On the occasion of the anniversary of the Mölln arson attack, writer, activist and active glocal member Doğan Akhanlı delivered the Mölln speech this year. On the initiative of the Arslan family, the victims of the attack are commemorated every year around November 23. For several years, the speech has been held in exile, this year in Cologne. The moving speech in which Akhanlı draws a bow from Mölln to the politics of remembrance and the reappraisal of the NSU murders can be read here.
The court case on the NSU murder series will be concluded in 2017. Instead of taking seriously the urgent concerns of the relatives and the Nebenklage to come to terms with the political significance of the NSU for the entire German judiciary, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and other investigative agencies, the trial only dealt with the involvement of a small neo-Nazi circle in the crime. Continue reading
The tribunal “NSU-Komplex auflösen” will take place from 17 – 21.05.2017 in Cologne. It works for a democratic and cosmopolitan society that casts the right to rights in its foundation. It works against state-supported social ignorance that enables racist action. Because the series of murders and attacks committed by the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU) between 1999 and 2011 has still not been solved. Neither the court proceedings in Munich nor the numerous parliamentary investigative committees have fully revealed the NSU network and the involvement of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and other state actors in it. The focus of the tribunal is therefore on the joint accusation of both racist structures and individual perpetrators. Donations are needed for the preparatory work.
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.””
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.