German,The VOICE Refugee Forum on The Refugee Demonstration against Residenzpflicht in Schwaebisch Gmünd - Campaign for Freedom and Liberty

The VOICE Refugee Forum on The Refugee Demonstration against
Residenzpflicht in Schwaebisch Gmünd - Campaign for Freedom and Liberty.

“Residenzpflicht still means Apartheid” - “Lager still means elimination”

From on the 2nd March 2015 in Schwäbisch Gmünd refugee activists continue
their protest against the announced imprisonment. The Rally starts at 12 h
in front of the Lager, Oberbettringer Str. 176 and continues in the
afternoon in front of the city townhall, Marktplatz, Schwäbsich Gmünd.

Refugee activists calling for urgent action:
You can see the statement of the refugee activists of Schwäbisch Gmünd
Lager in Baden-Wurttemberg at the end of this text. They are facing
imprisonment with the aim to force them to pay fine for breaking the
Residenzpflicht

For about 4 years now refugee activists in Schwabisch Gmünd have been
protesting the structural exploitation and isolation of the peoplesÂ’
maltreatments in their protest and campaign against the insecurity and
institutional racism in Germany and Europe. Since April in 2014, they have
been continuously criminalized and intimidated by the repression of the
state authorities in their Lager residence.

We are here - In Movement for Freedom and Liberty!

We work to expose the human rights violations by the German state which
feeds the peopleÂ’s ignorance of public insecurity from the discrimination
of refugees through the policies of isolation culture in the inequality of
human being by the segregation and apartheid laws that are associated with
the structural violence and racism of the state authorities officials in
Germany and also by creating the fear and insecurity to scare us from
Self-Organization in the isolated refugee Lager

We, The VOICE Refugee Forum, do reaffirm our solidarity as testimony to
the activists on civil disobedience against residenzpflicht who have vowed
in the interest of public security and human dignity to resist the
imposition of the “apartheid – residenzpflicht” law for refugee asylum
seekers and in solidarity with the oppressed refugee as we highlight on
this campaign in unity with the refugee resistance in protesting against
the repression and the abuses they are permanently subjected in the daily
lives where the refugee welcome culture is based on the culture of
Deportation and Lager isolation.

There is a problem here: In Germany Refugee Movement have continued to
resist the Residenzpflicht laws and have kept calling for civil
disobedience action to expose the obnoxious laws against refugees since
the last 20years and till now by The VOICE Refugee Forum, The Caravan for
the rights of refugees, The Break Isolation – Asyl Strike Berlin,
Lampedusa Movement and Non-Citizens, Asylum Seekers Movement and more
others demanding for the immediate abolition without compromise.

We are appealing to everyone to take a stand against these abuses and to
demonstrate consistently in solidarity with those under the threats of
imprisonment due to their political protest with every means of civil
disobedience to reach their demands without imprisonment.

Civil disobedience against restriction of movement is a call for freedom
and liberty!
Civil disobedience is a grassroots media of those oppressed by the threats
of state repression!
Civil disobedience act by those under the state oppression is legal for
public interest!
We demand for immediate and complete abolition of Residenzpflicht laws We
protest against every form of threats and imprisonment or intimidation of
the refugee activists on civil disobedience.
Our protest is directed against the politicians and state officials who
empowered the existence of these selective and discriminative laws of
residenzpflicht to exist in Germany.

We campaign to break the Residenzpflicht and to stop the deportation!
We demand for life decided by our own in freedom and human dignity1

The VOICE Refugee Forum.
E-Mail: thevoiceforum@gmx.de
THEVOICEFORUM. ORG

End

The Refugees Statement:

“Residenzpflicht still means Apartheid”
“Lager still means elimination”

Refugees from Schwäbisch Gmünd on civil disobedience against imprisonment
Restriction of Movement and refugee persecution in Germany
Leke Aremu, Farook Khan, Raphael Paul, Frankline Ndam

We fled from persecution from our various home countries but still the
same persecution continues in Germany. We refugees arriving in Germany are
already criminalized at the borders by forceful finger printing before our
names are even known.

