsible for thousands of people suffering and dying from the results of neo-colonial politics.
No matter if we are one or two or a thousand on the streets, we will continue to raise our voices and shout for equality. We are all part of one struggle!
“Her wo insan – insan nahi hai jo dosrai insan kai gham our dokh mai sharik na ho.”
