German Text: In Solidarität mit dem NO PASARÁN-Block gegen den Nazi-Aufmarsch in Dresden am 14.2. 2009
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In solidarity with NO PASARÁN Block against the Nazi March in Dresden, 14.02.2009
Because of several other engagements, many of us have been unable to travel to Dresden to join you in your demonstration today. We hope you can excuse us and will receive our words of support and solidarity.
First of all, in the name of the Initative in Memory of Oury Jalloh, The VOICE Refuge Forum and The Caravan for the Refugee and Migrants in Germany we would like to congratulate each and every one of you who has taken to the streets today in order to demonstrate with your hearts minds and bodies…
NO PASARÁN!
Please know that we accompany you in both your determination and your struggle…
NO PASARÁN!
Yet we are also all aware that to be able to turn our life-long struggle of NO PASARÁN into reality much, much more is needed.
No neo-nazi was needed to take the life of Oury Jalloh, to brutally tie him up at his hands and feet to a fireproof mattress only to claim suicide when his charcoaled body was finally discovered.
No NPD was needed to take the life of Layé Konde, Dominique Koumadio, Amir Ageeb, John Achidi, Mohammed Silla, N'deye Mareame Sarr, Halim Dener, Zdravko Nikolov Dimitrov, Arumugasamy Subramaniam or some many others.
It hasn't taken Hitler to drown tens of thousands of African and other immigrants out of the shores of Europe, buried deep in the waters of the Mediterranean, their lives washed away together with their hopes of a better life.
The National-Socialists haven't had to be in power in order to legalize racist police controls, obligatory residency laws or leathal acts of deportation.
As refugees and migrants, we stand beside you today in saying NO PASARÁN. Neither Nazis nor their anti-human ideology are acceptable at any time. They represent the worst elements, the most poisonous and despicable type of human beings on this planet. Their simple existence is an offense to humanity.
Yet we still must do so much more to awaken our consciousness. For too long the very foundations of facist thought are continuously gaining hold throughout Europe. Both societies and governments are becoming ever more intolerant and even approving of anti-human policies at home and abroad.
For too long we refugees and migrants have been beaten, humilliated, controlled, excluded and spat upon, our rights as human beings equal to any and all others trampled upon to such an extent that the very thought that we are equal human beings doesn't even exist in the minds of many.
But we, like you, have taken the decision to stand up, to break the silence and to say no more.
In doing so, we strongly believe that one of our fundamental challenges is to stop the impunity which permits abuses to continue to be committed against refugees and migrants.
This impunity is the life support of the injustice and oppression we face. Because of it, both neo-nazis and the police feel they can often hunt us down as if we were animals without fearing any consequence.
It's true.
If we get attacked by Nazis and call the police, the police come and we are the ones who get arrested.
If we are walking down the street amongst hundreds of other people, normal human beings just like you and me, the police come and attempt to control our papers. If we challenge their racism, we are likely to be taken to jail and maybe even beaten.
Fortunately, burning to death while chained to hands and feet to a fireproof mattress doesn't happen all the time.
But it has happened. And it could have happened to any one of us.
And such acts of inhumanity only serve to strengthen those who would like to rewrite Germany's history and to present themselves as the victims rather than the victimizers.
The impunity of those committing these crimes against refugees and migrants continue to facilitate the survival of such racist, anti-human and anti-semitic ideologies as National-Socialism in Germany.
So by standing together with you here today and saying
NO PASARÁN
We are also extending you our hand as well as our call to
BREAK THE SILENCE!
We must join together to ensure that humanity is never again denied to any human being, to guarantee that the right to life, to survival, to human decency is something enjoyed by everyone and not by an undeserving privileged few at the expense of the overwhelming majority of humanity.
In doing so, perhaps one day we will be able to join together no longer only in protest but also in victory…
NO PASARON!
THEY DIDN'T GET THROUGH!
Until then, please join us in speaking truth to power:
In Solidarity We Remain
Lets Keep on Trucking
NO PASARARAN Call for demonstrationon 14th of February 2009 in Dresden
Salomon Wantchoucou from the Refugee Heim in Möhlau (Sachsen-Anhalt)
The VOICE - Refugee News Network (RNN)
Initative in Memory of Oury Jalloh
http://initiativeouryjalloh.wordpress.com/
The VOICE Refugee Forum,
http://www.thevoiceforum.org
The Protest of The VOICE Refugee Forum, By Salomon W. from the Refugee Heim in Möhlau (Sachsen-Anhalt)
German Text: Der Protest des VOICE Refugee Forums von Salomon W. aus dem Flüchtlingsheim in Möhlau (Sachsen-Anhalt)
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Refugee News Network (RNN)
On behalf of The Caravan for the rights of Refugees and Migrants in Germany - Nationwide Meeting 30.01 - 01.02.2009 in Hamburg By Salomon W. from the Refugee Heim in Möhlau
They are all refugees that resided in Germany for many years without the recognitions of their refugee status. However, they could not return to their country of former residence. Their lives would have been in danger because of their political activities, engagement, wars, political crises, statelessness, disintegration, family displacement, etc. In Germany, their rights of existence have been minimized to the lowest possible class. And despite the fact that some of the victims affected in this inhuman practice were professionals, university graduates, politicians, journalists, human right activists, etc., they have been prohibited from participating in their own social, economical, and integral affairs.
