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Repression against the Noborder Camp in Cologne, Germany

ab | 09.08.2003 16:48 | Anti-racism | Free Spaces | Globalisation | Repression | World

fluffy puppet in front of noborder camp Cologne The Noborder Camps have reached Germany. From 31st of July till 10th of august, the city of Cologne was "Out of Controll."
Many of the camps successfull activities to highlight institutional racism, worldwide and local oppression and opposing organised neonazis would have gone unnoticed, but the police repression on Saturday caused an international outcry and drew attention to the camp [pics 1,2,pics on IMC Istanbul,feature on Global IMC, feature on Italy IMC,IMC Poland, IMC Sweden,IMC Athens,IMC Paris,IMC Lille,collection of videoclips, see also Statewatch Report].
A Forum with discussions and workshops was accompanying the noborder camp. [invitation,program]
The next noborder actions are announced for Sept.11-14th when anti-rascist activists will be gathering in Nuremberg and Fürth.

For more information about the police repression and the activities at and of the camp, please read the entire feature.


Latest: The legal team has issued an appeal to the affected campers.

Sunday,10.8.2003: the detained campers are getting released, 50 managed to escape, the camp gets dismantled, solidarity demonstrations continue in Berlin, Munich, Freiburg,Kiel and Bochum

Update 11 pm:
First reports about solidarity demonstrations and actions in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bielefeld, Cologne City Centre, Leipzig (with pics), Dresden,Göttingen, and a police station is blockaded in Wendland. In Bremen, the stage of the classical orchestra, Bermer Philharmonie, was stormed during a concert and read out their solidarity declaration.
More solidarity actions are announced for Sunday.
Timeline of events.

Breaking news Saturday 10.30 pm:
Around 360 people are brought to the police station because of refusing identity checks and pictures being taken.

Sat,9.8.2003, 11 am - 6 pm:
500 people at the Noborder Camp in Colgne are surrounded and cut off by police today. About 30 people were injured when batons were drawn and teargas fired against protesters, who wanted to stop the police entering the camp. [video]
17 campers were singled out and taken into custody.
The water was stopped for approximatley 30 minutes whileas temperature were rising to about 40 degrees, and the teargas causing severer burns in warm weather.
The telephone and internet connection was also cut twice.
Activists are calling for solidarity actions and demonstrations to protest against the police repression.



The police surrounded the noborder camp in Cologne today, to repress an antirascist demonstration against a neonazi march.
Imc Germany reports 2500 police surrounding the camp and calling for the protester to go to the exit and disolve the camp after searching and taking pictures and identities of everybody.
It is said, that the city administration has also withdrawn its permission for usage of the camp site.
Calls on Nadir.org are asking for supporters of the noborder camp to come to Cologne to protest Saturday night at about 11pm.

At about 6 pm BST, water cannons, heavy vehicles and riot police are being deployed by police in front of the camp.
Supporters of the camp have also gathered outside the camp.
Regular updates from the camp are held up by the camp's website.
More information: [1, 2]

The update on the global Indymedia at about 10.30pm states:

"Around 300 people in the camp are being brought tonight to the prisoners collection place in Cologne - Bruehl. These are the people who refused being id-checked and filmed/photographed.

Around 300 people in the camp are being brought tonight to the prisoners collection place in Cologen - Bruehl. These are the people who refused the identidy checks and their pictures taken. Up to 2.500 policemen were isolating the camp site for the whole day. Several watercanons and heavy demolition trucks are still present. The police built a fence around the resisting campers directly on the camp site.

The situation is critical for refugees on the camp, particularly if they are afraid of getting into conflict with german authorities because of their legal status.

The persons who agreed to get identified and filmed could pass a checkpoint to leave the camp. Police states, they might return around midnight.

This is the most severe repressive attack and criminalisation campaign of a noborder-camp in its long history. The police prejudiced 70% of the campistas as being criminals and dennounced the no-one-is -illegal network as a network of criminals.

In contrast to this repression, 60-70 Neonazis were facilitated to hold their demonstration against the camp, while the whole camp was "detained". "


Friday, 8th:
Demonstration and rally against the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) office in Bonn;

Thursday, 7th::
pictures of the demonstration in the inner city of cologne +++ live gig at the detention jail

Wednesday, 6th:
Day of action against deportations persued from the airports Düsseldorf and Bonn;

Tuesday, 5th:
Picture reports of the demonstration and rally against the Auslandszentralregister, loosely translated as "foreigners central registration office", in Cologne; demo got cordoned of by police and some arrests.

Monday,4th:
Pics of Sunny Monday: Ikea und Accor got visited and the role of these multinationals with the deportation business got exposed +++ gigs +++

Sunday, 3rd of august:
4 Videoclips +++ gathering and socialising at the Camp +++ continuation of forum with discussions and workshops

Saturday, 2nd of august:
Neonazi rally against noborder camp provokes first conflicts with arrests;start of the forum,700 people are at the camp; first collective walk through the local area to get in contact with neighbours.

Friday, 1st of August:
A demonstration against an organised neonazi and publisher.



ab

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Display the following 3 comments

  1. personal view — elfboi
  2. statewatch report — statewatcher
  3. beg to correct, elven master — lort diskort