Our political protest started in February 2014 when we discovered the
violation of our privacy by being exposed to CCTV camera observation
(Close Circuit Tele Vision) that had been installed at the entrance of the
isolated refugee Lager in Schwäbisch Gmünd without prior notification. We
sent an inmate delegate to the responsible authorities to let them know
how we feel about the CCTV camera positioned opposite the entrance of the
lager. We stated that it gives us the precarious impression to be held
under surveillance control which makes us feel to be prisoners in fear and
insecurity to scare us from Self-Organization in the isolated refugee
Lager. But the district officials of Schwäbisch Gmünd refused to accept
our demand for the removal of the CCTV camera.

Due to this reason, we decided to hold a one month strike from the 3rd of
March to 11th of April 2014 with rallies and peaceful demonstrations
against the CCTV Camera in the refugee lager, in the city center and at
the district administrative office of Ostalbkreis in Aalen for public
interest until our demand is met. Instead of negotiating the matter they
involved the police to back up their refusal of mediation. We were
brutalized by the city police who never was able to comprehend our own
side of the story. During the demonstration on the 11th of April 2014 at
14:13 hour the police forces arrived and later attacked refugee
demonstrators inside the Lager. Two of the refugees were bitten and
injured by the police dogs and four of the refugees got arrested. They
only were released after two hours due to the protest of the other
refugees in front of the police station. At the same time the CCTV camera
silently disappeared.

Our struggle continued by exposing all the different forms of persecution
of refugees. ThatÂ’s why we were humiliated and labeled as so called
“trouble makers” by the administrative officials as to justify our
criminalization and to target us as enemies of public order and security.
Even our photos were published in the local newspapers. Since then we have
been receiving many letters of accusations with the aim to stop our
protest which led to further exclusion through a three month “stay away
order” which banned us from entrance to the social administrative office
in the refugee Lager. They set up false accusations of “duress/assault”
(Nötigung) as to defame against our freedom to protest as well as to
justify police brutality and the ignorance of officials of the lager
against the demonstrators. One of our activists was bitten by a police dog
released to attack without accountable reason is now still under charges
to have prevented police officers from executing their duty although he
was just defending himself from further injury. He received penalty order
to pay 750 Euro. After he appealed against it, the local court
(Amtsgericht) of Schwäbisch Gmünd reduced the fine to 300 Euro. Now the
case is pending at the regional court (Landgericht) for retrial. The
intention is to find out whether the superior court will still defend the
harmful, irresponsible and unlawful action of the police officers against
the refugee protest in the Lager in order to uphold the scandalous
criminalization of the victims. This lesson we had to learn already from
numerous murder cases of refugees like Oury Jalloh and others, who have
been killed through the hands of German police officers.

After a Racial Profiling police control on the way to a political and
media workshop on self-organized refugee resistance and anti-deportation
struggles in Jena, 10 of us have been fined with 130 Euro and 50cent each
for breaking the isolation of the notorious lager by intentionally
violating the “German Residenzpflicht” – Apartheid Law that restricts
refugees to administrative regions of residence denying their freedom to
move freely in Germany.

In continuity of our political struggle we have been continuously
maltreated and isolated by this apartheid law of so called
“Residenzpflicht”. We were racially controlled by the police in the train
and consecutively charged to pay fines and charges to the very system of
our arbitrary repression. We refuse to pay this “penalty” because we see
the “Residenzpflicht” law as an abuse of our basic human right to freedom
of movement and from racist discrimination.

Since then, we have been receiving threatening letters of escalating scale
as far as coercive detention with the last letter requesting to report
ourselves to Ellwangen prison for three day confinement for a matter that
we understand to be our basic right in Germany.

As refugee activists we translate this abuse of administrative and legal
powers as deterrent expression of injustice, repression and mental torture
affixed with the German asylum system.

These conditions make us remember the very dark times and continuities of
German nationalist history back through fascist and colonial terror and
genocides. We will not stop to stand and fight against the German
mentality of supremacy by means of lager isolation, police brutality and
abusive perversion of human rights against refugees. We did not flee from
life threatening situations to be held again as hostages of exclusion and
arbitrariness in the German apartheid and lager system.

We refuse to pay fines for our rights
We refuse to accept any imprisonment “in Silence”
We refuse to accept any state persecution of refugees in Schwäbisch Gmünd
and Germany
“Residenzpflicht”-persecution is still going on – the so called
“Abolition” is a devious lie
We demand for life decided by our own in freedom and human dignity
We call on everyone for solidarity
Express your views and feelings in public actions
Send in your protest notes to the authorities