At the same time, the Foreigner Office of the different local governments find a different way of interpreting the law. Indeed, they use this opportunity to manipulate or formulate unacceptable practices for some refugees who otherwise would have been eligible to receive international protection, thus depriving them of their institutional existence.
These allegations and manipulations include sending some refugees to an embassy other than their own. Sometimes they don't even send people to the embassy itself but rather organise a place where some embassy representatives come and judge someone they have never met. Nevertheless, the Foreigner's Office knew very well what the definition of "nationality" actually means.
So why do they send people to the embassy that is not from their country of origin?
Had he not protested together with The VOICE Refugee Forum and the Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants, Salomon W. in Möhlau would have been a victim, too. Salomon, a political activist from the Republic of Benin, was sent to the Nigerian delegation in Halberstadt. Why?
Could this be called a mistake, or rather a manipulation? Yet be it a mistake or a manipulation, its outcome could lead an innocent Salomon to his death. The VOICE Refugee Forum's coordinator, Mr. Osaren, intervened through telephone calls while Salomon was in Halberstadt. Osaren's action contributed as part of the protest to denounce this practice rooted in colonial heritage. The reaction of the Foreigner's Office to his phone calls was to correct their mistake of sending an innocent Salomon to the Nigerian Embassy.
Lots of other people have been victims of such practices. Some have even died as a result.
Why is it that our identities were been correctly given but some foreign offices and the embassies deny us our identity by declaring us unknown? In doing so, they are putting our lives in danger.
We are no longer living in the past 19th or 20th Centuries. Now we are living in a modernised and globalised world of the 21st Century.
Nevertheless, foreigners continue to be terrorised by the police, some have been killed, and yet others, like OURY JALLOH, have been burned to death in police custody in Dessau.
We Therefore call on the police and the Foreigner's Office to stop discriminating against us and to stop killing us so that we can participate in the creation of a better world of peace and without hatred in the future.
In respect to the above-mentioned points, our organisations, The VOICE and the Caravan, are protesting, denouncing and are crying for solidarity for all!
Salomon. W
Political and human right activist
The Caravan Nationwide Meeting 30.01 - 01.02.2009 in Hamburg
„Die Selbstvertretung ist unser Trumpf“ - The VOICE Refugee Forum
Refugee Protest: We cannot remain silent. And we are not silent. By Seid Seidi - Caravan Bremen
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Sachsen-Anhalt trying to deport Beninian to Nigeria
Refugee news from Möhlau in Sachsen-Anhalt: Salomom Wantchoucou is under the threat of deportation from the Möulau Isolation camp in Sachsen-Anhalt. He is now threatened to participate in the next Nigerian mobile deportation hearing on the 11.11.08. in Halberstadt.
For any form of solidarity and support please contact him through the address bellow:
Salomon Wantchoucou is a political and human rights activist from the Republic of Benin.
"I was born in the Republic of Benin by a south african mother and living in Benin and South Africa. I equally made my profesional education in this two lands; for this reasons I speak the language of my country Fon, French and English.
In relations to my political engagement and activities in the Rep of Benin emphasising on the critism of the States Political system and corruption being practiced by the elites. All these practicis hinders the developement of our country.
My political criticism leads to the secret planification of assasination attempts on my life by the my political counterparts in Rep of Benin in 2001 during the presidential electorale campaign.
Fortunately the guns bullet that was shot at me did not get to my chest or heart but to my left hand. After a first treatement in Cotonou, I had automatically or obligatory left the country to secure my life here in Germany in 2001 August.
Even arriving in Germany, the hand which was hit by the bullet was disturbing so that I had to go to hospital for a medical checkups. I was admitted in hospital of Zerbs in the former "landkreis Rosslau" which is now "landkreis Rosslau-Dessau" and was operated to remove the bullet from my body. The doctors deliverd a "Doctors Report" including photographs taken during the time of operation. This Doctors report was given to a Lawyer called Kohler in Magderburg who himself blocked and refused to give it back to me.
Apart from all these facts my demandes for asylum was rejected despite the threat to my and danger in benin at the same time I demanded a consecutive asyl which was in process befor my abscence. I deposited a new application and reported a for consecutive asyl on 05.09.2008 to which i recieved no decision and no information.
Instead to accor me the necessary protection, the foreigners office was accusing me that I dont know Benin because I did not present any document. The condition in which i left the country was quite urgent so that I could not afford to present any documents. For that reason I was inquired to bring my birth certificate if necessary from Rep of benin.
Despite all his truth the foreign office of Gäfenhainichen landkreis in Wittemberg are sending me to the Nigerian embassy while I am not a Nigerian by origin or by nationality, my parents are not from nigeria i have no relatives in nigeria. Their accusation is equally based on the punishment to give me "Gutschein" vouchers as surfer me for my innocent and truth. Although "Gutschein" is not my problem but to admit that I am innocent by the foreign office. By doign this, the foreign office are putting my life in danger of death and assasination.
Salomon
A Member of the Caravan for the rights of refugees and Migrants and the voice refugie forum
Salomon Wantchoucou
Rahguhner str 99
06779 Möhlau
Tel: 017435299066
e-mail salo.1973(at)yahoo.de
Sachsen-Anhalt trying to deport Beninian to Nigeria
In solidarity with NO PASARÁN Block against the Nazi March in Dresden, 14.02.2009: The VOICE - Refugee News Network (RNN)
In Solidarität mit dem NO PASARÁN-Block gegen den Nazi-Aufmarsch in Dresden, 14.2. 2009: The VOICE - Refugee News Network (RNN)