Following up a year of countless strikes, protests and occupations, refugees in Berlin started another hunger strike on 9 October. Since 14 October they also stopped drinking. They collapse repeatedly, but stated they will carry on with their strike until their demand is met: that their application for asylum is accepted.

This most recent hunger strike stands at the end of a whole year of refugee-organised actions that demand the end of the murderous European immigration policy which is responsible for thousands of deaths at its borders, as well as the demand to end the repressive and inhumane actions of the German state against the refugees. They demand the right to work, to be able to choose where they live and what they eat. Asylum seekers in Germany are forced to stay in mostly overcrowded remote homes with insufficient medical care, no possibility to get education or to seek legal assistance. They are not allowed to work and have to accept the low quality food provided by the state.

While German politicians love to present themselves as humanitarian heroes – claiming that Germany already takes up a lot of refugees – in reality only a tiny fraction of applications for asylum is accepted. At the same time politicians push for a more repressive European border regime that fends off the people fleeing places that have been devastated on many levels by the actions of profit-seeking European countries in the first place. The most recent deaths of refugees trying to get to the island of Lampedusa mark a new record in the bloody history of the European borders.

But the pressure is rising: refugees in Germany organise one action after the other, and in the last week large demos in solidarity with their struggle and in reaction to the deaths at Lampedusa were held in many cities. In Hamburg and Berlin up to a thousand people took to the streets, holding powerful, confrontational demonstrations that the police was often not able to control.

Let us increase the pressure now! Solidarity actions everywhere!



Live ticker hunger strike:  http://refugeestruggle.org/en


For more information, see

 http://refugeestruggle.org/en/about-us
 http://www.lampedusa-in-hamburg.org/
 http://asylstrikeberlin.wordpress.com/