Documentation of our speech at the first shut down Turnhalle vigil
Dear friends and comrades, on behalf of Together We Are Bremen (TWAB), I say good afternoon to you all. For a start, I want to say thank you all very much for coming out here today to protest against the inhumanity that is going on right here in this place.
I want to thank you for your wisdom in finding out this hidden tragedy because, it is clear from all indications that the authorities never wanted any one of us to know what they are doing here let alone protest it. But any evil under the sun shall be exposed and here we are, to expose the terrible policies and practices of this government before the people of Bremen and beyond.
It is incomprehensible and utterly outrageous that in this day and age, in 2023, the authorities in Bremen could imagine to treat minors/teenagers with such cruelty, inhumanity and viciousness. Yet, they are actually practising this barbarism with all the hallmarks of its racist foundations.
Minors and teenagers are being kept in hidden, isolation camps away from the view of the general public. They are being denied their basic and children’s rights. These young people are entitled to the rights and benefits enshrined in the convention on the rights of a child.
The last time I checked Germany remains a signatory to that convention. Instead, these young people are being subjected to mental and psychological torture while their youth lives are being deliberately and systematically destroyed on the platter of local politics in Bremen before our very own eyes. Bremen must honour its commitment to that convention and we totally reject any subtle or obvious violation of it as evidenced by this practise.
We are here today to say no to this policy and practise. That this is not acceptable here in Bremen or anywhere else for that matter and it will not become the standard in Bremen. This policy and practise do not correlate to a city that prides itself as a “Safe Habour”. If Bremen must continue to claim to be a “Safe Habour”, Bremen is obliged by all means necessary, to live by the creed and spirit of that declaration.
This means Bremen must be truly safe for all, including minors, refugees, Blacks, People of colour, gays and lesbians, Trans people and all other marginalised groups and not only safe for politicians and the police. Bremen cannot preach “integration” and yet practice full scale isolation by confining minors to these horrible camps. We are not in the 1930s, this is 2023, this hypocrisy must stop. The Turnhalle must be closed.
As a group, TWAB is here today to remind everyone that we have passed this road before and we have fond memories of that journey. A few years ago, the camp-loving Social Senator Anja Stahmann, who wears the “antiracist” badge like an indispensable certificate because she was previously active in antira group stated that the erstwhile Gottlieb Daimler Strasse camp in Gropelingen must remain open.
This was a metal camp all round and well hidden from the general public view just like this Turnhalle here. The conditions in the camp then were horrible just as they are here now in this Turnhalle. Many TWAB members lived there at the time and were fed up with life in that camp. We decided it must stop.
We demanded that the camp must be closed but Stahmann insisted it must be open. We asked her to move in there if she likes it so much. She cowardly declined. We mobilised the public behind our course and her resistance collapsed. The camp was closed six months after the campaign started. Like Gottlieb Daimler Strasse, this Turnhalle will be closed.
Back then, Stahmann had Inneres Mission running the Gottlieb Daimler Strasse camp as her accomplice in implementing her horrible policy and now she has Die Johanniter running this Turnhalle, hidden behind the airport. It was and still a shame on Inneres Mission and it is right now a shame on Die Johanniter, for your complicity in this horrible practice.
We know that Senator Stahmann loves camps like no other because we also remember how she treated refugees in Lindenstrasse during the height of the corona pandemic. There, she placed refugees in overcrowded rooms without windows that could be opened during the corona pandemic. While the public were being asked to maintain social distancing, refugees were forced into situations where 40-50 people ate in the same dining room at the same time and had to take drinking water from the sink in the toilet.
So, we know her history with camps and how much she loves the cruelty that comes with them. Therefore, we once again cordially invite her to move into the Turnhalle if she won’t close it. You can best imagine what her response will be.
We once asked her if she and her children could imagine to live in a room with windows that could not be opened and till today, she didn’t have the gut to answer. Here is a Senator who is a “proud antiracist” and yet allows minors to be put in handcuffs and legcuffs simply to be sent out of Bremen. Would she permit this for her children? Your guess is as good as mine.
Obviously, it is not good enough for her and her children but good enough for the “Others”. This is the classic mindset of the self-deceiving liberal “antiracist”, who in reality, is a racist and white supremacist apologist.