February 19 and 20, 2021:
One year after Hanau – Remember together, fight together!
February 19 marks the first anniversary of the racist attack in Hanau, where Ferhat Unvar, Gökhan Gültekin, Hamza Kurtović, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Sedat Gürbüz, Kaloyan Velkov, Vili Viorel Păun and Fatih Saraçoğlu were murdered by a racist.
One year after Hanau – and still there are too few answers to too many questions. The circumstances and context in which the racist murders occurred have still not been fully elucidated. The actions of the police before, during and after the night of the crime clearly point to a failure on the part of the authorities. Why did the perpetrator receive multiple gun licenses even though he was already known to the police? And why did the emergency exits in the shisha bars have to be closed in advance due to police instructions? The treatment of relatives and victims of racist violence by the police, authorities and politicians is characterized by ignorance, disrespect and unwillingness. Moreover, there was neither adequate financial nor psychosocial support after the attack.
Hanau is everywhere!
A whole year after Hanau, we look back on numerous other right-wing „lone perpetrators“ and „individual cases“. The murder of the 15-year-old Yezidi Arkan Khalaf in Celle in April, the deaths of Ferhat Mayouf in Berlin and Mohamed Idrissi in Bremen through judiciary violence in June, the uncovering of numerous right-wing chat groups in the police and the „Verfassungsschutz“ (the Office for the Protection of the Constitution) in NRW, MeckPom, Saxony, Berlin in the fall. And not to forget the decades-long series of right-wing and racist attacks and assaults on migrants and migrantized people across Germany: the attack on the people in the synagogue in Halle, the murders of Oury Jalloh in Dessau and Burak Bektaş in Berlin, the permanent raids in shisha bars and mosques, the murders and attacks of the NSU, the pogroms in Rostock-Lichtenhagen – the list is endless.All these acts are results of a system. A system in which the state – i.e. the „Verfassungsschutz“, the police, the judiciary and politics – protect, support and are even a part of fascist networks. Racism and right-wing ideologies of destruction are neither the problem of a handful, nor are they exclusively marginal phenomena.
But we see the extent of racist and right-wing structures not only within Germany. We also see it in the fact that the EU leaves our siblings, who are forced to flee, stuck in camps on the way to a better hoped-for life, to hold out in ruins or to die in the Mediterranean. From Moria to Hanau there must be no forgiveness and no forgetting!!!
To remember means to change, to commemorate means to fight!
In the last 12 months many people have organized themselves and have remembered the victims of Hanau from month to month. Relatives, friends, survivors and people in solidarity have come together and founded the Initiative „19. Februar Hanau“. In addition to the continuous commemoration and remembrance, the Initiative „19. Februar“ and the educational initiative „Bildungsinitiative Ferhat Unvar“, as well as other solidarity groups, have been doing outreach, education and research work from below for a year.
Despite the losses, the wounds and the pain, Hanau has shown that we are many and that we do not forget. Hanau has united many of our brothers and sisters. Because wherever there is violence, oppression and exclusion, there has always been and still is solidarity and resistance!
However, commemoration means more than just remembering the past. 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. The threat from the right is omnipresent and we must fight it every day anew. It is more important than ever to be present together and physically, and to be there for each other! This year we can not be side by side with the relatives and victims in Hanau. But that cannot stop us from respectfully remembering our brothers and sisters.
Come to the memorial sites on Friday 19 February and let us remember together the lives of Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar, Gökhan Gültekin, Hamza Kurtović, Kaloyan Velkov, Mercedes Kierpacz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Sedat Gürbüz and Vili Viorel Păun, but also all other victims of racist violence.
Places of remembrance on 19.02. from 16h
Leopoldplatz, Wedding
Rathausplatz, Neukölln
Oranienplatz, Kreuzberg
Anti-fascist demonstration on 20.02. at 14h, S-Bahnhof Hermannstraße