Starting off from yesteday morning at 8.00, activists held an action at the migration bureau ("Ausländerbehörde") in Rostock.
This government’s bureau is the place were refugees and migrants are everyday mistreated and persecuted. Here decision over people’s juridical status are made. Migrants are authorised or denied residence papers.
Police initially tried to stop demonstrators from arriving to the office. Anyway 2,000 people managed to.
At about 11.00 a sit-in in front of Sonnenblumen House, a neighbourhood near Rostock. The sit-in wished to remember 1992 nazi’s raid against the refugee’s centre and Vietnamese workers’ hostel. Anti-riot police charged into the demonstration. Three or four people got arrested.
In the meanwhile there was an initiative in front of Lidl supermarket, which a symbol of migrants’ labour exploitation. SOC’s (agricolture union from Almeria in Spain) migrants took part at the action.
In the afternoon, there were more than 20,000 people at the demonstration that refugees and migrants opened. The demo left form Fluchtlings Lager – a refugee’’ detention centre. This was the final point of the No Lager campaign. This centre represents one of the many forms of detention for migrants. This was not picked by chance. It is a symbol of the ongoing apartheid against foreigners in Germany.
Police tried to stop the demo from starting. After 40 minutes the demo finally managed to start under the slogan “No justice no peace, fight the police”. In spite of being authorised the demo kept stoppino and going until police blocked it and proposed to change routes. Demonstrators did not accept, though. “No diktats, we want to demonstrate within the city centre”, the sound system shouted.
Police tried to split the demo in two with the excuse of violent presences. The demo immediately stated its unity in the name of migrants’ rights and freedom of movement. “We are not animals, we are women and men. We have a heart and today we want to express our ideas and we want to refer of denied rights. The only violence we know of is the one at borders against our rights”.
In a town worldwide known to be racist, migrants’ movement managed to express its strength and dignità against powers’ arrogance.
Initiatives against borders’ control and selective exclusion in Schengen’s Europe.
Audio - Ita
Interview with a migrant from Togo. He refers of the situation of migrants in Germany. [ audio ]
Interview with Sami, No Lager Caravan. [ audio ] [Eng/Ita]
H.16.00. [ audio ]
The demo is stopped. [ audio ]
H.11.00 with Neva, Progetto Melting Pot Europa. [ audio ]
The sit-in at migration bureau. [ audio ]
Near the initiatives, police charged into some groups of demonstrators. There are noe 315 people stopped and 10 arrest orders. The most of these people will bejudged next wednesday.
Links:
www.g8-migration.net.tf
Dissent! Migration
www.agp.org/g82007
www.all4all.org/g8
www.thecaravan.org