Declaration upon the suspension of the boycott of food packages on 13th of April and next steps of struggle
Dear comrades, friends and supporters, dear all who feel connected to the struggle for the rights of refugees and migrants,
for more than two months, refugees living in lagers in Bayern have been on strike for their rights, for their freedom, for their human dignity. This strike has included more than 200 people from 10 lagers in different regions of Bayern: Hauzenberg, Breitenberg, Bogen, Aholfing/Obermotzing, Regensburg, Passau, 3 Lagers in Augsburg, Schwabmünchen. With this declaration the people who refuguees who participated in the strike and the local support groups the Munich Caravan group and the Bavarian Refugee Council announce that on Tuesday, 13th of April 2010, the boycott of food packages will be suspended. This does not mean that the struggle that was started by the people from the lagers is going to end but the struggle will continue together with local networks that have established during this fight. In this sense, demonstrations are going to take place on April 24th in Augsburg and on May 4th in Munich.
The reasons for the refugee strike in lagers in Bayern
The basic aim of the refugee strike is the improvement of living conditions of refugees in Bayern. In this sense, the participants of the strike are demanding:
- Money instead of food packages
- The right to live in normal houses and apartments, not in lagers
- The right to work without any restrictions of working permission
- Freedom of Movement instead of Landkreis movement restriction
- Respect by the German authorities towards the refugees
Enforced by German laws and regulations refugees suffer from permanent discrimination, frustration and social exclusion. One examples are the housing conditions. A Sierra Leonian man, participant of the refugee strike, describes his experience with living at Calmbergerstraße refugee camp in Augsburg: „When someone ran away from trouble and unfortunately found himself in Calmberg Straße lager it is just like running from the frying pan to the fire to avoid being fried. How long will over 50 refugees have to continue using one toilet? Could you imagine how that should work out? It is just like a school toilet without control. How long will it take the same number of people to use a single kitchen? It is just like a whole village using the same kitchen. How long will it take 3 or 4 adults to live in a single room for a period of 5 to 10 years?“ Forcing people to live in lagers also exposes them, especially women, to various forms of violence and abuse. A woman from the lager in Obermotzing near Straubing explains: „People here in Obermotzing are totally isolated, there's only a bus to Straubing three times a day, but only during schooldays. Those who don't have a bicycle often depend on hitchhiking if they want to get away from here. For this reason, it often happens that women from the lager are sexually harassed by people giving a lift.“
Another problem is the food package system that has been symbolically chosen in frame of this protest: „The quality of food is bad, often the food is nearly expired when we get the packages.
It's always the same stuff (...)“ explains Mr. Kabamba Ban Ibanda, one of the people from Hauzenberg who were among the first who made their miserable situation public by going on strike.
„Why can't we decide on our own what we want to buy from our own money and what is good for our health?“ asks an Algerian man from Calmbergerstraße/Augsburg. „We need better money to buy food for ourselves. Most of the food they give us, we don’t want. We just collect it, because we don't have any other option“, an inhabitant of Neusässerstraße refugee camp in Augsburg explains one of his
reasons for joining the strike.
Another aspect is the denial of any possibility to work: For every new job, refugees have to apply for working permission, then they have to wait for 6 weeks. In the meantime, it has to be clarified if a German or other European citizen may take this job. This forces refugees to spend years waiting while their future perspectives are systematically being destroyed: „How long will it take us to be faked with conditional working permit? I came as a young man to Deutschland when I was 30 years and now I am 40. When will this young, healthy and energetic man be given an unconditional working permit? I think, possibly when he is over 50 years,“ says the Sierra Leonial guy from Calmbergerstraße/Augsburg. Another severe problem is the law of Landkreis movement restriction.
Because of this law, people are denied the right to visit friends and families or to search for work in other parts of Bayern or Germany. „We are only allowed to go to Munich if we get permission. All the time, we are being controlled. If someone comes back one day too late, the person risks getting a fine. I'm a human being and I want to move freely here in Bayern. What they are doing to us is psychological torture,“ Mr. Kabamba Ban Ibanda from Hauzenberg complains. „We don't want Landkreis.
According to Article 10 of European Human Rights Convention, every human being has the right to Freedom of Movement. Is Germany not a member of European Union? Why are they restricting our movement?“, asks the inhabitant of Neusässerstraße/Augsburg.
What has happened so far? Brief history of the refugee strike
Before the strike: Protest movements and debate on refugee situation in parliament For several years, refugees and human rights groups have been protesting against racist discrimination and bad living conditions. This included various campaigns against lagers, against deportation, against food package system, for the Freedom of Movement and for the right to stay in Germany. During autumn 2008, scandalous reports and pictures documenting the unbearable situation in several Munich refugee camps reached the press. Criticism also came from official institutions, like the UNHCR and the European Union's Commissioner for Human Rights. Shortly before, the CSU, still the strongest party in Bayern, had lost its absolute majority in the elections for Bayern parliament, so that they had to form a coalition with the liberal party FDP. As a result of both the long-lasting struggle for refugee rights, the press coverage of the lager conditions and the slight change of the political situation in Bayern, the parliament of Bayern was forced to start a debate about improving the living conditions of refugees. This debate has not yet come to an end.
The hunger strike: Refugees in Hauzenberg and Breitenberg are taking the lead For most refugees, Hauzenberg and Breitenberg/Landkreis Passau are unpleasant places to be: Situated in the most remote part of Bayern, it is very difficult to get away from there. There, 20 refugees took a great step forward by going on hunger strike on 26th of January 2010, bringing three basic demands to the political and public agenda: Money instead of food packages, the right to work and Freedom of Movement. The hunger strike had not even been expected at all by the refugee supporter groups. Within few days, the hunger strike reached broad public attention. Journalists of different newspapers, TV stations and radio stations visited Hauzenberg and Breitenberg, made interviews with the hunger strikers and spread their message and their demands all over Bayern and even further.
