The OPlatz.net website was created as the voice of the Refugee Movement based at the protest camp at Oranienplatz (“Oplatz”) in Berlin, which was set up in 2012 to protest against the disfranchisement of refugees by the German state. Since the eviction of the camp in 2014, the website as well as the structure of refugee protests have changed and developed. Various groups with different focuses have emerged, including the Oplatz Media Group, which is continuing to fill this website with news about protests of refugees in Berlin, throughout Germany and beyond. It also publishes the newspaper by and for refugees – “Daily Resistance”. You can find a list of protest groups and links to their websites here.
Our Demands
- Abolish Residenzpflicht (mandatory residence)!
Rooted in colonial policies, Residenzplicht obliges refugees to stay in a certain area and clearly violates our basic human rights. We reject any restrictions of our freedom of movement and demand the complete abolition of Residenzpflicht-law.
- Abolish all “Lagers” (refugee camps)!
Refugees in Germany are forced to stay in “Lagers” (camps) mostly completely isolated from society, under inhumane living conditions and constant surveillance by authorities and Lager-guards. We refuse to live in those prison-like Lagers, we break this isolation and demand the right to choose where and how we want to live!
- Stop all deportations (also Dublin III)!
Deportations are an inhumane practice and have to be stopped immediately. Everyone leaving her_his home country has good reasons to migrate – may it be war, political persecution or because of the economic situation – all of these reasons are political in its core. We refuse any categorization of migrants and demand the acknowledgement of the legitimacy of any kind of migration, no matter where people come from.
The Dublin III regulation is nothing else than a network of human trafficking between European countries and has to be abolished! Germany and the European Union have to accept that the right to move is not negotiable.
Because freedom of movement is everybody’s right!
- Right to work and study!
We dont want your social benefits. We need the right to work and study to provide for ourselves independantly.
10 years ago the Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg and later also the Gerhart-Hauptmann School in Ohlauer Straße were occupied. To mark this anniversary, we want to gather at Oranienplatz from 5.10.-9.10. and celebrate the history of the rebellious refugee movement. With a five-day open-air art “construction site”, we will show the history of the Refugee Resistance Movement and the many facets of the struggles on and around O-Platz.
People who were active in the movement then and now and were present on O-Platz are creating a programme with theatre, graphics, painting, literature, photography and film, in which we trace the stages of the resistance in a variety of artistic ways: From the long march to Berlin to the shameful eviction of the camp by the Berlin Senate and the district.
Ten years after the beginning of the occupation of O-Platz, however, we not only want to celebrate our history, but also make a proposal for a society that sees itself as diverse, postcolonial, grassroots democratic and post-migrant. See the full programme here.
