Against racism and police violence, always and everywhere!

Entry

March 15.03.2022, XNUMX, International Day Against Police Brutality

N'deye Mareame Sarr, Kamal Ibrahim, Oury Jalloh, Christy Schwundeck, Georgious Zantiotis and Elyas H. died as a result of police violence or while in police custody. Today, on the occasion of the International Day against Police Violence, we commemorate them and each one of the more than 200 people who died as a result of police violence in Germany since 1990.

The reasons for these deaths, but also the formulations that frame these deaths, are varied - including physical violence by police officers, failure to provide assistance, death while fleeing police, a cell fire, shooting, "suicide" in custody and (deportation -) Detention or unclear.

It is not unclear, however, that police violence primarily and disproportionately affects Black people, Sinti*zze and Rom*nja, People of Colour, indigenous and generally racialized people. It is not unclear that this can also be traced back to racist, right-wing and fascist structures within the police force. Racial profiling, most recently on trains from Poland that bring refugees from Ukraine to Germany, right-wing chat groups within the security authorities and dealing with the NSU complex or the racist attack in Hanau are clear consequences of a policy that downplays racist structures within the police force and doesn't take it seriously. They are the clear consequence of a judiciary that all too easily drops the few reports and proceedings against police officers for police violence and thus prevents a structural investigation within political, judicial and social institutions. But it is racism that kills, not "isolated cases"!

Police violence in particular is a societal problem, that of a society that looks the other way and turns a blind eye to the fact that it has a racist, ableist, anti-queer and classist problem itself. This foundation provides the basic framework for racism within the police, for racist controls and for police violence, which mainly affects racialized and migrantized people, at worst costing them their lives.

But together we can break up this framework and remove the breeding ground for racist police practice. Together we can show our attitude, in line with the international weeks against racism from March 14.03.2022th, 27.03.2022 to March XNUMXth, XNUMX.

Against racism and police violence, always and everywhere!