Call to Vigil for the Day of Political Prisoners
17th of March, 13:00
Hermannplatz, Berlin
As the people of the world observed in real time the biggest prison break in history, we are once again reminded that the yearning of peoples for freedom is boundless and there is no wall high enough to prevent it. After the heroic attempt of the honourable people of Gaza to free themselves from the chains of the Zionist war machine, the occupation forces started their genocidal campaign with the support of all the imperialist powers. The so-called Western democracies have more and more shed their liberal facade to reveal their real character and their support for the genocide of the Palestinian people. Within the borders of the imperialist countries, a process of fascisation has taken place where the repression has reached an unprecedented level through the intensification of police brutality and the criminalisation of even the most basic democratic rights such as expressing an opinion on social media. All this goes hand in hand with the intensification of anti-Arab sentiments and Islamophobia spread among the population through propaganda based on lies.
Far from being exceptional or unexpected, these fascist features are the normal way for bourgeois “democracies” to preserve the capitalist order of a globalised world when social contradictions become too pronounced for traditional liberal means to work. A prominent feature of the bourgeois order is anti-terror laws and imprisonment, which are used not to punish crimes but to delegitimise struggles for liberation. The imperialists use prisons and isolation to crush the spirit of the inmates and make them a notorious example to the outside world: “See what happens when you fight against exploitation and oppression”. Prisons are built by the ruling class to intimidate and liquidate revolutionary will and to convince us that class justice always wins. Prisoners show us that the opposite is true, that the system has failed to achieve justice and equality.
Answering the call of the Palestinian people means recognising the need to fight against repression at home, and this means fighting against prisons and isolation. A movement that does not take care of its prisoners cannot make any significant achievements for the peoples of the world and towards liberation. Caring can mean writing letters and organising visits. But just as important as the previous points, it is necessary to continue the political work on the streets to expose the injustice of imprisonment. Today, Andreas Krebs, a prisoner in Berlin, is on hunger strike for his basic rights as a prisoner. Lena Ileni Acikgoz, (who is living in a protest tent in front of the Federal Ministry of Justice in Berlin) has been on hunger strike for 235 days to draw attention to the conditions of revolutionary prisoners from Turkey who are now being held hostage in German prisons.
A communist or an anarchist may end up in the same prison regime with different accusations and different outlook on ideology and action, but they face the same destructive nature of the crushing cogs of imprisonment. A united front against isolation, arbitrary treatment of prisoners and torture is not only plausible, but a necessity and a duty of all people who yearn for freedom. We propose to meet in the streets on 17 March to come closer to this perspective and to be the voice that is needed for the political prisoners today.
Until the destruction of the system that breeds prisons
Until the end of imperialism’s policy of isolation and annihilation.
Let’s make the day of the political prisoners a day of struggle!