Tag Archives: Berlin

NSU slam on police: ‘State & Nazis hand in hand’ does not denigrate state

On the recently blogged criminialization of political anti-racist work, Migazin reports:

“What followed could not have come at a more embarrassing time for the Berlin State Criminal Police Office. On June 10, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office discontinued the criminal proceedings initiated by the police on the grounds of denigration of the state. The prosecution assesses the disputed statement [Staat und Nazis Hand in Hand] as a permissible expression of opinion in the context of the findings on the NSU complex and emphasizes “that the phrase ‘state and Nazis hand in hand’ does not express an equation of the state with Nazis, but only denounces a close cooperation of the state with Nazis.”

This may be provocative and exaggerated, the public prosecutor’s office admits, but adds: “But against the background of the public debate about the role of state organs in connection with the NSU attacks and the topicality of this debate due to the ongoing trial in Munich against those involved in the NSU, as well as the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack in Cologne, the statement is nevertheless to be accepted as a permissible expression of opinion.””

Criminalization of political antiracist work

Since yesterday noon, the freshly hung mural on the corner of Manteuffelstrasse and Oranienstrasse (Berlin-Kreuzberg) commemorating the NSU nail bomb attack in Cologne’s Keupstrasse has a hole and thus a gap in its content – the phrase “NSU: State and Nazis hand in hand” was torn out of the picture by the Berlin Fire Department on behalf of the Berlin police, without a court order. Allmende e.V. and the Alliance Against Racism have issued a press release on this scandalous criminalization of political anti-racist work.

Renaming of M-Strasse: Berliner Kurier publishes false results

Last week several hundred people gathered in Berlin-Mitte for the “8. Commemorative march for the African victims of colonialism, slave trade and racist violence: Mandela- statt Mohrenstraße” gathered. A detailed report can be read here. Two days earlier, there was a digital poll on the Berliner Kurier site about renaming M-Strasse, but the results were extremely distorted, as the following press release scandalizes:

Press release
 21.2.2014
The “Berliner Kurier” published in its print edition of yesterday, Thursday, 20.2.2014, the result of a survey on the renaming of Mohrenstraße in Mandelastraße. It is said that only 10% of the participants were in favor of the renaming. Until the evening before, the poll ran in the online edition of the article. Many people there participated in the survey. The moment a majority in favor of the renaming emerged (49% at about 22:00), the poll was shut down in a flash. A characteristic process like the BK with unpleasant opinion deals.

Berlin Mohrenstrasse to be renamed Nelson-Mandela-Strasse

Press release of the NGO Alliance “No Humboldt 21! Moratorium for the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace” and the Global Afrikan Congress, Berlin, 13.12.2013

The international campaign alliance “No Humboldt 21!”, supported by more than 80 non-governmental organizations, and the Global African Congress strongly reject the current proposal of the “Stiftung Zukunft Berlin” to name the square in front of the controversial Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace after Nelson Mandela. Instead, they emphatically renew the demand already made in 2004 by numerous African associations in Berlin to rename Mohrenstrasse, which dates back to the Brandenburg-Prussian trade in enslaved people in the late 17th century, Nelson-Mandela-Strasse.

“The attempt by the Stiftung Zukunft Berlin, which is involved in the Humboldt Forum, to rehabilitate the large-scale project, which has come under public criticism as neocolonial and Eurocentric, by creating a Nelson Mandela Square in front of it is as transparent as it is unacceptable,” says Christian Kopp of Berlin Postkolonial. “The name of the anti-apartheid fighter must not be misused as cosmetics for the controversial non-European collections of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which also contain thousands of appropriated cultural treasures and human remains from forcibly colonized territories.”

Yonas Endrias of the Global Afrikan Congress emphasizes: “Already ten years ago, all African associations in Berlin jointly demanded the renaming of Mohrenstraße to Nelson-Mandela-Straße. The current name of the street, where enslaved minors from Africa lived who had to serve at the Brandenburg-Prussian court, is based on a racist foreign designation and violates the dignity of Black people in Berlin.”

Contact: Yonas Endrias, Global Afrikan Congress, endriasy@aol.com, 01799404690; Christian Kopp, “No Humboldt 21!” campaign, buero@berlin-postkolonial.de, 01799100976

Info: www.no-humboldt21.de