Asylum supporter activists from Passau, quickly built up a network to support the hunger strikers kept the public informed about the recent developments and the situation in the lagers. In the following weeks declarations of solidarity with the demands of the refugees came in from trade unions, political parties and a considerable number of individuals. However the Bavarian government, mainly driven by the minister of inner affairs Heermann, tried in an embarrassing way to ignore the problems and to neglect the legitimate claims of the refugees in a populistic manner.
Next step: Growing boycott of food packages
On 14th of February, the refugees from Hauzenberg and Breitenberg suspended the hunger strike. With this step, they did not end the struggle, but they gave way to a new strategy: The ongoing boycott of food packages. Reacting on the gained public attention this step provided space and time for a political discussion. „We know that people in other lagers are closely following our hunger strike and also our new strategy of ongoing boycott of food packages. Now we ask everybody to join it“ said Mr. Kabamba Ban Ibanda from Hauzenberg when they ended the hunger strike. Refugees in other Bavarian lagers reacted promptly. The first lager to join the boycott of food packages on 23rd of February was Bogen near Straubing/Niederbayern. All 27 people who were at the lager at that time joined the boycott, not a single food package was taken. „Many of us have been sitting here for years, without any perspective, without any future, not knowing what is going to happen to them. We want to work here, we want to earn our own money and to build up something for ourselves, but we don't receive any working permission. Instead, we must sit and wait,“ explained one of the speakers of the refugee strike in Bogen, Women in the neighbouring lager in Aholfing/Obermotzing did not want to boycott the food because of their small children, but still they did their best to support the strike. People were also motivated due to unacceptable behaviour of the Straubing foreign office. This institution is well known for its repressive practices like giving people prolongation of their „Ausweis“ for only one month or giving travelling permissions only very few times a year, for only one single day.
After Bogen, more lagers were soon to follow: 16 people from a lager in Passau and 14 from a lager in Regensburg joined the food package boycott on 9th of March. This was an important step to carry the strike from the remote places into the bigger cities of Bayern. On 16th of February, finally, the refugee strike reached the city of Augsburg. 29 people in two big lagers at Calmbergerstraße and Neusässerstraße started boycotting the food. Also here: „We want to live as normal people in Germany, we don't want to be treated as criminals,“ said one of the strike speakers in Augsburg. One week later, the number of people boycotting the packages had grown to more than 120 in three lagers in Augsburg, also including one lager at Schülestraße with mostly families living there. In addition to them, 9 refugees, most of them women, from Schwabmünchen, a small town near Augsburg, also went on strike. In both Schwabmünchen and Augsburg, the local authorities tried to answer the strike with petty methods of repression. But they had no chance to force people to accept the food packages.
In the end, the boycott of food packages included more than 200 refugees all over Bayern.
What has been achieved with the refugee strike?
The strike in the lagers is a political struggle in which refugees, together with their supporters, have challenged a system that denies them the right to fulfil their basic needs under conditions of freedom and human dignity. „We are very proud of the boycott. We have made ourselves known to the general public and to the government. We are hoping to hear from them, that based od their kindness, they will respond to our demands,“ one refugee from Breitenberg outlines his conclusion of the strike actions that happened so far. „We have succeeded to mobilise a bigger number of political people, the press etc. with our demands, and we are expecting the parliamentary ecision during the month of May,“ says Mr. Kabamba Ban Ibanda from Hauzenberg. These words, in fact, express it quite clearly what is one of the most significant achievements of the refugee strike up till now: The creation of public awareness for the problems and a public discussion about improvement of their living conditions. It remains uncertain what kind of changes the political coalition of CSU and FDP will decide on. Up to now, the only result of the parliamentary discussion is that CSU and FDP have announced small changes of the system of movement restriction: People with „Aufenthaltsgestattung“, who are still in the first asylum trial, shall get the right to move within the administrative district (for example Niederbayern, Schwaben etc.), not only within the „Landkreis“; people with „Duldung“ are not concerned of this small change. Mr. Kabamba explains why such little improvement is still insufficient: „Free movement only within Niederbayern is far from what we want to reach. We are still imprisoned inside restricted areas.“ Meanwhile, the parliamentary debate on lager system and food package system is still going on.
This strike has given us refugees back our self-confidence to fight for our case. Many refugees also from other parts of Germany have been watching and appreciating the struggle in the lagers in Bayern. In the region of Saarland, refugees in the Lebach refugee camp have even started their own boycott of food packages! One the basis of newly established networks between refugees and supporter groups we are approaching the next step of struggle with great strength. „We say thanks to all those who have been supporting us morally, physically, materially and also financially, not to forget all the asylum seekers who have participated in this movement, not to forget that the struggle will continue with different means of protest until we will see the desired change.“
In this sense, we are calling all people in Bavaria to fight with us for improvements of living conditions for refugees. Join our demonstrations on April 24 in Augsburg and May 4 in Munich to confront the politicians another time before they are going to take their decision in the parliament. Refugees, get organised, create local networks and let us fight together for our rights!
Munich, April 11, 2010
Signed by the refugees participating in the strike from the lagers in Hauzenberg, Breitenberg, Augsburg, Passau, Bogen, Aholfing/Obermotzing
Supported by the Caravan Group Munich, the Bavarian Refugee Council and the Passau Network to support the refugees on strike
Further information about the refugee strike in Bayern can be found at:
www.carava.net
http://www.fluechtlingsrat-bayern.de
Campaign