Statement of Arash D., refugee activist who refused to pay fine regarding of his political activity and is in prison!

January 15, 2015

In Solidarity with our comrade and friend Arash D. Because he refused to pay fine regarding of the Rindermarkt-process, he is in prison, since 12.1.15. He was one of the refugee activists who marched from Würzburg to Berlin on 2012.

Moreover 3 inhabitants of Ohlauer school are still imprisoned in Berlin.

Here is his statement:

Are the fights for equal rights criminal?

Escape is a wound, which produces the global economy system. The reasons for flight or migration are: dictatorships, poverty, oppression and war.

Those causes, forcing people to flee, have their roots in the mutual relations between countries of origin and destination. This reciprocal relationship gets hided. Oppression, dictatorship, poverty or war, no “natural” or always existing states, but formed out mainly only in this globalized economic system and the resulting distribution struggles over resources and power. The resulting imbalance is the main reason for displacement and migration.

The existence of this system is made possible by a network of neo-colonial exploitation, oppression and opression. That circuit is formed by both the “democratic” and / or “liberal” states, as maintained by the dictatorial states. In countries such as, inter alia, Iran and Pakistan, the system is protected with a visible state violence. In countries such as Germany and France, the same system is protected with 100 billion Euros for arms exports.

Refugee and migrants are whistleblowers, the global reality that reveals the securing of prosperity in the countries of the global South through exploitation and colonization of big parts of the rest of the world.

This means that both are only the two sides of the same medal for the refugees – the countries of origin, as well as the target countries in this inhuman system. Those thus represent the waste product of exploitation based on economic activity, which focus on a systematic profit maximization.

Precisely for these reasons, this order ensures that the humanistic right to exist was taken from those people who are forced to flee or to migrate, than. For the same reasons, these people will be received in huge “refugee camps” on the infinitely long way of the bureaucracy. They are isolated from the majority population, so that they are not confronted with the inhuman consequences of neoliberal democracy.

The conditions in which refugees live are excluding and injustice which simultaneously seem racist, anti-social, and sexist. This, because states with economic and nationalist interest are capable to write laws against refugees and migrants which violate human rights. The same human rights that they have written and signed: The prohibition of freedom of movement, the banning of the right to free choice of residence and the banning of social participation, for example, participation in elections, etc … which “have become law” in the form of residential obligation/ “Residenzpflicht”, camps/ “Lager”, and deportation. This is the open contradiction to human rights. This means that a refugee and / or migrant who is not from here, not has the same human rights as a citizen of this country.

Political and social awareness about this unjust and excluding society became reasons for the beginning of a struggle and resistance against this situation: for changing these laws until we can have the same chance to live as other people do.

In an era of this struggle, more than 100 refugees went on hunger strike at Rindermarkt in Munich. These protests were attacked and forcibly terminated by “humanistic” reasons, on June the 30th 2013, 10 days after the start of the hunger strike. The Bavarian government has given the order to evict for this chicane. It was realized that in the morning more than 600 fully armed police forces attacked the camp by 5 clock. Even no halt was made for children and pregnant women. All of this was justified by human rights; Human rights made by colonialists, transformed into reality by colonialists, defined by colonialists and in doubt used in the interest of colonialists.

Our human rights do not exist. Neither in our countries of origin, nor in the target countries!

To protest in this attack on our human rights, some of the refugees resist. After several court sessions I have been criminalized by the court and police because of my resistance, so I have to pay 300 Euros, or go to jail 30 days.

The court has considered our resistance as a break of the law, that´s why they criminalized us. My question is: is resistance criminal?

Stalingrad had to offer no resistance against the Nazis? Also by this the Germans had agreed to destroy Stalingrad with law.

Precisely for this reason: because resistance is not a crime! As long as no injustice exists, there is no resistance.

So I do not see myself as a delinquent and I have no respect for the court’s decision. I can apply no respect for any of these caricatures, which want to explain to me as a delinquent.

As a result, I reject the payment of penalties, as it would be an acceptation of this judgment. The payment of the penalties is negotiating the sale of our seriousness and our demands. Since the deadline set me on January the 8th of 2015 expires, I’m ready to be arrested at any time.

This prison is nothing more than a continuation of my resistance.

Rebell! Refuse! Resist!