On February 19, 2021, we gathered at Oranienplatz to remember the 9 people killed in Hanau a year earlier: Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar, Gökhan Gültekin, Hamza Kurtović, Kaloyan Velkov, Mercedes Kierpacz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Sedat Gürbüz and Vili Viorel Păun.
As the organizers wrote, “Commemoration is a collective act in which we never forget, in which we strengthen each other, make resistance struggles visible and from which we draw strength for future struggles.”
Below is the speech IWS gave during the demo.
Today we are here to remember the 9 people that were killed one year ago in Hanau. We also need to remember the victims of the NSU, Oury Jalloh, who was killed in the custody of police, and Rita Awour Ojunge, killed by the german asylum system, and many other unsolved cases because they show us that the german system was built on racism and it continues to exist through racism.
We must never forget that it is ONE RACIST SYSTEM!
It is the same system that covers up the states involvement in the NSU murders –
It is the same system that ordered to shut the emergency exit of the arena Bar – the place where the victims were killed- because they didn’t want people to be able to escape their regular police controls
It is the same system that after an unspoken media campaign of criminalizing and portraying non-white people, migrants and refugees -especially men- as aggressors and a threat to the white german state – exactly are the ones who were killed one year ago
Bundesregierung now wants to express their condolences when they repeatedly openly stigmatize and criminalize Shisha Bars to the point that they became a symbol to be attacked? That resulted in the death/killing of 9 people? NOW they want to show empathy?
After the NSU-Murders, after the Murder of Oury Jalloh, of Rita Awuor Ojunge, and the murders in Hanau, the racist police controls are ongoing, the racist attacks are ongoing, the racist deportations are ongoing.
All this is a symptom of a racist society. After every attack, after every killing, we are told that is an individual, a psychologically unstable guy, a victim of his circumstances. We tell you it is not one crazy guy, how come we ALL meet this same crazy guy over and over again:
in the police
in the Ausländerbehörde
on the U-bahn
on the Street
at the Amt
in the Schools.
at the Kiosk
at a flower shop.
at a shisha bar.
This crazy guy is everywhere! And we say again: there is no Einzeltäter, this is a racist society.
So if we are speaking of the racism in the Heims, about the racism on the street, racism in the deportations, we are speaking of a racist system, which has killed the 9 people in hanau one year ago.
and which is killing us every day!
So let’s get it clear: the
the state does not
never did and will never
protect us,
we have to organize ourselves!
Racism acts to depoliticize us, to divide us, to prevent us from organizing. But today we are here to repeat, that we will never stop to organize, to protest, to demand justice for those killed by racism.